As the crow walks...

We've all seen them.  Crows.  The big black birds that are smart enough to crack nuts by dropping them on the road and waiting for a car to drive over it.  I've seen it.  The one I was watching would then wait for a red light to retrieve his cracked nut.  They seem to find their way anywhere the possibility of food exists.  Ironically, they are common enough I've never taken a good photo of one, so here is a nice shot of the American Crow from wikipedia/GNU license.

American Crow - Corvus brachyrhynchos
Photo: from the Wikimedia Commons.

The reason I started thinking about crows was while playing with some vector program (Inkscape) and trying to draw out an approximation of a crow track.  I'd like to think that isn't too bad for no formal drawing program training.  Here is some information I gleaned reading up on crow tracks.

You may not see it on a small screen, but crows have pronounced joints on their toes and the feet are quite thick for a bird (though it is a large bird.)  The print itself is 2.5" to 3" long.  It has 3 forward facing and 1 rear facing toe.                                                                                                                                                                                   The toes point inward when they walk (similar to the expression pigeon-toed), and often have an alternating left right pattern, only they can angle oddly as the bird quickly changes direction. If the crow hussles, as when getting ready to fly, the distance between prints gets longer. Crows also hop, so you may see 2 prints side by side, then 2 more further away. They have long toes that may curl, creating long marks to the print in softer surfaces (snow).  Also, their medium to long length tail may make light marks on the surface as it touches the ground they have walked over, called a dragline.

Photo: jpmckenna via Flickr/Creative Commons

 In my image, I drew in the pad area of the print, between the individual joint bones and the last joint and claw, which wouldn't show on a harder surface.  As you can see in this photo, a crow's feet can mean business.

If you want a copy of the vector art of the crow track, just let me know.  If you have an animal track you'd like to have turned into vector art, also let me know!  Deer, Moose, Dogs, and Foxes are in the near future.