If you watched this weeks Winterwatch then Chris Packham’s film on the joys of looking for animal and bird prints in snow may have roused your interest. It certainly did mine as this is already something we do on a regular basis, or at least as regular as can be given this countries inability to deposit much of the white stuff. Just last week our walk along the Cribarth ridge provided a perfect opportunity for a little tracking with numerous Rabbit trails criss-crossing the landscape.

P1100686 - Rabbit prints, Cribarth
P1100687 - Rabbit prints, Cribarth

The strange thing is I don’t recall having ever seen any Rabbits in the flesh up here which just goes to show what can be revealed about our landscape with the addition of a little snow.

Also present were a series of large bird prints, most likely Raven given their size and relative abundance of the species locally.

P1100685 - Raven prints, Cribarth

Back at the start of 2013 another snowfall revealed the intriguing discovery of Rabbit prints overlaid with that of a Fox. Now the story there didn’t take much of a detective to figure out but we couldn’t find anything similarly unusual this time. The lack of mammal prints however may explain the number of Rabbits seemingly living up here though altitude is no guarantee of safety as I have seen a Fox in the Brecon Beacons higher than this before.


10 Comments

TexWisGirl · January 25, 2015 at 6:31 pm

cool tracks you found. 🙂

theconstantwalker · January 25, 2015 at 11:32 pm

Wonderful to see…

Stewart M · January 26, 2015 at 4:55 am

Great tracks and weather – I miss days like this; I need to make a bigger effort to get up to the snow this winter.

The Tor is always a great place to go – and in the winter the bird life on The Levels is great.

Cheers – Stewart M – Melbourne (and Somerset!)

PS: work has settled down, school and summer holidays just about over, normal device will now be resumed!

    Adam Tilt · January 27, 2015 at 8:40 pm

    I can't get enough of the snow, we just get so little of it these days.

ADRIAN · January 26, 2015 at 6:21 am

Last week, I was looking at rabbit and badger tracks. I never thought to photograph them. It's a grand idea.

    Adam Tilt · January 27, 2015 at 8:41 pm

    Highly recommend it Adrian. Great fun.

Sondra · January 27, 2015 at 12:51 am

Great idea!! Here we have very sandy soil so tracking is easy everyday…I see deer track daily,wild turkey, and in summer snake tracks which is a S impression as it creeps along the ground. We get very little snow but I always enjoy going out in the snow.

    Adam Tilt · January 27, 2015 at 8:42 pm

    Now snake tracks are something we don't get a lot of out here but I'd love to see some.

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