Sometimes I think I could start a separate blog just for the visual observations I make during dog walks … it’s a peaceful activity that allows my eyes to wander and observe, and here’s a few examples of what I’ve seen: melted snow that looks like a Matisse cutout; a fire hydrant topped with a skull, and sidewalks that look like Mark Rothko paintings, among many other things.
A couple days ago, I noticed these unusual-looking K-shaped footprints in the light dusting of snow that covered the sidewalks. As you can see from the picture below right, the footsteps had a relatively long stride, approximately 15 inches between footprints. It seems pretty clear that these are footprints belonging to a bird, but the weird thing was, the footprints went on like this for a full city block! What kind of bird takes 15 inch steps and would walk the full 600 foot length of a city block? It just seemed weird. Scroll down for more …
I decided to do a little research to see what I could come up with. The study of birds is called “Ornithology,” which explains the title of this blog post. My first search was for “K shaped bird tracks,” and I learned the following:
Many bird species have feet with three toes forward and one pointing behind. This type of bird track can often be difficult to identify. There are, however, certain groups of birds that have very unique, unmistakable footprints. Two of these groups are owl and woodpecker species.
All owls and woodpeckers have a unique foot structure known as, “zygodactyl,” which means that the foot has two toes pointing forward and two toes pointing backward. This foot structure creates a “K-shaped” track (see images below).
Okay, that seems to narrow our focus on these types of birds, but the mystery still remains, what kind of owl or woodpecker is big enough to take 15 inch steps? I can’t imagine any owl or woodpecker big enough to walk like that …
A little more research just revealed the following info: “Gait” refers to the method of movement and the distinct way the body moves to propel a bird forward on the ground. There is a relationship between the gait of the bird and the track pattern left behind. Walking is one type of gait, and it was the type of movement I originally assumed this bird was making. But then I read that if a bird is running on the ground, there is a moment in each stride where the bird is airborne and there is no foot contact on the ground – therefore, running strides are generally 2 to 5 times the length of a single track. If you look at the size of the tracks and the space in between them in the top picture, the stride looks to be just about 5 times the length of the track. So perhaps that explains our situation here: it’s not a huge bird walking down the street, it’s most likely an owl or woodpecker running down the street. It’s still a weird concept, as I can’t say I’ve seen any birds running on the ground around here, let alone the length of a city block, but that must be the answer.
It’s a good thing the bird wasn’t running down the street when I was walking my dogs, otherwise they would have pulled me in their fast pursuit of any such bird!