After a little over a month away from Burlington, VT I have made my way back to Redstone Quarry. The landscape has undeniably changed, and my predictions from December have finally come to fruition. The rockface is filled with hanging icicles and the ground is covered in about 6 inches of powdery snow. The pond and marshy areas are frozen over and solid enough to walk across, and most of the trees have lost all of their leaves; some Northern Red Oak and American Beech are still hanging on to a few stragglers. Squirrel nests are dotting the tallest trees and cardinals flew over the top of the quarry as I walked around.
Many of the tracks I saw appeared to be made by domesticated dogs, and this was well verified by the number of people hiking around the quarry with their animals. However, I did see some non-canine marks. The snow had filled in a good amount of the tracks so there weren’t many defining characteristics I could pick out. I believe the photo on the left is from a gray squirrel because they were on the larger side and they followed a hopping pattern. The tracks on the right seem to be in a walking and trotting pattern with a straight, zig-zag line and the size seems to point to a gray or red fox.
