This is my first trip back to my phenology site after winter break and in the spring semester and I am so happy to be back! I forgot how extremely beautiful and tranquil my place was after such a long time apart. There were many changes from my last visit as well. The biggest change was that my spot was covered in snow! There had been flurries in my past visits but seeing everything in a blanket of snow was lovely. Another change was something I heard before I even got to my site: the brook flowing. As I was walking across the footbridges I could hear how fast the stream was flowing. When I arrived at the site the first thing I noticed about the body of water was the white foam bubbles forming around one of the bends. The brook was also very low which uncovered large areas of rocks that were in the stream in previous visits. This low water also showed the eroded muddy banks of the side of the brook closest to the footbridges. The most exciting thing about this visit was being able to see animal prints in the snow. The first print I saw was very easy to define as a dog print. This was easy to see not only from the classic “paw print” but also in the diagonal pace. The next print I found was a deer print. I was able to follow these tracks all around to the far side of the brook near the wetlands. These prints were easy to identify based on their straight lines of hoof-shaped prints. After measuring these I was able to find that the print was 7.62 inches wide and 5.12 inches in width. The last print I found was a rabbit. I was able to determine this because there seemed to be larger feet in front of the smaller feet prints. After looking at my class notes I was able to understand that the hind feet end up in front of the smaller ones due to hopping. Another thing I was able to practice on this visit on January 28 was winter twig identification. The first twig I was able to identify was on the Norway maple at my site that surprisingly still is clinging onto a few leaves. This twig is the one I drew in my field notes and the only thing I was unsure about what the difference between the internode and node were. The terminal bud was red and brown with very prominent bud scales. The bundle trace was extremely visible as well with the ring of the bud scales keeled. I was also able to identify white pine, red maple, and sugar maple buds. I can’t wait for my next site visit to see the other changes as winter progresses.