Boxing day tracks

Boxing Day is the ideal time for a walk in the fresh air after the festivities of the previous day. If there has been a new fall of snow, children can be encouraged to look for animal tracks on the surface. The most common are rabbits. These are identified by four marks, two much smaller than the others. The larger ones are where its powerful back feet hit the ground, the smaller ones its two front paws. Fox prints tend to follow a straight line as each rear paw is placed in the same spot its front paw has just been. This is known as perfect walking. Dogs do not do this, so their paw prints do not register perfectly on top of each other.