A Second Look--March 11, 2015

The weather warmed this week and the snow has started to melt. I finally made it out for a good look around the yard to see what I might find under and on top of the snow.  It had entirely melted in some places and in others it was about six inches deep and difficult to walk through. I found a few broken branches and lots of animal tracks--mostly deer.  The next day after doing a little research about the tracks, I decided that I would show some of them to you this week. If I had only known that was what I was going to do, I might have taken some more representative shots with something for scale. However, the rain came and I decided that what I had would have to do.

Here are a few things I saw this week during a Second Look. The first few pictures are of tracks and the last few are just a few other scenes I saw..

Among the deer trails, were drag marks which are characteristic of a buck. Because bucks walk with somewhat stiff legs they drag their hooves as they walk. We rarely see a buck among the deer that visit us, but apparently he was out during this recent snow. The picture on the right is from last October.

It's not very clear, but there are no drag marks between the hooves on the left. They very well could have been made by the group of does on the right. The deer were having an afternoon snooze as the rain was waning and the fog was rolling in.

When I first saw these prints, I thought they were from a rabbit. (I may have even called them that last year in a post.) However, it's more likely that they were made from a squirrel. A rabbit's hind feet are offset with one in front of another, while a squirrel's are not.

There were plenty of crows around during the snow storm, but I didn't seem to get any pictures. This picture on the right is from last January.

These are the best kind of prints to see during a snow if you want to make it to work the next day.