After a month away from UVM for winter break, today I was finally able to return to my phenology spot on the South Burlington Rec Path! Upon arriving, the first thing that I noticed was how quiet it was. Although my spot had already been blanketed by a dusting of snow before I left (and snow continues to cover most of the understory), the recent drop in temperatures over the past week has almost completely frozen the tributary of the Potash Brook that runs through my site. The water that once rushed down towards Lake Champlain is now solidified into chunks of thick ice, excluding a few spots where the ice remains relatively thin. Besides that, not many phenological changes appear to have taken place, and most of the plant life (excluding the evergreens) is dead. However, there are still signs of life scattered all around my phenology spot, mainly in the form of animal tracks! Pictured below, the primary tracks that I was able to document appear to belong to some sort of canine (my best guess is that they’re dog prints), and are imprinted into the thin layer of snow coating the frozen stream. There were also a few smaller tracks running along the top of a log (similarly captured as snow imprints), that I believe belong to some sort of small animal (maybe a squirrel?). Both sets of prints are fairly clearly defined, and the claws of both creates are visible where they had tread. Although I did not see any signs of bird prints, I could also hear a few birds chattering above me in the overstory, which I now wish that I had attempted to ID using my MerlinID app.
