I recently spent a weekend in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. The location of an annual Mi’kmaq summer coastal community prior to European settlement, today Antigonish is known for Saint Francis Xavier (SFX) University, and the oldest continuous highland games in North America.
It was quite cold (minus 20 windchill!) and mostly snowy, so I elected to leave the car at the hotel and take my camera for a walk instead. The town is very pedestrian friendly, and has lots of interesting buildings and things to see, reflecting a vibrant arts scene. It was quite outside my usual nature-focused forays and offered a new challenge to focus through the lens.
Welcome to downtown! Note the strong Gaelic influence.Even the seagulls were hunkering down to conserve warmth; this was the coldest day of the winter so far. However, I was surprised to find I was far from the only person out for a walk in -12 C.Each house has unique architechtural details and no two share the same colour palette.Luckily, many homeowners still had their winter decorations up. A common theme is to tie in the colours of the house with the decor.Shopkeepers put a lot of effort into seasonal ornamentation as well.A warehouse for what? I liked the composition of this image with the opposition of royal blue and brick red.
As it seems to be in every town or cluster of homes in the province, there are several churches in the community. This is Saint James on Main Street.
Intricate carvings on the doors of Saint Ninian’s cathedral, on the SFX campus.
Saint Paul’s Anglican church, an old wood building with interesting details in the shingles and paint.
Would you like some bibilical allusions with your multiple houses of worship?There are many murals in downtown Antigonish. This was one of the best, on College Street, appropriately named for a university town.
This mural won the annual contest in 2014.
View from a downtown park to a gold dome at SFX.
I later found the gold dome building as I explored the campus.
Most of the buildings at SFX feature domes with crosses, like this aging one.
An optician with a sense of humour. I thought the conjunction of this clever sign with the old 60’s building made an interesting contrast to the more typically scenic parts of town.
Such a cute and inviting sign for this day care. As you can see from the snow, it was getting colder so I decided to head back to the hotel.
It’s a lovely day for a hike. But the woods and fields are silent, not an animal to be found. Perhaps you slept in and didn’t make it out for that early morning as planned. Looking for animal tracks is another way to enjoy the wildlife out there.
Soft mud is a great medium for finding tracks. These were left by a beaver on its way out of the water.
Nearby, a raccoon was also traversing the marsh.
These clear tracks were easy to identify by their unique outlines and location in a muddy marsh habitat.
For others, you need to consider size of the prints, subtle toe arrangements, and length of stride. I initially thought this was a red fox track, but when I checked my books I realized it was much too large and the stride too long.
It’s a coyote. Dime for scale; although I think it detracts from the picture.
This year I’m lucky enough to live where it snows regularly in the winter, making a great medium for recording the activities of animals. The coyote is still patrolling the same stretch of road as before.
This track is at least a day old, as indicated by the frost crystals within it.
Coyote walking. The overlapping hind and foreprints are diagnostic.
River otter prints in the snow.
Tracks are often more (or less) than footprints. Look for grasses bent over, dew missing or smeared on foliage. Or in this case:
River otter slide in the snow. Was it playing? In a rush to get back in the water?
This is a typical track arrangement for the snowshoe hare with the two smaller front feet overlapping and the hind feet in a V.
Whitetail deer moving slowly in deep snow. You don’t always see the marks of the third and fourth toes.
Whitetail deer again, running. Note the sharper hoof impressions of only the main toes and how they are splayed apart.
I taught myself to track through many years of observation, but also sought guidance from books. I recommend a good animal field guide, e.g. Peterson Field Guide to Mammals in North America, as well as a tracking-specific reference like Tom Brown’s Field Guide to Nature Observation and Tracking. The author of the latter may be a real kook with his dubious “Indian mentor” backstory, but has some really good points to improve your tracking skills.
What will you find next time you are out in nature?
