Walking yesterday in woodland with my family we came across many tracks in the soft mud after all this rain. We became quite fascinated in noticing the difference in deer tracks and being able to tell if it was walking slowly, walking fast or running. The cloves spread out and dig backwards when running but there is no gap between the cloves and the imprint goes straight down if its walking slowly. It was lovely for the children to really see this and understand it, so today we went and bought a kit to make moulds of track prints, so we could bring them home. What a lovely way to entertain kids, I would suggest it to anyone getting board of computers and ipods!! Jane

That's wonderful.  I know when it snows, I love to go out and look at the tiny tracks in the snow.  It makes one much more aware of the animal life out there, that is normally not seen.  Squirrels, voles, mice, and the like rarely leave any trace of their presence except when recorded by mud or snow.

Also, with deer, if the tracks are very large, it's most likely to be a male animal.  And the males tend to 'drag' their feet, so the tracks will have brush marks as well.

Kingfisher

This post was last modified: 20-02-2007 06:33 AM by Kingfisher.

Let us know how the imprint making goes! Perhaps you could post some pictures on here? I'm interested to see what tracks you can find and recognise.

One of the great things about Winter is that the mud if soft so you can see tracks like deer easier.