Footprints in the Snow

I love that silly, happy feeling when you know
Yours are the first set of footprints in the snow

My favorite thing about waking up to go to school on a snowy morning was leaving the first set of footprints in the snow on my way to the bus stop.  Clearly I wasn't the first to be leaving prints recently.  I caught these lovely critter tracks on my driveway, which inspired me to run around the yard, looking for more.

Raccoon trekking across the driveway

Raccoon prints with scale

Opossum footprints by the pine tree

The best thing about tracks is how they can show you not only what has been there, but what that creature may have been up to.  I drew a little from my knowledge of the critters in my yard and things I've seen them do to make some educated guesses here.

Rabbit footprints

Bunny headed for the fence-fast!

Squirrel circling- looking for buried nuts?

Squirrel footprints in the backyard

With all the snow in Chicago recently, tracks were the big topic of conversation in my nature classes this week.  After bundling up, we headed out to find some for ourselves.  We kept an eye out for creatures like these, of course, and found some signs of deer, coyotes, rabbits and squirrels.  But we also left some interesting prints of our own.  We looked at different sized prints between mommies (or Miss Cara) and kids.  We tried out hopping like a bunny, then seeing if our footprints looked different than when we were walking normally.  We looked at Miss Cara's "walking backwards" footprints (and tried it out with surprisingly good results for a 3 year old).  

And we checked out the awesome prints left behind by 7 snowshoe-ing preschoolers and myself earlier in the week (quite an adventure).

If the snow is still in your area, make sure to look around for signs of your furry neighbors!