4/24/2006: Rabbit tracks end in owl wingprints

[xant]

OK, here's my analysis.

I think the prints on the right are a red herring. We have no way to tell if they "stop abruptly" or not, because they end in the foreground at the edge of the frame. There are hopping rodents that could have made them. (I thought they were made by deer hoofs at first, but they're too shallow and there's only one line of them.) They *were not* made by the owl. Why? They end at the tree, and there's no take-off print left by its wings at the tree. So my money's on a tree-climbing rodent that made those.

The prints on the left are something with heavy, large feet. I agree that they don't look like rabbit prints, but there's plenty of other rodents that an owl would find tasty. (It would have to be something without a tail.) Whatever it was, the owl clearly got the drop on it. There's also the possibility, although this is just speculation, that the owl briefly picked up something too heavy for it to carry *somewhere else*, then dropped down and let it go again right there. In that case, the trail of prints on the left is departing, not arriving.