I have been tracking Deer Mice (Peromyscus maniculatus) a lot lately, and trying to learn a little bit more about them through their tracks and all the questions that come up. What are they eating right now? How can I tell them apart from Voles and Shrews? How many live together in the Winter? Who ate this one’s brains? You know, the usual.
I have also been looking at bird tracks a bunch, especially in this past week, when I noticed a Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia) feeding on the withered stalk of an uncertain forb on the side of a new gravel road near where I work. It was fun to go and see the work the Song Sparrow had done, and wonder at all the debris that remained. Who knew there’d be so much to look at and wonder about?
Tracking is an interspecies pedagogy. We learn from the animals in the field, or from other humans who have learned about them and written out what they have learned. I am full of gratitude for all the life that the snow reveals and for the gift of tracks from the animals who leave them.