March 31, 2008

I have noticed dried thistles poking out of the snow lately and realize that they are the source of the phantom voles I think I see:

You can see how, at a distance, I could mistake this large thistle head for a mouse all hunched up and having a bad hair day.

This is that tree that was and still is buried by the snow plows. I thought I saw branches from which the bark had been chewed by rabbits but I can't see them now or in this photo.

However, I did see rabbit foot prints hopping up this snow bank and onto the roof of this carport, so I may have been right that rabbits have been chewing the bark in the high branches of trees that they would never normally have access to. Time will tell - in the Spring when the leaves start out, the girdled branches will likely be dead. At least, I know that when young trees are girdled (bark chewed off all the way around the trunk), they die.

Every day, you see lost things like a single mitten, obviously fallen out of someone's pack or pocket. And I usually try to put the item up somewhere where it will be seen if the owner travels the same route again. I am not the only one who does this:

In a 20 foot stretch of sidewalk at the transit station, I came across two found items hung up for the owner to see.


I saw hundreds of webbed foot prints beside the bike path.

At first I thought they were duck prints but then I realized I had not seen any ducks but I have seen seagulls. And I guess they are not "sea" gulls but just some other sort of gull. At any rate, it looks like they were having a meeting at this mud puddle!