Heading through snow or mud, animals write their daily activities with the tracks they leave behind. Which makes tracking kind of like gaining access to an animal's secret diary.

At the winter workshop, "Animal Tracking - Whose Footprint is That?" in College of the Atlantic's George B. Dorr Museum of Natural History on Saturday, March 8 from 1 to 3 p.m., you can learn how to read tracks by recognizing individual signature footprints, gait and habits of animals.

The sessions will begin inside the Dorr Museum, where the group will examine animal feet, make plaster track casts and prints with rubber feet, and learn how to distinguish animal bounds from hops from running and lumbering gaits. While the plaster casts are drying, the gathering will head outdoors to read tracks in the snow and mud.

The winter workshop series will conclude on Saturday, March 15 with a session on Wild Bird Eggs, also from 1 to 3 p.m., during which attendees can attempt to recreate the special beauty of the eggs of wild birds with dyes.

The cost is $5 for adults; $2 for children and members. Children must be accompanied by an adult. For more information, call 288-5395 or 288-5015 ext. 238.