in which space aliens make snow angels on our lawn

I woke up feeling like my throat had been pumped full of golf balls and finished off with a coating of sandpaper. The next round of chorus starts next week, so I’ve got a few days to wrestle this into submission. What did I do today? I have no idea – my brain’s melting.

But at some point I noticed tracks in the backyard that weren’t there yesterday.

Zooming in on the end point of the track closer to the garden shed…

Naturally, my initial impression is that the space aliens came for a visit and couldn’t resist making snow angels. And now for a close up of the one closer to the house…

It occurred to me that maybe instead of space aliens, it was, um, birds. Grouse, perhaps? I hear them in the woods in the fall, and then of course there was this other time a grouse visited the premises. Two trails led off into the woods. As nasty as I felt, I strapped on snowshoes and headed out the door.

Can you see both tracks, below? I’m going to highlight them…

As I thought, the two tracks melded into one…diverged briefly…

…and terminated into another set of winged explosions.

I’m sad to say, I’m not sure if they landed here from a spot in the trees and walked up onto the lawn and took off, or if it happened the other way around – a lawn landing, a foray into the woods, and a leap up into the trees. I also can’t tell how many birds it is – one bird, three journeys spread out in time? The top trail – the one closer to the garden shed – is definitely a two-fer.  Experienced trackers would probably have a clue. Not I.

Additional data, for my tracking friends (Arianna, help!):

It wasn’t long after my return to the indoors that the nap fairies abducted me for the afternoon. Again, I say unto thee, “Blegh.”