Today was a good day for footprints.

The sand and silt layer now covering our riverside woodland is a great material for collecting footprints.

 

Normally this is mostly dog walkers, but by the river, amongst the birds, this little fellow has been pottering about.

 

I especially like the scale : the moorhen or ducks are loads bigger than this little mammal (we've guessed bank vole, but haven't consulted the books yet to find out).

 

You can count the toes and work out how he was walking, tell the front paws apart from the back paws and speculate about what he was doing : looking for food? Looking for a likely new home after the floods?

 

Just look at all those footprints! The pattern of them is enough to make me happy.