Also we humans have quite remarkable sniffing capabilities. We are thirteenth among the animal species for number of olfactory genes.
A scientific study has moreover calculated that our sense of smell can potentially distinguish between a trillion different odours.

Would you like to put your sense of smell to the test?
Have the person accompanying you choose some elements from the woods. For example a leaf, some earth, a piece of wood, a flower, a berry, or a fruit. Make sure they are collected with care and attention. Then smell them with your eyes closed and without touching them. Try and describe the smell: what do they remind you of?
And then try to guess what elements they are.

the fox has a sense of smell that is 30 times more sensitive than that of humans? And that the wolf can sniff out its prey 3 kms away? Deer on the other hand can perceive faint smells from 400 metres. The hedgehog cannot see more than 12 metres away at night but can perceive smells from much further afield. The ant sniffs with its antennae and cannot stand the smell of mint. Smell for animals is an indispensable tool for their fundamental activities: searching for food, locating a mate, a burrow or den and also warning of dangers.

For the animals that inhabit them, the woods are a world to be explored starting from the smells.
Smell signals the presence of food, prey, but also possible “soul mates” or predators or alarm signals. Animals communicate through these smells produced, left on the terrain and sniffed. Because smells can be perceived from far away, even at night. They can indicate the presence of something well before sight and hearing pick it up.