Trekking for Tracks

Brrrrr...

There were otter out playing in the pond first thing this morning. Unfortunately, they were a little camera shy but they do seem to love this weather. More power to them! I like it too, up to a point. For instance, I don't mind walking in snow and ice -- but driving it? That's just plain crazy. Like a good little southerner, I fully intend to stay off the road until all the ice is gone.

With more nasty weather expected for this afternoon, I headed out early this morning to see if I could find any interesting tracks in the remaining snow. It was cold, with a freezing drizzle falling, but it was worth it. One of the things I love about snow is that it captures little snapshots of what goes on when we aren't looking. It is a lot of fun to find and follow a set of tracks left by some animal as it goes about the business of making its living. Today I was fortunate to find several sets of tracks. One set appeared to be that of a mink. I followed those tracks for quite some distance as the mink wandered along the icy shoreline, going in and out of the water.

In addition to the mink there were squirrel tracks along the pond's edge. A fox left tracks along a hiking trail -- he was probably after one of the many rabbits that left their tracks along this trail as well. I also followed the tracks of some sort of small rodent and a domestic cat.

When the freezing drizzle became freezing rain I got worried about my camera and headed home. This weather system is supposed to bring us a mixed bag of precipitation this weekend: sleet, freezing rain, snow, and just rain. Sounds lovely.