In generations past, survival may have depended on a person's ability to "read sign" in the natural world to secure food, detect the presence of friends or foes, or find the safest route to a destination. Those skills are rarely needed by most of us in today's world, but the ability to sort out what happened by interpreting tracks or other evidence on the ground'or in the snow'can be a fun and sometimes challenging activity.
The Facebook page for Yellowstone National Park recently posted some photos that offer a chance to test your "sign reading" prowess, and the caption asked, "Can you read the story in the snow?"
Here's the explanation, courtesy of the Yellowstone staff:
"The hole in the snow has wing prints on either side indicating where a swan landed."
Now, for the rest of the story:
The above photo, "taken from a different angle, shows a wavy trail of webbed footprints accompanied by lines where the swan's long wings hit the snow when it continued to flap while running toward the safety of the water. Many trumpeter swans from northern Canada winter on the Madison, Gibbon, Firehole and Yellowstone rivers." Both photos are courtesy of Yellowstone National Park.
If you'd like to learn a little more about Trumpeter swans at Yellowstone, the following 2-minute video will give you the basics:
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