Snow Games

Yes, it's me again, back with yet another skiing tale. We had three inches of snowfall overnight, more fluffy, light stuff.  I thought the sunset might be pretty, so I went out around 5:15PM armed with our old digital camera, a tiny click box that we bought years ago when digital photography was relatively new.

I followed the trail from our house up to the woods a quarter-mile north and then headed east into what was a corn field last summer.  I heard a bird singing in the woods and though I didn't see the songster, the call sure sounded like a Red-winged blackbird.  Poor thing, I'm sure he wasn't expecting this much snow anymore.  I don't know how migratory birds survive when they come back too early. 

For that matter, I don't know how any animals are surviving this winter.  With snow this deep, hunting for food must be a tremendous chore.  I have noticed the rabbit tracks are dwindling rapidly and I've seen an increase of fox traffic on my ski trails.  Mom has had a flock of turkeys coming to her bird feeder this week, too.  They're usually kinda shy but hunger has forced them to take what they can get.

As I skied along, I came upon a bunch of fresh tracks in the forty-acre field that reminded me of something from my childhood:

What happened here?

 When I was in grade school back in prehistoric times, ok, the 1960's, in the winter at recess we would play a game of tag similar to 'Fox and Geese'.  The person who was 'It' (or the Fox) would select a large area of fresh fallen snow and make a series of trails, usually in a  circle with other maze-like trails branching off.   

The 'Geese' or in our case, the kids who weren't 'It' would run around on the trails trying to elude the Fox.  The rules were everyone had to stay within the confines of the trails no matter what and if you stepped outside the trail to avoid being tagged, you'd be It.  When the Fox tagged a Goose, the Fox would yell, "You're IT!" and everyone would then run away from the new Fox.  

 Now, now, don't judge us by our games.  It's cold up here in the Great White North.  The silly game of tag kept us warm and was good exercise.

After looking more closely at the tracks in the snow, I realized I was looking at a real game of Life and Death.
 

The tracks puzzled me at first, but then it made sense when I saw the feather imprints in the soft snow.  This must have been an owl or a hawk, hunting for voles in the deep snow of the corn field.

It was getting quite dark and my camera isn't very fancy, so I didn't get a terrific picture here, but the imprint above reminds me of an owl.  It looks as if the owl dive-bombed the field and plowed right into the snow face first.

There were tracks all over the field, this must have gone on for quite some time. 

I've read that owls (or maybe hawks, too) can hear the mice and voles under the snow and have to drive their talons as deep as they can in the snow to catch their prey.  

In some places, it looked as if the bird of prey had dug in the snow every few feet, probably trying to reach the rodent.

This track was puzzling, looks like the feathers brushed the ground on either take-off or landing.

This was a Battle Royale, by the looks of things.

The tracks were spread out over five acres.  I wonder who won the game?  My money is on the raptor.

By now my hands were cold and the camera battery was going dead and the sun was already down, so it was time to make tracks of my own.

 

I'm grateful to have a warm house to return to and food on the table. 

P. S.   Thanks for putting up with me and these repetitive skiing posts, by the way.   I did order my flower seeds last night, so in a few months I'll be posting something other than my Albino Landscaping.  In a few weeks, I'll be posting dirty pictures because once this snow all melts, we'll be wallowing in mud.