Cricket Song Farm

Cricket Song Farm

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

TRIOPS and TRACKS

This past fall my son and I spent a few days doing some needed repairs on the house at the farm.  He ventured off to the pond at the edge of one of our 40 acre sections.  We had gotten a lot of rain the prior few weeks and he wanted to see how much water was in the pond and if the TRIOPS had hatched.  Triops are fossil like creatures that hatch out every time there has been sufficient rain to keep the pond full of water for their 90 day life cycle.  Sometimes it has been 10 years between hatches.  He returned home and said the pond and the outlying area was full of triops.  I ventured up and was amazed by the millions and millions of triops swimming in the shallow water.  I didn't have my camera with me and vowed I would return that afternoon to take pictures.  Well, a few days went by before I made it back to the ponds and unfortunately all the water had dried up.




I noticed a lot of tracks around the area and went on an adventure to see how many different kinds of tracks I could find.
These are skunk tracks preserved in the dried mud.


The neighbor's big black lab loved to play in the pond water.
Dogs leave claw marks in their prints.


We have both deer and antelope in the area.  


Not sure what bird made these.  This time of year we have many varieties of hawks, buzzards, crows, but they are probably not eagle tracks as the eagles don't come into the area until late November.



People tracks.  Sadly the neighbors have used our remote property for a dumping ground.

 

GASP! Do you know what this is?  The hair on the back of my neck stood on end when I saw these fresh tracks.  I wonder if this fellow was lying close by while we wandered around.  I purposely photographed the piece of wood next to the track to give an approximation of it's size. The piece of wood  measured an inch long.  The track was a good 5 inches across!  Have you figured out what kind of track this is?


Yes, it is a MOUNTAIN LION!
Needless to say, I scooted out of there as fast as I could!