Tracking Quizzes

The owl pounced through the snow to snatch a mouse that was under the snowpack, hopped forward once, then walked away to the left, leaving the magical gifts of tracks to tell the story. The dusting of snow & calm air preserved the entire body print of the owl, including every fine detail of each of its feathers.

The way to solve this mystery is: First of all, if you look at the track from the right angle, you can see that it reveals the outline of the body of a large bird, with its wings & tail outstretched. OK, so it’s a large bird, but how do you tell what kind of bird?

The fact that the wings & tail made an imprint in the snow indicates that the bird didn’t simply "land" on the snow – it was pouncing with significant downward force. So this is a large hunting bird, what was it hunting?

There were no tracks of prey on the dusting of snow, indicating that the prey was under the snowpack. [Mice take shelter in the thickets surrounding this farm and feed on old seeds in the fields. When there is a snowpack, they will tunnel under the snowpack to travel between shelter & food, unless they hit an area of snow that is too hard-packed to tunnel through and have to scamper on top of the snow, in which case they are frequently caught by raptors who perch in trees on the edge of the field.] As far as I know, the only bird that is capable of locating prey under a snowpack is an owl, using its exceptional sense of hearing.

The real key to confirming owl in this case was "track aging". Two primary clues in the quiz were: (a) there was a dusting of snow overnight, and (b) I found the tracks at dawn. Since the tracks punch through the dusting of snow, the sequence of events had to be: nightfall => snow => tracks => dawn. That means the tracks were made at night, so this was a nocturnal bird, or in other words, OWL.

I didn’t see any blood spattered in the snow, but the owl’s left footprints were larger & more indistinct than its right footprints, leading me to believe the owl was successful at catching the mouse. There are also some odd "swipe" looking marks where the owl walked away to the left, possibly suggesting it almost lost its grasp & the prey was struggling to escape. But that’s just a guess.

The reason I know that this owl was a great-horned is that I have frequently sat still by the abandoned barn after sunset and listened to the "hoo…hoo-hoo-hoo" call. I could have included that as a clue in the quiz, but that would’ve made it too easy. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!