Titmouse down, home

With the post-Helena snow still powdery, deep, and just about perfect on my backwoods trail, I opted for a cross-country ski combined workout and observation session in the late afternoon. It was cold, exceedingly cold—around two above at daybreak—and it never warmed beyond about 20 before heading downhill again into the single digits. I had to work hard to stay warm and stave off hypothermia, but I managed to keep enough brain cells functional that I remained sharp and watchful as I moved, more or less silently, through the forest. There were plenty of smeary tracks, everything from likely deer to dogs or coyotes—the snow was too soft to tell canine identity—to mice, but the only story with an absolutely certain character was revealed at the side of the trail: a long scattering of Tufted Titmouse feathers, both primaries and down. There was no sign of a corpse, so I can't know which kind of predator did the killing. I can only hope that the hunting was necessary to keep the predator going and not the actions of, say, an otherwise well-fed domestic feline, particularly one of mine. I also hope the hunter was mercifully quick and efficient at the trade.