Winter #phenology, tracks in the snow

The snow-covered fields may look barren, empty. We know there's activity and life beneath the surface, and, at night, across the surface. Although the snow seems to make the sand plain look less inhabited than in warmer weather, it's much easier to find and follow tracks in the snow than across the grasses.

many tracks of ? across the snow-covered, frozen pond

Photo by J. Harrington

When we walked the dogs today, we saw tracks of:

• squirrels
• rabbits
• whitetails
• dogs, and, of course,
• humans

bird tracks on a snow-dusted deck

Photo by J. Harrington

Often, after a light dusting of powdery snow that covers the deck, we'll be delighted with a view of an abundance of bird tracks, usually juncos. If the snow is an inch or even half an inch deep, the tracks cave in on themselves.

If you're still stumped about what to get for someone on your list that enjoys the outdoors, even in Winter, consider a tracking manual.

With Passing Wonder I Notice the Tracks of an Animal

David Biespiel

It comes out of the language of nothing I recognize
Though it is something in you, at least as I keep
                                                     looking at you
And you turn back to me. I ought to have guessed
From the simple order of the tracks that you knew
Without looking what place in the wild night
The animal came from,
                     and through which of our windows
It has looked into, sometimes with an eye
On our waking, other times on our sleeping
                                          with the doorways open
Where, I suppose, the spirits of the defeated
Appear, white as lakes, carrying maps to someplace
Ahead of us, running now, and now you running,
And the animals guiding your footsteps,
Like a flake of snow,
You, without a single acquaintance among the spirits,
Or understanding, you so solitary in your running.
                                             And then the return—
And I assume you have nothing to say
And that if I wait there’ll be only the waiting
Then nothing but a moment of darkness
And a surprising order stirring in the head
Shaking off the early morning cold.
Then all at once a door closing,
                     an hour of answerless letting go
Like a last hammer of blue sky
Cracking the light.

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