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The Red Stone Pines is home to beautiful scenery and an abundance of species that are right on campus. This phenological spot is the perfect place for people to hammock and hang out in during the warm months. There’s a large social culture in this spot, and the natural aspects of it make it a very pleasant place to be.

I do think that I am apart of this place. I’ve seen this spot change during every season and I’ve spent a lot of time here both with friends and by myself. I feel like I am very familiar with it overall, which makes me feel a part of it. I look forward to being closer with it over the next few years.

Red Rocks Trail map

For this blog posting I explored the Red Rocks park area in South Burlington, about a 5-10 min drive from the University of Vermont. I had to do a project for another class using iNaturalist, so I thought I would post my findings for this project simultaneously. I really like using the app because it helps me put a name to the things that I see during everyday life. It was also cool to see people in the same area identifying different species and I also thought it was helpful that people could critique another person’s findings. Some of the species I encountered were the common hackberry, bleeding hearts, white pine, white cedars, yellow trout lilies, and mulleins. We also paid attention to the bird species and some of the ones we identified were black-capped chickadees, pileated woodpeckers, northern cardinals, and pine warblers. I think overall this challenge is a really cool opportunity to see what other people experience on a daily basis and how different it is from what I see. An example of something interesting I saw was a picture of a sheep and wild rabbits in Bolivia, which I wasn’t really expecting to see.

The space behind my house holds access to a few nature trails and is a really nice spot to explore the surrounding species. I put in pictures from a few days ago before the snowstorm and a picture after the snowstorm to share what my backyard looks like in different weather occurrences. While I was exploring I was able to identify a couple black-capped chickadees that frequent my bird feeder and I also spotted a red-winged blackbird. There is an abundance of Eastern White Pines in these woods along with some Eastern Hemlocks. Compared to my other phenology site, I see a lot of the same species, but the ones in these woods are a lot more abundance and not as spaced out as the Red Stone Pines.

For this Phenology assignment, my friends and I traveled to the sea caves over by the high school and north beach. As we started walking on the frozen pond, we all got a notification on our phone about the squall warning. I’d never even heard of what that was so that sure was an experience. We saw lots of different animal tracks like one that was most likely a fisher and small fish swimming in the water inside the caves which was really cool. I liked using the iNaturalist app because it’s layout was really easy to figure out and explore. It was also interesting seeing all of the other finding from other people on the app.

This is one animal track that I found, likely from a gray squirrel. These tracks led from one of the trees and ended at another one about 20 feet away.

Starting at the Davis Center, the walk to the Red Stone Pines is pretty direct. If you start in the tunnel under Main St and follow the path that leads to Red Stone campus, this area is on the right, just past the catholic center. It’s hard to miss with the many towering trees and usually an abundance of people hammocking there when the weather is warmer.

The colder weather has definitely caused the vegetation to lessen and frost was partially covering the ground. It was a lot windier out on the path than it has been in the past and the chill from the water was much more intense. It hadn’t snowed by the time I visited my spot, so I couldn’t really see any prominent animal tracks, but I did see many squirrels and birds all over the area. Other than domesticated dogs being walked and cats from nearby neighborhoods, I didn’t see any larger animals.