Last Weekend on Mount Royale

These snow shots are likely to be the last of the winter since we had a massive thaw the past few days. Today, the sun was actually hot and I went out without a jacket. I cleared up our small front garden; the amount of dog poo in it was really something. Rather optimistically, I sowed some flower seeds. Let's hope this sunny spell won't be a false dawn.
Anyway, last weekend on Mount Royale, we came upon a Woodland Jumping mouse. I heard a rustle and this little guy popped out from under some leaves. He ate some exposed moss beside a little stream and then lept about four feet into this hole in the snow. The photos aren't great but hopefully you can see how round and mousey he looks in the first photo while looking quite rat-like when stretched in jump.
The book said that these mice hibernate until April so the warmish winter had obviously woken him up early.












Finally, here's a photo of some squirrel paw prints in the snow. you can see how they move directly from tree to tree. See too how they move in little jumps keeping each pair of paws together. The distance between back and front paw marks show how they too really stretch when moving.