For this adventure, I was tasked with exploring another location to identify the markings of an animal. For my location, I decided to take another exploration of Centennial Woods. While I have been to the Centennial Woods Natural Area a few times for my NR-1020 class, I figured that I could find a way to make the area new to me. This time, I was able to explore some of the other trails, and see the environment with snow cover.
Slight side-tangent before I get into the tracking: While I was walking, I was so struck at just how beautiful the forest scenery was in the snow. Being from Maryland, I did not have snow cover on the ground nearly as much, and when I did, I tended to take advantage of the limited snow cover by sledding instead of exploring the woods, so seeing snow in nature is still pretty new to me.
Look how beautiful this is! how could you hate it?
Another thing about the snow that always amazes me is that it can keep a log of the population of critters that have passed by. When I first started tracking this semester, I always neglected squirrels, but tracking them has grown on me a lot. They are a very familiar animal to me, so I spent most of the time in Centennial Woods tracking a singular squirrel on his journey. Squirrels were some of the only animal tracks that I found, which I assumed was because the presence of humans and dogs scared many larger animals away.
I tracked our furry friend for around 300 ft, which was a surprisingly long distance for a squirrel. It would stop every 10-20 feet or so where it would then dig up a pile of snow. I assumed that this was the squirrel searching for spots that it buried nuts or acorns during the summer and fall.
Here’s one of the dug-up areas that I saw along the squirrel’s path. I found it so interesting that I could look at the ground and see a story of an animal’s life. This squirrel hopped over fallen trees, crossed paths, and avoided danger all to survive and get food during the winter.
While exploring the rest of the trails at Centennial Woods, I really thought it was interesting that, no matter how close I was to a trail that I knew, the space still felt brand new to me. I hope that we see more snowfall this season, as I cannot wait to see what other tracking signs I may see this season! That’s all for now!