Visit to North Beach!
By: Amelia Weeden
2/20/2023
For this phenology spot visit, I decided to take advantage of the good weather and went to North Beach with a friend. With no snow, I hadn’t been expecting to find many (or any) animal tracks. However, the beach was a fantastic spot for animal activity! On the way there I encountered a hornet’s nest and many dog tracks, which I was able to identify with the iNaturalist app. Although I was able to use the app easily in identifying tracks, I was unable to properly upload them to the project. After uploading my observations to the overall site, I couldn’t find how to upload them on the iNatutralist blog for NR itself. Regardless, my visit was a success.
Once we arrived at the beach we encountered a few different signs of Winter animal activity. First, we noticed that there were tracks in the sand. Initially we had believed them to be dog tracks again, but came to the conclusion that they were more likely a coyote’s. The track’s were more narrow than a typical dog’s pawprint, and had sharp, pointy claws rather than dull claws.
As we continued our journey we encountered yet another sign of animal life, ducks!
Finally, we finished out our visit with a quick campfire before deciding to call it a night. All in all, it was a very successful trip!
