Peacock Books & Wildlife Art News — winter insects

Today was a great day for tracking ## in the valley. I brought my niece Gusty with, and her dogs, Beau and Asher.  The path we took was ice coated--the entire hike which made for difficult walking, but we would have missed all the ice-trapped tracks, the hawk flying off from the hooting of a great horned owl, the wave of woodpeckers, blue jays, and chickadees, and of all the sounds of the open woods.

I don't think we went twenty feet without running into a new pile of scat, one was fresh and probably the animal that broke through the woods as we entered the deeper woods. From the looks of the various piles of scat there is no doubt that there are at least two different species, the tracks are there to prove that. 

Makes me want to check into the woods farther, but wait until there is some snow on the ground for better tracks and to see how often the animals are coming through. I'd put field camera up but I have 100% chance of them getting tampered with, or stolen, as usual.