Saturday, March 23, 2019

Certainty


During the snowstorm yesterday, Amy and Ed saw a large group of robins at the bottom of the driveway near the sumac trees.  Today Amy and I went for a walk to try to locate some feathers that I saw down at the gravel bank. On the way, there were lots of tracks in the snow.  When I declared the above tracks in the snow robin tracks, it was easy for Amy to believe.  The sumac berries depicted are a favored food before the ground thaws.


I thought these tracks were made by a fox due to the double register.  Amy was not certain so Tracking and the art of seeing was consulted.  She still had some doubts.


Outside the living room window later in the morning, I actually spotted a fox.  We all watched as it walked, trotted, sat, scratched, licked and then got up and walked down into the notch and out of sight.  We caught a quick glimpse of her/him heading up the hill in the woods, but then s/he was gone.


Certainty is a wonderful thing so Amy and I headed back out in the cold to look at fresh tracks that were made by a red fox.  We saw it, so we were absolutely sure that the tracks were made by a fox. These were the only tracks in the fresh snow when we visited the location of the sighting.  They do resemble the older tracks spotted earlier.


This is definitely known to be a place where s/he sat.  This isn't the first time we've seen fox taking a moment to create comfort before going on its way.

1 comment:

Beth at PlantPostings said...

That's nifty that you actually saw the fox! We've had coyotes in our back garden and into the woods. Their tracks are unique enough (compared with other canids) that I could positively ID them, although I didn't seem them. We need to get our trail cam out again, so we can get some night images. Robins are busy here, too, although our snow is nearly melted--just a few patches here and there where it was piled up. Have a great week!