The temperature is slowly starting to get warmer again across Burlington and Winooski, and across the region of New England. There is more animal activity, song birds can be heard, and buds are starting to show, all signs that spring is approaching. Today I ventured down into Winooski and observed the area near Salmon Hole. During my walk down there were a lot more people out and about walking and running because the temperature had been warmer than the days before. There was a fresh layer of snow covering the trail down to the water, I knew I would see fresh animal tracks. Unfortunately as I started walking on the trail I realized it was a sheet of ice underneath the snow from the freezing and thawing that had happened a few days before. I observed my surroundings from the begging of the trail scanning the snow for tracks. I was able to see fresh tracks, which were easily identifiable as a squirrel.
The two images above are fresh tracks of a squirrel moving about the railing. I believe the squirrel had jumped out of a tree on to the railing because there were no other tracks in the snow before the railing.
There were a lot of active crows in the area, here is an image of one in a tree:
The Winooski river still has some ice flowing through it as there have still been days with below freezing or at freezing temperatures. One thing I assume is that there is typically more ice flowing through the river during this time, but temperatures have not been extremely cold this winter.
In this image a small chunk of ice can be seen floating down the river.