Tracking nature by the book

I was walking beside a river the other day when I came across a bank of firm mud with a perfect set of footprints in it.

For some reason there’s always something exciting about finding tracks like this. I suspect it’s a very ancient thing, dating back to the days when being able to track wild animals was vital to our survival.

But these were the footprints of a bird, not an animal. Quite a big bird because each print was 7cm or 8cm from front to back. It had four long, slim toes ending in quite sharp claws — some only have three. One pointed straight ahead, one straight back, the remaining two were at 45 degrees to the one pointing forward — a bit like a letter Y with an extra stroke in the fork. Definitely a heron.