March 6, 2019
The conditions on the walk into my site were markedly improved from my last trip where it was a solid sheet of ice. The conditions were a dusting of light powder that was from a snowstorm that stopped during the walk in covering a couple inches of hard crunchy snow with a bottom layer of ice for a total cover of 3-4 inches.
The top photos are from this visit, the bottom images are from the previous visit.
All trees are in good conditions with no indication of blowdowns or broken branches. The river had a dusting of snow on top of the ice and was about 6 feet below the floodplain level. There was a different climate on the other side of the river as the fields let in more sunlight which results in snowmelt.
Some tracks that I found at my site are gray fox and red squirrel.
This seems to be a trail that has been used multiple times by the same animal. It has a direct register with a track stride of 34cm and straddle of 5-10cm as the multiple track sets made this hard to determine. The track length is 5-6 cm long by 5-6cm wide. The track has 4 toes, claws, and a X mark in the negative relief. The only two animals with a track of this profile are the Red Fox and Gray Fox and the tracks are a Grey Fox due to the shape of the heel pad.
This next track goes to a sugar maple (acer rubrum) which is about a foot outside the of the photo. The track is a hopper/galloper and has a stride of 45cm and a straddle of 4cm for the hind foot and a straddle of 1cm for the front foot. Based upon the track size, this is a red squirrel track.
The next post will focus upon a different location that I explore during break and likely somewhere at a higher elevation in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.