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Sunday 3 February 2008

A little mystery

I woke up this morning to a light covering of snow. It's always interesting to have a look for tracks in snow because you can see what has been up and about before you.

These bird tracks immediately caught my eye:

But I had something of a problem. The footprints were about the same size as a Thrush or Blackbird would make...say 4 cm. long. But the bird is a walker, not a hopper. So it's not thrush family. The stride pattern is quite long, so it's a bird with feet that are small for the size of the bird.

Keeping in mind that I live in a more or less rural location, what bird do you think made this trail?

(I have a pretty strong candidate, since I know what birds we have around here, but I thought I'd throw the question open.)
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6 comments:

  1. Anonymous4 February 2008 at 17:55

    From the pigeon-toed nature of the track and the fact that the bird trails its feet I'd suspect collared dove.

    Gill

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  2. Dragonstar6 February 2008 at 22:29

    Ah! I'm too late - gill has already made my suggestion. We have a family of collard doves that visits our small garden, though I've not seen more than two at a time recently.

    Meri.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Stuart6 February 2008 at 23:11

    And I agree with both of you..:)

    Stuart

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dragonstar7 February 2008 at 12:00

    Just dropped in to say I've added you to the links on my blog, so anyone interested can look you up.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous7 February 2008 at 12:09

    I has added you as a link on my blog

    ReplyDelete
  6. Aynia12 February 2008 at 09:55

    I love photos like this. More please! No snow here - just south of Wicklow town- so I can't find tracks.:)

    ReplyDelete