If you think tracking is about looking for/at tracks, you are only scratching the surface. There is an entire aspect of tracking, called sign tracking, that entails any sign of an animal's passage other than tracks. This can include lays (the impression of where an animal laid down), burrows, nests, food scraps, chews (bite marks), rubs, scratch marks, hair, scat (feces), scent (of urine or musk), kills, vegetation (or anything) that has been moved or damaged, skeletal remains, and more.
One of the first things a beginner tracker has to take to heart is that textbook-perfect tracks are a rare gift from the creator. These two mink tracks are about as perfect as you can typically hope for. This photo was taken along the banks of the Little Miami River. The hind foot of the mink is imprinted over top of the front foot as the animal moved from right to left. The hind track has a length of about 1.5" and a width of about 1.625".
For a beginner, measurements are more important than one might expect. Take this track for example. Can you tell what it is? Would it help to know that the track is about 6.75" long and about 4.25" wide? As I check my tracking references, I find that only beaver, black bear, moose, eagle, and heron have tracks that could be those simple measurements. This photo was taken only a few feet from the mink tracks shown in the previous photo (an Ohio riverbank).
Aside from the length and width of individual tracks, it can be helpful to measure the stride and trail width of sets of tracks (where you have the luxury of identifying multiple tracks from a individual animal). These measurements can help identify an animal, but there is also variance in these measurements based upon age/size of the animal, speed of movement, and terrain.
What happened here? What was used to cut this sapling down? (That is my thumbnail on the left, for some scale.) This photo was taken along the same river bank as the previous two photos. This was one of three beaver chews that I found in the immediate vicinity. Why might this particular tree have been cut down as opposed to others? Where did the cutting go?
What would have made this hole in this dead tree limb? Why was this hole made? Michelle saw a pileated woodpecker create this hole. How do the holes from other woodpeckers and sapsuckers differ? How do the holes differ from one kind of tree to another? Do the holes appear different if the wood is more rotten? If the wood is wet when the hole is created?
Repulsive as it may seem, much can be learned from scat. It is possible to identify an animal from its scat. The contents of scat sometimes provides clues as to where the animal has been and what it has been eating. This old dry scat was found in a grassy field about 30' from a pond amidst rolling hills near Delhi, Ohio (Cincinnati area). It contains lots of hair and small bones indicating a predator that ate a diet of mainly rodents. It measures about 7" in length and about 7/8" in diameter. What animals might this be from?
This deer kill was found in the brush along a golf course. What would have killed it? How long ago did it die? Did it die here or was it moved? Notice that the carcass has been consumed primarily from the hind quarters. Notice also the swelling and the hole in the lower part of the right-front leg. Bill Reichling believes this has the indications of a coyote kill.
The following articles provide a superb introduction to the fundamentals that every tracker needs to master. They were written by Rick Curtis of Princeton University's Outdoor Action Program. They are .PDF files and require the Adobe Acrobat Reader in order to open them. If these files do not open for you, click here to download a free copy of the Acrobat Reader.