Happy last week of classes!!
To celebrate being done with classes, I decided to dedicate my Saturday morning to visiting my phenology spot, grabbing hot chocolate, and enjoying the winter weather of Vermont! Somehow, I didn’t know that overnight it was supposed to snow, but it made for a pleasant surprise for when I woke up to the blanket of snow outside!
I bundled up in my warmest sweater, hiking boots (I don’t yet own good winter boots yet… oops), and set off to my phenology spot! After missing the bus, I realized I would have to make the hour long walk to Oakledge Park in the cold, but thankfully I brought a pair of gloves, a hat, and decided NOT to wear my converse (I would have fallen so much and honestly probably decided to turn around and go back to campus if I had made the mistake of wearing them lol). The walk over was super pretty, and I loved seeing all the cute Burlington houses covered in snow! It felt like I was in a Hallmark holiday movie!
While the snow was unexpected and made for a slippery walk, it also created beautiful scenery of the lake when I got to Oakledge Park. There were fewer people out than normal, and with all the snow, I was left to experience the park in a quietness that I hadn’t experienced there before. The quietness struck me hardest when I was walking along the path in the park, on the way to the cove, when I heard an audible pecking sound. I immediately recognized the sound as a woodpecker, as we have lots of them at home where I live (they’re my dad’s favorite birds to point out to me), and instantly wanted to look around to find it. I quickly spotted it in the patch of trees between the path and the rocky shore of the lake, hopping from branch to branch, pecking it a few times before moving on. Referring to “Naturally Curious”, I learned that the woodpecker could either be a Hairy Woodpecker or a Downy Woodpecker, which are the two species of woodpeckers that are most common in the Northeast. Both birds stay around year-round and are supposed to be easier to identify when compared next to each other as their differences are clearer when viewed side by side. While I was able to get pretty close to the woodpecker, I wasn’t able to snap a clear enough picture of it to identify when I got back to campus, so the species will remain a mystery for now!
Which species do you think it is? The hairy woodpecker is larger, has a proportionately larger bill, a longer and more distinct black mark on the shoulder, and, in most populations, has completely white outer tail feathers. I think its hard to tell from the photos, but it might be a downy because in the pictures its bill looks slightly shorter than its head?
Not only was my woodpecker sighting intriguing for me because I had never noticed any woodpeckers at Oakledge, but it was also intriguing because of the trees that the bird was hopping on. These trees had an interesting appearance, with purplish-red fruits/flowers (?) on the ends of its hair branches with buds alternating down the length of the branch. Using iNaturalist, I discovered that the trees were staghorn sumacs, and that the red bundles of flowery/fruit things at the end of the branches were actually its fruits that can remain on the plant from late summer through spring, providing many birds a source of food throughout the winter! I also learned that the fruits of sumacs are edible, can be used to be made into pink “lemonade”, used to make jelly, or be eaten raw! Unfortunately, though, I didn’t learn this until returning to campus, so my blog will not feature a taste test of the sumac fruits. ☹
After enjoying the woodpecker sighting for at least 10 minutes straight, I eventually decided that I should make my way to my actual phenology spot at this point, despite how interesting the rest of the park is. I got distracted by another bird on the way, this time a blackbird who had decided to perch on the very highest branch of a tree (which was almost too thin to support its weight), but I continued walking in an attempt to not let myself get distracted again. The quietness of the snow made the walk so peaceful, and the landscape was so gorgeous with stark white snow everywhere. Noticing a few leaf stragglers on a tree (some sort of oak I think), I thought back to my last visit to Oakledge when the fall colors were in full effect. The colors had been so vivid, with the pops of oranges, yellows, and reds on so many of the trees leading up to the cove, and on the rocky point of the cove. Now all that was left were the needles of the evergreen trees that were along the main shoreline of the park. On top of that, all the fallen leaves were now buried under all the snow that had fallen last night, so it was difficult to see how the decomposition of leaves was going, or if the cold had slowed the process down.
Not only was the foliage different, but the water looked colder too. It was deeper, icier and more grayish blue than before, and while it was still clear near the shoreline it looked almost dense in a way out in the distance. Despite the freezing cold appearance, I was surprised to find a group of ducks swimming through the water, seemingly unphased by the cold weather. I had thought that ducks migrated during the winter to avoid the cold weather and have better access to food, but it seemed as though these ducks missed the memo.
I ventured out to the rocky point of the cove with the remnants of the old fireplace, where I had sat on my last visit, to get a better view of the lake with the mountains in the background. I quickly noticed that the grasses poking out between the cracks of the rocks were completely encased in ice, about ¼ inch thick. Exploring the ice cover more, I then noticed that not only were the strands of grass covered in this ¼ inch covering of ice, but so were all the rock faces that faced the lake! It was as if as the cold weather and snowy weather came in, the wind had sprayed the lake water onto the rock faces, and it had slowly frozen over time to only cover these surfaces, leaving the tops of the rocks bare from the ice. The rocks below my feet were also encased in ice, and when I brushed away the snow on top of it I uncovered something that I found really cool; the leaves that had fallen earlier in the month had been frozen over, almost freezing them in a moment of time when they were starting to decompose, but hadn’t made it that far in the process yet.
This frozen tree on the shoreline reminded me of the trees in a Krummholz forest that we learned about. Unlike the Krummholz forests though, where almost the entirety of the tree can become frozen over, this tree was only half frozen on the side that faced the lake. It was as if the lake had created a Krummholz/mountain-like condition on one side of the tree!
Eventually, a few other people arrived to the cove, and I decided to start heading out so they could enjoy the peaceful snowy landscape on their own like I had been able to do. On my way out, I kept an eye out for any tracks in the snow that could be from any animals, and despite it being hard with all the foot traffic that had passed through the park throughout the day, I think I found a few examples of some wildlife tracks in the snow! While my tracking skills aren’t the best and these tracks could entirely be just those of dogs who had their morning walks at Oakledge today, I did look through my animal tracking identification book and also browsed Naturally Curious for any clues to what other wildlife the tracks could be from. Here they are:
These are the first tracks I spotted. Knowing that there are definitely lots of dogs who take walks in this park, and because of the familiarity of this print, I’m guessing these prints are from a dog!
The next tracks I spotted were less clearly a dog, and this time were much smaller, sometimes appeared with only three toes, and seemed to have clearer claw indents in the snow too. The three toes threw me off; I couldn’t find anything online that identified an animal based off of its tracks having three toes. However, I read in Naturally Curious that fox tracks and dog tracks can look very similar, but that there are some key differences, so I decided to look into the possibility of these tracks being from a fox. The book mentioned that it is often hard to see the details of a fox’s track in the snow because of the amount of hair on the bottom of its foot, so instead you can use the pattern the tracks are in to help identify it, as trotting foxes often leave a clean, straight-line pattern with their hind feet registering directly in the tracks made by their front feet, while dog tracks are much more erratic and random. This again threw me off; the tracks had defined details, but also were in a very straight-line pattern. For now, I’m going to go with the guess that they were fox prints, just because they aren’t clearly dog prints, and it is a cool thought that a fox was walking through the snowy cove earlier today!
Leaving Oakledge for the last time this semester, and on my way to getting a cup of hot chocolate from Nomad Coffee just down the road from the park, I reflected on all my visits to Oakledge this semester, and how much I have just loved visiting my phenology spot. From the first visit I had with my whole family during fall break to now, it’s been amazing to realize just how much I have learned from this class, and how much better connected I feel to not only Burlington and its wild areas, but just nature in general. I notice myself stopping to look at the tiniest of details on my walks to Oakledge, and returning to campus feeling rejuvenated and happier than I was before I left. I am so glad I picked a spot like Oakledge Cove; I love the fact that it is on the water, and that it is also in a local park surrounded by some suburban Burlington neighborhoods. I’ve loved the family-friendly vibe of the park, the numerous dogs I’ve seen, and just the peacefulness of being on the water. I am definitely planning on returning throughout the spring semester, and hopefully will get to see its beauty in spring too!
