‘Tis the season for Christmas Bird Counts and snow.
During the Christmas Bird Count volunteers tally the number of birds by species in each 15-mile diameter circle.
Did you know that you can count a bird if you find its fresh footprints? The tracks tell you the bird was here recently. But what bird?
Here’s a quiz to test your skill. Identify the species that made these tracks:
(#1) In the photo above the tracks are about 2″ to 3″ long and 4″ apart and were made in a city. What bird made them?
(#2) In the photo below the footprints are 6″ to 7″ long in a rural backyard in Saxonburg, PA
and (#3) below, from the Ode Street Tribune blog, are footprints about 5″ long in a city park near a river.
Test your skill. Leave a comment with your answer.
(photos: top and middle footprint photos are from Wikimedia Commons. Last photo is from the Ode Street Tribune blog. Click on each image to see the original … and it will give you the answer to the bird’s identity.)
p.s. Click here for Christmas Bird Count information from Audubon.org.
Wild Turkey!
And I wish that I would have known this before our count last week. Does this work with sand too? Roadrunners are very easy to spot, but lucky for us we got 2 of them visually.
Happy Holidays!
Steve, here in PA it works for sand & mud too.
Pigeon, Turkey, Canada Goose???????
Crow, turkey, Canada goose
Congratulations, Nathalie. You got all 3 right!
The “icing” on the many turkey tracks at my home for our Christmas Bird Count last Saturday, was seeing 3 sets of wing imprints, one after another, in the snow until the turkey became airborne! I wish I would have had my camera with me….it was pretty cool!
I didn’t know that they were 3 different birds! Sorry.
Hint on these tracks: Notice the webbing on the last set of tracks. That bird swims!
Crow, Turkey, Canada goose