If you guessed Slim Shady, then you would be wrong… Answer: PHENOLOGY BLOG IS BACK!!!
Returning to my site was a completely different experience as this time the landscape was shrouded in a fresh layer of snow! The snow changed the nature of my site in a variety of ways. Initially, the first thing I encountered, was how much harder it was to access my site. The snow made the steep sections of the trail hard to walk down and I almost slipped. although this is no big deal to me I though about handicap accessibility and how access to a public area such a Salmon Hole is a privilege to be able to enjoy year round. The snow also changed the appearance and sounds of the land. Noises seemed muffled and light reflected off of the snow giving the dark areas of wood more liveliness.
I was pleasantly surprised with how much animal activity I was able to observe while at my site. I found plenty of tracks in the fresh snow, I am not sure what animals left said tracks, but it was super fun to follow them around. I thought one of the game trails was initially just a dog someone had let off leash during a walk, but after following it into the bushes I saw the tracks go into a culvert and under a road, leading me to think that they belonged to either a fox or coyote (tracks were in a very straight line). I also saw squirrel prints (didn’t take a picture) and what a believe to be a rabbit/hare of some sort.
Another interesting, potentially phenological, change I noticed was the number of crows flocking around the area. it has been brought up before in NR lecture, but the number of crows passing through and congregating around Burlington is startling. It was my first time seeing the flocking occur in my sight, so I wonder if it is a result of the change of season or simply by chance.
