Tracking trails.

Snow changes landscapes and also let's us know a great deal more about what some of our wildlife is up to. All kinds of animals will leave their tracks in snow and this gives us an ideal opportunity to track them. It can be great fun to follow tracks in the snow with your children and see where the animal stopped to feed, defecate or even where it got caught and eaten. Perhaps if you are lucky enough, you can track it right up to its front door! The pattern of the tracks vary according to the animals gait so you can see wether it travelled at speed or not. This also gives you a good opportunity to study the different ways in which animals walk. A fox is almost a single line of pad marks as it puts its hind feet into its fore feet prints. A dog staggers its prints. A badger does the same but its prints are wide, larger and point inwards. Be aware that prints get distorted and become enlarged as the snow melts. A domestic cat print can end up looking like you are on the trail of the Beast of Bodmin!

Fox prints (on the right of the photograph), get quickly muddled with a selection of rabbit and pheasant tracks. I wonder if it got a meal that night . . .