runnels in the snow

runnels in the snow

a mouse crisscrosses the paths

of a rabbit, a cat

Reading the map of tracks in the subliming snow, I can see where each creature was going, but not when. A mouse's curvy furrow, alternating with oval prints like beads on a string,  crosses a rabbit's long lozenges, a cat's blue roses. None of the prints lie on top of any others in this busy crossroads. All these comings and goings, witnessed only by a lone oak leaf, sticking up like a flag.

on the white palette

on the white palette

of fresh snow, impressions of tracks,

a charcoal stick

Late February snowstorm, just enough to color the ground white. On the smooth palette left by the Volvo on the gravel driveway, small animal tracks are scattered like an Impressionist painting, blue on blue. One black twig, partially buried, as if the artist dropped the charcoal stick used to incise the pattern.

The impressions are a melange of bird and rabbit tracks.

The rabbit tracks look like a pair of ovals followed by a butterfly print. Next to the rabbit tracks, a bird has landed, its feet making a pair of exclamation marks and its wing leaving brush marks on the snow.

A bird hopping one way, a rabbit crossing its path the other direction.

A pair of bird wings look like two fans.

Here a bird brushed just one wing in between hops.

Where the snow has been churned up, birds have been scratching for grit, necessary for digestion for birds that eat their seeds whole. Tough tummies!

lines imprinted on snow

lines imprinted on snow --

scrawling scribbles of bird feet,

wing feather brush strokes,

dot-dash deer tracks, squirrel lozenges --

white on white calligraphy

Every day I go out to the yard to read the news -- the record of foot prints imprinted on the canvas of snow. 

Deer leave dot-dash strokes where their heart-shaped hooves punch and drag in long lines, out from the woods, across the open space to the corner of the fence where I leave apples, and into the trees again. 

A squirrel, descending from a tree trunk, hops in a triple pattern of an oval above two little lozenges, stopping at a spot to dig under the snow for hickory nuts. 

Ground-feeding birds meander in complicated curves as they search for seesds dropped by other birds flying away from the bird feeders.

This pattern of bird tracks looks like a caricature of a spider monkey.

And this combination of bird feet and wing brush strokes looks like a bas-relief of a mythical dragon or the skeleton of an extinct pterodactyl.

Today, with temperatures finally climbing above freezing after many weeks, the crisp white-on-white calligraphy is blurring as the crystalline surface softens into a more impressionistic painting.

wild tracks in the snow

wild tracks in the snow

along the creek -- whitetail deer,

wild turkey, rabbit, squirrel

Lozenges of dark water murmur through duvets of snow still blanketing Pilgrim Creek. The calligraphy of wild animal tracks punctuates the pristine canvas -- whitetail deer cutting heart shape prints in the snow as they come down to drink, the curvilinear script punched into the snow by the three-pronged feet of wild turkey, blossoms of cottontail rabbit toes meandering like wild rose vines along the banks, and the funny squiggles of a squirrel snuffling through the snow in search of seeds.

paw prints in the snow

paw prints in the snow

on Blue Stone Bridge repeating

puzzling sets of three

These tracks are a bit of a mystery. They were probably made by a raccoon because they show the characteristic long fingers, all pointing forward, unlike the opossum, which would clearly show the opposable thumb sticking out to the side. Both animals overlap front prints with hind prints, but here there are sets of three tracks, not two or four.