1. A method of tracking a target feature detected in a prior image frame to subsequent image frame, comprising the steps of: defining a local search window in the subsequent image frame based on a location of the detected target in the prior image frame; identifying target candidates from said local search window and accepting or rejecting the identified candidates based on appearance; and if none of the identified candidates are accepted: extracting a set of target-periphery patches from the prior image frame clustered about the location of the detected target; searching the local search window to locate a set of image patches that correspond to the extracted set of target-periphery patches; and if a corresponding set of image patches is located, determining a center location of the detected target in the subsequent image frame according to a center of the located set of image patches.