A wildlife puzzle....what left these tracks?

[AlanThePig]

Best I can google is a sheep. I know it can be a bit mad here but reasonably sure we haven't had a sheep dancing around in the dirt on DH's bonnet 😂

We have wild ducks and moorhens, but doesn't appear to match any of those. I'm stumped! Slightly amused that one seems to read 'FU' though. Some creature sending him a message for sure 😂

Something pretty small... with teeny tiny hooves... a pixie sheep!

Oh for a flock of tiny tiny sheep. You could knit little booties from their wool!

Looks like deer to me.

I'm properly intrigued now. Googling also suggests hippopotamus, but that would require your car to be really huge.

There seem to be little paw prints in among the parallel lines, and an area where the parallel lines cross each other diagonally, like a pigeon toed affect. And whatever it is walked round and round in circles a lot...

I'm imagining scenarios where a large rat and a bird were dancing together.

Also unlikely.

To me too, but the nearest wild deer are about 5 miles away and we're very urban, even though we have a lot of wildlife here.
Very odd. I instantly thought duck or moorhen but it's unlike any bird print i've ever seen before.

And again, would require a very big car or a very small deer.

Oh I needed that laugh.
DH currently has covid, he's not ill happily, but at this moment in time I should have just arrived at Disneyland Paris so I'm slightly irked to be sat on the sofa wondering what the hell was dancing on his car.

Typically it's parked in an area where I dont think the CCTV fully covers it either. Bah.

I'm also struck down with Covid and have no concentration, so dreaming up wild animal scenarios fits my mood. I've also realised there's a nest in the garden, so I'm keeping an eye out to see who lives in it. I think it's Dunnocks, but they come past at such speed I can't quite see them. The nest is hidden but when parent arrives with food the chicks chirrup loudly giving the game away.

Googling also suggests hippopotamus, but that would require your car to be really huge.

Or that househippos actually are a thing....

Just a thought, but where did the tracks start, OP? E.g. are they just in the middle of the bonnet (implying something landed on the car) or do they start near one of the sides (implying something jumped up)? They do look like deer prints to me. How big are they? Muntjac are the smallest deer in the UK, according to Google their prints are 2cm wide and 3-4cm long.

If only house hippos were a thing. I'd have a flock, or whatever you call a small collection of hippos.

Anyway, I went back in to the CCTV and it turns out he actually parked the car further forward than usual (I'm going with Covid brain, get well soon btw @picklemewalnuts )
Anyway, just sat and run through all of last nights footage...I have the answer, and I'm fairly sure none of us would have guess the somewhat disappointing culprit.

Next doors cat.
I should preface this with telling you how DH and NDC are arch enemies. It's the source of endless amusement to me as one minute he'll be standing in the window and the next running off down the drive. NDC is a bit of a killing machine and has taken lots of our wild ducklings in the past and more recently some moorhen chicks. So anyway DH and NDC have a mutual hatred of each other. The fact there is a clear FU on the bonnet should have been the giveaway.

Around 3am NDC hops on the bonnet, sits on the red bit at the side and proceeds to lick the car. I have no idea why, but it was tongue marks and not footprints. Case closed.

NDC picture added. DH now even more annoyed with NDC.

Pigeons. Wearing roller skates.

Damn. So close!

So not a muntjac then

Wow... I thought they didn't look quite like footprints, but couldn't figure out what else they could be.
So... does the cat have a forked tongue or something? Is that pattern of 2 parallel lines a normal cat thing?

Amazing. A cat that can spell and has mastered insults and abbreviations. Genius. Your husband inspires a special kind of stalker, clearly!

The cat might have been trying to write 'FUD' I suppose, I can't imagine even that amount of car dirt was very filling.

I'm still chuckling. There is a lot of dust on the bonnet and it's a mat paint so maybe it tastes or feels good? I'd even asked what he'd used to wash the car with in case there was something that tasted good in the shampoo or something, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Do cats lick cars? Is that a usual thing? Weird.

Is there such a thing as 'usual' for a cat?
There's a whole thread here...

Tell me about your cats weird quirks light hearted http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/thelitterr_tray/4571432-tell-me-about-your-cats-weird-quirks-light-hearted

I've not read it, but they'd probably be interested in your neighbour's weird cat (and could maybe confirm whether or not that's a normal lick mark and not some sort of snake-cat)