Monday, March 02, 2009

With Socks!

We have been busy tracking. Books in hand, our favorites being Animal Tracks of Ontario by Ian Sheldon and Wild Tracks ; A Guide To Nature's Footprints by Jim Arnosky, we set out to the perfect tracking conditions of hard crunchy snow. We have found mice, raccoon, rabbits, white tailed deer, chipmunk and fox. The thrill of finding a print and identifying it has been such a rush. Even more enjoyable has been joining the kids as they follow the tracks, seeing where they lead. As they follow, they chat, sharing their guesses as to what the animal was doing, where it was going, and why the tracks stop.
Perhaps it was a mama raccoon, and was searching for food for her babies. The mouse could have been eaten by a hawk since its tracks stop abruptly. Maybe it was a city mouse and didn't know to hide. The stories have been the real find.
Saturday morning Chris called us all to the window to watch this fox (with socks!) sniff around outside. It stayed for about 10 minutes, which was long enough for us to get a really good look.
Back out every went to follow the tracks, finding out they crossed with rabbit tracks. Perhaps it was time for tea?

2 comments:

Wendy said...

We just had a fox in our backyard last week. Though we don't have any snow for tracking (and we're in Colorado!)

And good luck with the bookplate stamps. (Be prepared for it to spill over into more stamp making than you can shake a stick at. Once you realize how easy that stuff is to carve, it's hard to resist.) Thanks for visiting!

gardening gal said...

How nice to have you pop over :)

A fox is a pretty cool visitor where ever you may be!

The excitement and plans for our new crafting adventure is pretty high (our list of projects is already very grand and we haven't even started yet!)