Came across this track today and it is not anything I have seen before of this size - 12 to 14” gait, 4” spread, footprint 1x1.5” oval. Not typical mink but it is all I can think it is. Appears to me to be carrying something in its mouth(side marks) so that might be affecting its pattern. Marten are not known to be here but I never say never.




Tracks farther along minus side marks.

I'm the worst at IDing tracks, but I would say weasel.

If there are weasels out there with 11/2 " pad prints, aint any of us safe to leave the house...!

Well hung mink.

Those to two pics with scuff marks look very similar to weasel and not sure of mink. I don't see many mink tracks so it might resemble mink too.

Coon

I don’t think it would be coon. They tend to walk a lot more than bound like the animal that made those tracks did. It looks to me like a marten or mink.

That is funny! My guess would be Fisher although Marten are popping up in small numbers everywhere.

Wouldn’t a fisher leave a bigger track though? The should be a little more elongated if the tracks were a fisher.

Not a guess but an observation. It looks like all the "drag" marks start and end in a track I wouldn't thing a critter carrying something in it's mouth would land it's foot on it every time it bounded.

marten?

Well by now you should have followed all those tracks and got to the butt end making them.
And
the drum roll ?

Unfortunately unable to follow them for more than a few hundred yards. They are definitely mustelid too small to be fisher and not here, there and back again to be ermine(and would have to be a VERY big long tail). Most likely a mink as it was running our small stream the whole way I followed. They just look so much like all the marten I have seen trapping N MN. Am well south of documented marten haunts but I know animals don’t follow guide books. Definitely NOT raccoon, toes and pads would have been visible in a least some of the prints. It’s the side marks that intrigue me the most. If it was carrying something why did they stop. Tracking can be a puzzle written in tracks and sign, and a very educational endeavor especially for a trapper who wants to learn his quarries habits.

I was going to say buck mink.

I have never seen a mustelid track where the feet were exactly side by side. On foot is always slightly ahead of the other, and often are touching when in the snow. If those tracks were here, I'd say red squirrel. Also marten and mink lope along with 20" or better strides.

I agree.
I don't see anything for scale, but I think it's a bird hopping along the ground with an injured right wing.

I agree with waggler

Crow.

It looks a lot like a mink track to me. If the drag marks left the trail he may have just re-gripped whatever he was carrying so it wasn't dragging or he ate it or dropped it.

It’s obviously not a bird. Birds don’t hop around on the ground for that long. And if it was a bird you would be able to see its toe marks. It’s most likely a male mink.

ranch mink