Phenology of the Greater Burlington Area
On this snowy day of February 20th, a few friends and I returned to the Intervale to explore the winter ecology and search for tracks. We decided to hike through the trail towards the river, where we hoped to find signs of beaver chews or tracks. We found that most of the area was covered in boot prints, probably from lab earlier that week and we were only able to find a single track. However, seeing the part-frozen river was super cool and we spent some time looking at the makeup of the forest. We found that most of the trees were red and silver maples, with some ash and boxelder sprinkled in.
We encountered a track that was hard to get close to due to the depth of the snow, but it resembled 4 tiny tracks with about a 4 cm straddle and two larger hind feet. Based on our tracking guide, we guessed this to be a mouse! We used the iNaturalist app to capture the tracks and the app also guessed either a mouse or fisher.
