Interesting Animal Tracks in the Snow

Lots of neat animal prints in the snow in the back yard yesterday. The next five appear to me to be rabbit or hare tracks. A friend suggests they are squirrel tracks -- he may well be right.

This serpentine trail must be from a mouse. The other, shallower marks in the next photo branch off from the mouse trail and I'm not sure what to make of them.

This one shows the mouse trail crossing the "freeway" of back-and-forth tracks of a larger animal crossing our property and going into the woods behind the old grange next door:

The last five images show what I think must be woodchuck tracks; we have one around here, we've seen him several times; though a friend says these look like possum tracks, and I hear there are possums in these woods. You can easily see how the claws are dragged backhand, forward, then the paw is placed down in front. Really interesting tracks. Click on the images for a better view.

All of these are animal tracks. They look to be the same animal, going back and forth.

One of God's Little Creatures Lives Under Our House

Last night we had our first snow. I injured my leg so this time Vickie had snow duty.


One of God's little creatures crawled out from the basement of the house next door, walked under our back stairs and over to the barn, and back again and left a really interesting trail. Can anyone guess what it is? We've seen an animal that looks sort of like a big gopher or beaver but with a small tail and big back haunches. I've thought it was a marmot, but the local residents don't think we have marmots around here, and the New Hampshire wildlife website doesn't mention them. Do these tracks identify this fellow? Click the images for a better look.

This photo shows that porcupine tracks in the snow look pretty much like this, so maybe that's what it is: http://tinyurl.com/porcupine-tracks

This is a photo of blueberry hill about 5 miles away:

First light snow on trees in our back yard