By Greg Westrich
Special to The Weekly
The other day I was walking up the driveway to get the paper. The early morning sun cast the long shadows of the snow-covered woods across the driveway. A new dusting of snow had fallen during the night. Over the crunching of my feet through the dry snow, I scanned the trees for birds while listening for their chatter.
My attention was drawn down to the ground by a line of tracks that came out of the woods and up the drive toward the road. At first, I thought they were from our cat. She likes to think she’s a wild animal and spends time stalking the woods or sitting in repose on a rock next to the drive.
But these tracks were canid, showing the claws; a fox had been in the yard overnight.
It had been a long time since we had seen a fox in the yard. A fox used to sit at the yard’s edge as dusk turned to night, barking longingly at the chickens safe in their coop. But once our rooster matured and started crowing regularly, the fox disappeared.
Or so we thought. Here on the ground was evidence to the contrary.
The rest of the way up the drive, I looked for tracks that would expose other secrets of nighttime in my yard and the woods around it. A series of tracks crossed my path from a tree on one side of the drive to a tree on the other. The tracks were in groups of four: two large and two small. A squirrel had crossed here. Some tracks showed fine enough detail to see the narrow toes and claws on the squirrel’s feet.
On a walk around the yard, I found the tiny, closely-spaced tracks of a mouse or vole and the various-sized foot prints of the birds that had hopped around the feeder. Sometimes you can find the snow angel of where a jay landed with its wings outstretched.
Deeper in the woods you may get lucky and find a much larger print where an owl landed on its prey. Winding through the woods are trails made by deer moving from where they bed to where they feed. Their heart-shaped prints accumulate on top of one another. Deer seem to be creatures of habit.
Some nights I lay in bed, wondering what else is out there, moving through and around the yard. A metallic clatter tells me that a flying squirrel is opening the top of the bird feeder to get seeds. I have never seen a flying squirrel alive, but they are common here in Maine. They spread their legs and glide silently from the woods to my bird feeder like ghosts. Smaller than my fist, with soft fur edged in white, they can easily glide the hundred feet from the woods the feeder. They roost in small groups in holes in trees, huddling together for warmth.
A barred owl hoots nearby. Is it telling its mate that there is squirrel for dinner tonight or letting me know that it, too ,is here even if I never see it? Either way I fall asleep with a smile on my face.