Animal Tracks After a Fresh Dusting

I have returned to my phenology site from last semester after a long hiatus. After a few months and numerous snow falls, freezes, and thaws, my spot has seemed to become a completely different location. Everything looks so drastically different covered in snow and ice. The hill leading down to the tip of the peninsula has frozen over and it is now very difficult to venture down to this area. I was slipping and sliding all over the place on the way down while I was trying to be precarious and not step on anything that looked close to being a footprint or a track of some kind. This was one of the most difficult feats that I have encountered thus far, and I even almost fell into the water at the bottom of the slope because I couldn’t catch myself quick enough. However, if I would have fallen in the water, I would have just slid on some ice because the stream was frozen over enough to stand on which I figured out later in my journeys. Due to the ground being frozen over and having snow on top of the ice, following the animal tracks was tricky, however I was able to follow a pair of tracks which led me all over the woods. Unfortunately, I was not able to find any scat or any other remnants of what I thought was a weasel (but I have no clue because I’m awful at tracking), but I was able to find two holes in the ground that it’s tracks ultimately led me to. I was only able to find the tracks of a weasel (or a mink) and a dog, but I think I also found some other tracks (which I will include on the photos page) which I was unable to identify. I also was able to get some twigs  to try and identify the tree species (which I will identify in the photos section), but I was unable to reach some of the more prominent trees in the area since those were super tall and well developed. Overall it was a kind-of successful trip, also sort-of disappointing, since I wasn’t able to find more animal tracks, but I will try and go back soon after the next snowfall and see if I can find some more animal tracks!