A new app on my iPad offers unlimited and widely diverse patterns to be created when I need a mindless distraction. It’s what I desperately needed during my hospital fiasco!
It’s fun, something I can do with my increasingly useless hands while streaming a program on my computer. My hands do not like being idle. A few years back I had a crochet mania and must have used hundreds of miles of yarn. Soft chenille felt good to work with.
It too, was mindless, straight crochet, none of those beautiful, intricate things skilled people make. Scarves was about as good as it got, but those were knitted. I still remember how to knit two sides at once, so the scarves were plain but very thick.
The cats got lots of blankets but I permanently damaged my fingers that were already arthritic. I think I had told myself using my fingers would be a good thing to do.
Which goes to show…
No pattern I create with my iPad app could ever match the patterns of animal footprints in the snow.
Or in this case, full-body print.
A bird expert might well be able to identify the raptor that left his mark while catching his prey.
All I can say is that it was a sizeable bird.
It’s not unusual to see these prints when there is fresh snow. Grant noticed this one while he was out digging ice off the path.
In my capacity as detective (?) I noticed the absence of a track that should, I thought, have come to a sudden end as some creature was lifted out of it.
But perhaps that middle track was the victim and maybe it struggled, causing the bird to impact the ground to the right, in order to make good the kill?
It looks to me as if the bird dragged its prey and made another brief impact, just where all these tracks intersect, before carrying on into the air.
Grant did not agree and he knows a lot more of these things than me, but I don’t see what else could have made those ridges in the snow.
The ridges to the right of the centre track are just visible next to the ascending track.
Crime scene investigator? I don’t think so!
But I never tire of the track prints which show how much activity there is in the small area around the house.
These are squirrels, rabbits, mice and possums mostly, as well as birds. In previous years we were visited frequently by wild turkeys and by deer.
The latter two have not been seen for months and we don’t know what may have become of them.
The woods behind the house have thinned out and the family at the top of the hill are expanding their farm but it’s not as if there is a great deal of territory left for deer, or wild turkeys even here.
They are much missed and we hope they will return..
One of the few things I enjoy when we have snow is seeing the deer tracks over on Hoe Rough. Ollie sniffs them, and follows intently.
Best wishes, Pete.
Nature can be cruel but we have to let it take its course.
Sadly I think we are the cruelest of all species!
Most definitely!
Wow, so many prints in the snow! It was surely busy outside your house … I’m also no detective, but it would make a great story!
I like the Lamaze with varieties of colour and texture, style toys, so i decided to design my own elephant for my daughter!