220106 creatures

 Jan. 5

There are animals that live near us but many of them we almost never see, only their tracks. 

These are deer prints, in the meadow and crossing the stream. 

This is a deer's track, where he or she slipped on the ice or snow. One doesn't think of wild creatures slipping or falling! 

This creature jumped into or out of the tree, and I followed its tracks...

...over to the stream,

...and down the stream bed: there were two sets of prints here, coming and going.

Here he "marked" the trail on both sides of his path, where the stream went between two trees.

His (or her) footprints look very human. That suggests a raccoon (or a very small humanoid who lives in a tree!)

This is the print of a small hunter, fox or bobcat, I think. He crossed the meadow below the copse of hawthorns.

   

Finding a path around the hawthorns and brambles.

These are Blackie's paw prints - they are bigger than the palm of my hand.

   

Blackie, come to meet me.

The fallen tree in the west meadow has become a dragon - we can see his head from our house, over the rise. It brings to mind an adventure in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: 

"...later in the night Lucy was wakened, very softly, and found the whole company gathered close together and talking in whispers. "What is it?" said Lucy. "We must all show great constancy," Caspian was saying. "A dragon has just flown over the tree-tops and lighted on the beach. Yes, I am afraid it is between us and the ship. And arrows are no use against dragons. And they're not at all afraid of fire." *

Yes, I am afraid it is between us and the ridge!

Meanwhile, having heard, in the darkness the night before, a strange prehistoric croak or cry from the lower meadow, I was not surprised to see another snaky (sneaky) creature down by the tree-line of the east field. (I searched the bird books for a night bird that made the noise I heard, but found no match.) 

This one-foot line of prints is not a snow-snake stalking me, but the mark of my walking stick! Snow-snakes typically live on ski hills, in moguls. There are several ski-resorts quite near us.

Winter is a good time to see birds' nests. I do not disturb them because some birds come back in the spring and re-vamp an old nest. The first is cleverly built inside a hawthorn - no animal can get at it through the thorns.

  

The second one is built in an apple tree, which hereabouts seems to mimic the hawthorn with little branchlets, as if to disguise itself. 

A very "entish" tree.

Alien symbols marked in the snow?

Perhaps by the creature who made these prints! 

Whatever it was, it went straight up the tree! 

A snow lizard has fallen asleep beside the door. We tiptoe by so we don't wake it.

There are always a few ladybugs in the house. They wander around looking for a sip of sugar and a place to sleep. This one has found its way into the spider plant. (I don't know if they are native ladybugs or the invasive Asian species; I seldom look closely to see. I let them be, sometimes rescuing them from a puddle of water on the counter.) 

This concludes the zoological exploration of our environment for today. 

Thank you for visiting. Keep safe; be well. 

Mumma Yaga

* C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, 1952. Part of The Chronicles of Narnia series.

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