Ooops, clarification on the question. ^_^
 

Wow, I am in class at the lake, this is so cool, and ichnomancy sounds so cool as well. She listened on and quickly realized they were most likely gonna be going in the lake. Her heart started to sky rocket, she felt so excited. She removed her outer robe and socks and shoes and headed closer to the lake where the professor was. She could not wait to see where this was going.

Ohhh...human characteristics. WHOOPS. Ella smiled sheepishly for a moment before giving the professor an apologetic look. At least now she could try again, yeah?

"Erm well birds can be social, intelligent, they can also be aggressive sometimes." Not all birds were though, at least as far as she knew.

Characteristics? West stuck his hand up and admitted, "I dunno professor but one of them should be confusion on account of it looks like whatever bird this was can't walk straight." He'd be paying attention to the actual answer though, because as he had said, he didn't know. Nope.

West took shoes and socks off and put them aside.

Laura looked at the Professor and smiled as she raised her hand again. "Well the animal walks on two legs just like a human, they have two eyes also." Laura wasn't sure if that was right or not but she was going to guess. "They also go to the toilet, even animals need to go to the toilet." Laura sighed, she was going of track here wasn't she.

Remove shoes and socks.

REMOVE SHOES AND SOCKS?

No thank you. Theo stood on the spot, tapping his foot very lightly on the ground. Course, if he was gonna get into trouble over it, he would probably cower over and take them off, but for now, he was taking a stand. No muddy sand was getting all up in HIS toes.

Onto the prints, his first instinct was dinosaur.

But when everyone else started answering, Theo nodded coolly. "Yeah, that is definitely a bird." He was clever, too. But human characeristics? How could you notice human characteristics from looking at a set of footprints? Theo looked around, cos he was CLEARLY missing something. Oh well, he would go for an obvious answer. "I guess they have toes like us." Yep.

Is that what she meant? Well then, that changed her answer completely. She looked down at the prints once again, her mouth still occupied with the chocolate frog.

Quite silently she eyed them, taking it all in. West was right. The bird had no sense of direction. Once she was done with that chocolate frog she spoke up. "I think we can rule out intelligence Professor. The bird doesn't even know where it's going." She stooped so she could get a closer look. "Maybe it was scared senseless by something else too?" Birds get scared. Now the only question was, scared by what?

"Maybe a bit ditzy too."

The Lake. They were going to the Lake. Alice hoped she could see the squid again. She rather admired his teeth, because they were incredibly sharp and all. Hers were going to be all pointy, too, one day. She swore it. And.. and mud. Oh. And they could take their shoes off, too? The lioness kicked off her school shoes and stockings, wiggling her toes into the mud. It was SQUISHY.

And now there were footprints, hmm?

Well, everyone had established that it was some kind of bird. Alice couldn't really deduct more than that. "Chickens can't walk straight," she pointed out helpfully. Maybe it was a chicken. "And they get scared easily, too."

Problem solved? SEEMED SO.

'Oh so that's what she wanted?' Alyssa thought to herself as Professor Elwood clarified the second part of the question. She listened as the others gave their answers and even though she knew that she would most likely be repeating some of the characteristics they had already mentioned, she raised her hand and gave her version.

"Professor this bird possesses intelligence because it seems to know where it's going. It looks like it has patience because we can see that it's not rushing around. It seems to have a purpose maybe in this case, it is looking for food." she paused to think of other possible traits.

"Um... Birds are diligent about cleanliness, because they are always preening themselves. They have a keen sense of eyesight like the Hawk or Eagle does. They like travelling in flocks, although I think in this case, this one may have got separated from his friends." Alysaa shook her sadly looking at the lone bird's foot prints in the sand.

Harvey arrived down by the lake and stood somewhat somewhere, he was not bothered where he stood as long as he didnt upset Ella with his presence. He then looked at the prints that the professor pointed at, he looked at them and instantly knew what animal they belonged to. Putting up his hand he answered "I think they belong to a bird or some kind.. an owl.. maybe" and their characteristics? "Umm they are winged animals with feathers and beaks." he said as he looked at the prints on the ground. He was right.. right? cause thats the kind of prints birds made in snow and stuff when he looked at them during the winter months. "They are intelligent as well as patient, some are even very observant" like hawks and eagles.. right?

Mo was one of the last out of the castle, mostly because he liked to look at everything along the way and because he was still thinking about how his tea answer should be right. Quite frustrating that it wasn't... if one was inclined to be frustrated, that was.

He paused beside West and gave him a shifty-eyed glance. "Great and powerful, East and West...Odessa. You ought to ask fro gifts before providing guidance. Seems fair."

Mo tugged off his shoes and placed them neatly on a stone before tucking his socks inside, and then he meandered over to study the footprints. He wasn't an expert on tracks, so he wouldn't hazard a guess other than to say that the lack of webbing in the print suggested it wasn't a water fowl... so not a duck, goose, or swan. He measured it out with his fingers.

"Definitely a bird, maybe a songbird or plover? Not a water bird, though. And I would say birds are..." He mused over the right words, picturing a bird in flight in his head before offering a subdued, "Intuitive. Spontaneous. Petty. Quarrelsome. Quick to fly away at first sign of hardship. Untethered, though... you know? Like free?"

"Well, it certainly wasn't Big Foot," Sierra said, raising her hand. She stared at the print tracks. What awkward feet. Poor animal. She couldn't even tell which direction the prints were traveling in. She guessed whatever it was was traveling from left to right, though. It just looked less awkward that way.

"Okay, let's go with...a duck, because you can see a faint trace of it's webs in the dirt, and the other parts look like the non-webbed part of their feet," she said. "As for characteristics, erm...let's go with confused, because I don't think the animal knew exactly where it was going. I think it was just walking all over the place." Maybe it was being chased...

...or maybe there were just too many ponds.

So it was clearly a duck as everyone else had already said,
He looked at the footprints for a moments and put his hand in the air. "I think this duck may have been dazed and confused. The footprints aren't line up right, not like how a duck would normally waddle I think." He proceeded to give a small demonstration of a duck waddle. "You know like that."

Ok so Hannah was at the lake, but she wasn't all that happy about it. Good things never came from the lake area. They had to take their shoes off? Didn't the professor know that there was dirt everywhere? Hannah did not simply go around bare foot you know... she was much too proper for all of that mess.

She relunctantly took off her shoes and craned her neck to see the set of prints that the professor was talking about. "Some type of bird, I'd say. As for characteristics I's say agile."

Needless to say, by the time Sky had arrived at the lake, Professor Elwood was moving on with the lesson. That was rude. Couldn't wait for the slow and out of breath, eh? Sky waited a moment for her breath to come back before slipping off her outer robes and placing them on top of her bag on the ground. Then she also slipped off her heels and tucked them out of sight under her robes. They were expensive, after all. And just for extra comfort, she undid her tie and placed it atop her robes before walking over to the footprints. Really? They were supposed to guess their human-like characteristics or whatever? Well, okay then. They looked like chicken prints so........

"Aggression?" Chickens were known for their aggressiveness, after all.

Aspen at the end.
 

Taking off his robe, Dylan folded it neatly before tucking it into his bag. Dropping it at the designated tree, he stepped out of his shoes and socks, putting those in a neat pile, as well. It was a tad strange for him not to be wearing his shoes...

Taking a look at the tracks...the Slytherin offered the answer most others had. "Bird tracks, ma'am...Flight?"

...but then she was clarifying.

Oh. Human-like characteristics...

Clearing his throat, Dylan smirked. "Well, there are TWO of them. That's pretty human-like." Taking a closer look, he shrugged. "They aren't rushed...The tracks are fully formed...So...Patience, like you mentioned?"

Also, when had Ravvie!Odessa shown up...?

Ahem.

Brows for her.

Those prints were DEFINITELY some kind of bird prints. They just had the shape that screamed rat with feathers. Birds were sort of gross. They carried disease around and were nasty animals, but a lot of people liked birds. Selina HAD to be missing the bird love or something. Even the Hufflepuff prefect had a bird. NASTY ANIMALS.

But she raised her hand to answer REGARDLESS of how she felt about the disease-carrying animals, "Its some type of bird, Professor. And they usually have anoying squaks or something." Annoying animals. They also bit you if you tried to feed them bread. WHY?!

OHHHHHHHH like human characteristics. Well, why didn't she say that? Here she was thinking that she wanted them to say disease infested or something.

"I think birds, personally, are dumb animals who carry disease." AND BITE YOU WHEN YOU GIVE THEM BREAD. Seriously, she was trying to be nice and they bit her. Ugh. DUMB ANIMAL.

Minerva set her things down by the tree. It was such a great day out and she couldn't help but be happy about being allowed to get rid of the robe. Pulling it off she set it on her bag then took off her shoes and socks. The grass felt good on her feet. Minerva loved how the grass felt between her toes.

Walking over to the group Minerva looked at the prints. Putting her hand up, "Professor, it looks like a bird prints, possibly a medium size by the feet, I wouldn't say that it spends much time in the water, because the feet does not seem to be webbed.As for intelligence, I don't think it's horribly dumb, but might not be all the smart either." Did that even sound right.. Minerva wasn't sure, but she was just guessing.

....

Aspen squinted at the Slytherin.

No, really, squinted.

In this scenario, she was the Giant Squid and the Slytherin Dylan was prey. She was sizing him up. Sizing his feet up. Sizing his brows up.

"You answer questions with questions." Just by the way. Everything with him ended in him not being sure.

She waited for him to ask, "I do?" and prove her point.