Found a really unusual animal track along Stonepile Creek on our walk today. It was a rounded trough in the snow, wandering right along the surface of the ice on the creek, much like the track left by an otter when it slides down a bank into the water - except this track was just horizontal, on top of the stream, and followed the stream itself as far as I could see upstream and down. Along the snow trough, about 3 inches deep and 3 inches wide, were small mammal tracks of some sort.
It must have been a muskrat; I can't think of anything else that would leave such a track. It didn't leave the stream, but stayed right on top of the ice. Whatever it was passed under a snow-covered log about 6 inches above the ice, without disturbing it; a muskrat could do that. Looking up to find out more about muskrats, I learned they don't really hibernate, just slow down over the winter. Still, it was a surprising finding; I've never seen evidence of muskrats in the entire area before.
Our walks reveal other details of the winter too. Rabbit tracks and chickadees calling. One evening we heard an owl calling, probably a Great Horned Owl. It's hard to believe when the weather is this cold, but the owls will be starting to nest within a month.
Deer tracks seem to be everywhere, especially when older tracks don't get covered by new fallen snow. Under cedar trees you can see the trampling of their hoofprints where they have stood on their hind legs to reach the remaining green cedar boughs - all the lower branches having long since been stripped clean.
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