Tell me why

So suppose you found this--a small gray feather marred by blood, all alone on the undisturbed snow. What do you think is going on? What do you do next?



Answer: Look up.


I watched this red-tail long enough to decide it was probably a pigeon it was plucking. I shot a couple videos, and to my great annoyance I can't seem to embed them in LiveJournal. You'll have to watch them in a separate browser tab:
Video 1: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v165/cottonmanifesto/videos1/?action=view&current=MVI_0822_zpsb730c5fb.mp4
Video 2: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v165/cottonmanifesto/videos1/?action=view&current=MVI_0823_zpsd4ea3323.mp4

Wild, wild life

Tracking quiz! What critter left this five-fingered print in the snow?




It was an opossum! I'm glad it left that paw print, because I would have had a hard time identifying this collection of tracks otherwise.

A coworker found what she took to be a den in a pile of broken concrete blocks. We were thinking about foxes, and she wondered if this den might be where a fox was hiding during the day. I got real close, saw what looked like a furry paw inside, and took a flash picture:


That mystery solved, I headed back out to the public area, and found this pair hanging around by the play structure.