As I was making my way around the yard today, putting away sleds, raking around large patches of snow, I found the most peculiar thing...a little tunnel in the snow. I crouched down to peek in the hole then took a few steps back to observe the whole area. There were so many tunnels! I called my daughter over and our impromptu discovery session began!

Here are some pictures of what we found as we explored around the house, in the edge of the woods, and along the driveway:

These are the first couple of tunnels I found behind the house.

The tunnels were numerous!

This leaf helps give perspective to how small the opening to the tunnel was.

After exploring the backyard, we decided to venture into other areas where there was snow and see if we found any other evidence of tunnels. Here's what we found on the edge of the woods and along the driveway:

The recent melting had really opened up this tunnel, but it was so neat to peek through a snowbanking!

This picture was taken in one of the colder sections of our yard. Here you can see how the tunnel
would appear in winter. The tunnels are usually close to the ground, between the leaf layer and the snow.

Some of the other tunnels had formed ice towards the bottom of them
from the melting and refreezing that has been occuring as of recent.

My daughter and I had more questions than answers, but were so excited to search for more tunnels. It almost felt like a rush job to find as many as we could because we knew the snow that was left wouldn't last long in the very warm temperatures. We found so many tunnels, and had so many questions...

• What made these tunnels?
• Where was the animal going?
• What was the animal doing?
• How many more tunnels are there around us that we can't see?
• When were these tunnels made?

We hypothesized about mice, squirrels, and chipmunks. Even started thinking of stories we could make up as we pretended to be the animal crawling through the numerous tunnels! It was a rewarding adventure outside and we were thrilled to have that unexpected adventure...then we came inside and had one of the biggest treats of all...

This was the view outside my daughter's window. We somehow had missed these when we were
outside, but were treated to a special viewing from her window.

With more questions than answers, a quick online search was in order. It appears that these tunnels were most likely the work of voles!

(information about moles and voles)


Head on out before all that snow is gone! Maybe there are tunnels near your home...? Maybe there are some fresh tracks in that soft, mushy snow...?

Share your ideas and adventures here!







Connections, connections, connections!

It was a little early for Leap Year Day,

but since the whole family was together,

we just had to try out our leaps!

Each member was a different color and it lead us to all sorts of deductions...who had the largest leap, who had the smallest tracks, etc.

The best part about the whole activity was all the connections we could make to other activities we had already done. Even just going back to the tracking lesson and now looking at the tracks we've made ourselves... It is so powerful to see the wheels turning in a child's mind, never mind when they start to connect to previous knowledge all on their own!

More Tracks!

The trails at Prescott Farm (www.prescottconservancy.org)

are a great place to check out tracks.

These deer tracks (lower left of photo) stop before the stonewall,

then continue on the other side. Evidence of jumping?

We noticed the "fingers" on these tracks.

It appears turkeys enjoy the trails at Prescott Farm as well!

After the last snowfall, we found evidence of animal activity all over our yard.

These tracks appear to have the hind feet up front. (A rabbit? A squirrel?)

These tiny bird tracks were found beneath our bird feeder.

May be hard to see, but where the bird tracks end, there are marks

made by the bird's wings when it took flight. (I'm pointing to one of the marks.)

We recently found lots of deer tracks in our yard. Some were big and...

...some were small.

Happy Tracking!

Tracks!

Using your hand, a ruler, or a piece of paper are some

suggestions of things to put near the track as evidence of size of track.

(This track is about 2.5" long, most likely hindfoot on top.)

Using a track card (http://www.wildlife.state.nh.us/Wildlife/Wildlife_PDFs/Track_Card.pdf), would you guess this to be part of the dog or cat family?

What clues lead you to that conclusion?

This track has the hind feet in front of the rear feet.

What animal(s) follow that track pattern?

What animal do you think these tracks came from?

While out on our many adventures recently we have not only seen tracks, but other evidence of animal activity as well! Here is a place where an animal was digging in the snow. What animal may have done this? What clues lead you to that animal? What do you think this animal was looking for?

If you have any pictures of tracks from your own adventures, please share! Let's see how diverse our animal evidence collection can be!