{"id":93,"date":"2025-01-27T20:59:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-28T01:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/belarsen\/?p=93"},"modified":"2025-01-27T21:08:53","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T02:08:53","slug":"january-check-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/belarsen\/2025\/01\/27\/january-check-in\/","title":{"rendered":"January Check In"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

January 18, 1:20pm <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

About a week ago, I revisited my phenology spot. The landscape was transformed by snow that had fallen over the last few days. The blanket of white made everything feel quieter except the creaking of trees in the wind and the crunch of hardened snow underfoot. Upon first glance, bare branches and patches of dead grasses appeared to be the only things to observe. The remaining color was from the towering eastern white pines, patches of moss and lichen, or a few shrunken red berries remaining on the barberry. Centennial Brook was largely frozen over since the weather was in the 20s. Sections of the brook had breaks in the ice revealing a steady flow of water underneath. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
I kept an eye out for possible shelters for wildlife from the cold <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Lichen and moss on branches added some color to an otherwise dull landscape<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
ice covering parts of the stream at the edge of my phenology spot had melted<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Dead\/dormant vegetation and evergreens <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Aside from one mystery bird calling, I saw no wildlife near my spot. However, there were tracks surrounding the creek as well as left on the surface of the frozen creek. I noticed that the frozen river was used by creatures as a sort of pathway. Some of these were clearly fellow hikers and their dogs, but I tried to identify a few other tracks that seemed to be from wild animals. I am very new to identifying tracks, but below are some guesses I have for tracks I found in my phenology area. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
I thought this could possibly be gray squirrel prints due to larger hind feet and distance between the tracks indicating a jump. It was larger than the similar tracks below by a few centimeters, leading me to think the below tracks might belong to a red squirrel. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
I’m unsure about this one. The significantly larger hind foot print and tracks being at a diagonal makes me think a cottontail rabbit or hare. The hind foot is pretty wide, making it seem more like a snowshoe hare. I’m not sure about the dragging which I feel like works against the tracks being from a rabbit. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
This one is largely a mystery to me. It looks a little like a skunk since the hind and front are different sizes and the way the prints are staggered. It’s probably not, but is possible since skunks don’t truly hibernate over the winter. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

January 18, 1:20pm About a week ago, I revisited my phenology spot. The landscape was transformed by snow that had fallen over the last few days. The blanket of white made everything feel quieter except the creaking of trees in the wind and the crunch of hardened snow underfoot. Upon first glance, bare branches and … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “January Check In”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9854,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"belarsen","author_link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/belarsen\/author\/belarsen\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/belarsen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/belarsen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/belarsen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/belarsen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9854"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/belarsen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/belarsen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/belarsen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93\/revisions\/109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/belarsen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/belarsen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/belarsen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}