Tracking a Christmas Mystery

After finding all of those rabbit tracks in my last post I decided to find some tracks for animals that most people look for. I went to the back of the nature park to a meadow where I knew there would be some good tracks. This is where the deer live, and I knew I could find their tracks here.

All I had to do was go to the part of the meadow that's farthest away from the hiking trail. No humans go here so I knew the deer tracks would be here. It wasn't too hard to find the tracks when I got there. They were all over this part of the meadow.

The first thing I did was take plenty of pictures so I would have a record of the deer tracks. Then I took a very close look at the tracks to see if there were any fresh ones. How recently had these deer been here? There were some older tracks, but there were also some very new ones too.

I must have just missed a whole herd of deer by only a matter of minutes! I knew what I had to do. I was going to follow these fresh tracks to see if I could find the deer. As soon as I began following them I noticed something very strange. There were other tracks.

Somebody else had been over here even though I was the only human who ever really comes out to this part of the meadow. Whoever it was had very big feet and he was here about the same time as the deer.

I continued to follow the tracks and saw that they lead right into the forest. The big footprints went right in after them. I really didn't want to follow them on the same path so I went back to the hiking trail. I was going in the same general direction, but I figured my quest was over.

After I got into the forest I saw some movement far ahead to the right of the path. There looked to be over half a dozen deer purposely moving away from me through the forest. These were the ones that made the tracks I was looking for!

As they turned and cut through the forest in front of me, I excitedly tried to get a few pictures but they were very far away. I got a few bad pictures that showed deer, but it was very hard to see them through the trees. I thought I knew where they were headed but I would have to run to catch up.

I did my best to run through the forest without alerting the deer that I was there. I thought my chances of catching up with them weren't good, but I still had to try. I stayed on the hiking trail, and that may have been my downfall because I never did catch the deer.

When I realized that they were long gone I slowed to a walk and sadly began to make my way back to the front of the park so I could go home. And when I turned the corner to the path that leads to the parking lot I found something amazing!

There he was! The person that was standing in the meadow with the deer! I recognized him by the size of his feet. There's only one person who wears this kind of red suit that I know of, and there he was in front of me! He didn't see me because he was standing there peering through the trees at a black squirrel. I guess he had never seen a black squirrel before because he seemed to be fascinated by it.

I got this one picture right as he saw me standing there. After only a second after turning my way he just vanished as if he was never there! The only thing I was left with was this one picture and a bad Christmas story.

Tune in on Christmas Eve (Sunday) to find out why Santa Claus was really so interested in squirrels. I'll have a special Christmas present for any of you who can find the time to stop by for a visit!

Merry Christmas everybody!