A Not-So-Solitary Walk

With a fluffy, moist snow falling, a morning jaunt on the Greenway trail offers evidence of other like-minded gallivanters. The wintry covering deadens sound...but provides a fleeting history of who has passed the same way moments earlier.

First, the distinctive pattern of a rabbit, with paired hind feet bounding ahead of the single-file forefeet.

Next, a large striding bird that I can only assume to be a pheasant crossing the trail. The slender toes so different from our own, just bones with a thin covering of flesh and scales. 

A squirrel, chunky and dark against the snow, bounds quickly into the tree cover, but not without leaving its bunched prints in the slush.

Our only wild hoofed animal in Iowa makes a virtual appearance with a series of prints where a small group of deer crossed the trail. Like the pheasant, a print so different from the fleshy-padded feet of so many other mammals.

And finally, a human and its canine companion, out for a morning run in less-than-ideal weather conditions. The only set of tracks that follows the trail rather than cutting across it!

  Minuscule tracks of rodents, frenetic scratches of sparrows, the easy line of a cat sidling along. The winter reminds us that we are not alone outside, even if we never see another living thing on our journey.