tracks

 When you live in a spot bordering forests and fields, you get glimpses into the life or death drama going on there even though the majority of the goings on remain hidden. The curtain rises ever so slightly during the wintertime as the tracks of animals are etched in the snow. This is what I saw the other day when looking out the back window in the morning.

Something had been prowling around in the back. The tracks were everywhere. At first I thought it was a squirrel, but now I'm thinking it was a skunk even though there wasn't any skunky smell. I have no idea what it was digging for.

I got a trail camera for my birthday, and we went up to the back field to see if we could find a good spot for it. Tracks were everywhere. Here's some of what we saw.

 

coyote? bobcat?

rabbit I think

 

turkey

 deer yard, lots of prints

We saw a lot of areas like this where the forest floor had been worked over. It looked like both turkeys and deer had been searching for acorns.

markings of turkey feathers?

We got the trail cam. The model we got actually is supposed to send the photos to us so we can view them on my phone or on our computer. It was not easy getting it formatted. Fortunately one of us is computer literate, not me. We set it up in a marshy area where we had gotten photos of bobcats with our old trail cam. No photos yet. When we were heading up there yesterday, I saw an owl briefly as it headed into the woods. We've lived here about 40 years and it's the first owl I've ever seen. All in all, a good day.