I of course completed my tracking project right before we finally got some snow for the first time in a few weeks. The lack of snow on the ground made tracking difficult. However, besides finding a number of dog prints that we briefly thought were bobcats, it was a successful journey.
On Tuesday, I headed down to Centennial Woods. It’s probably a classic spot for most people but I actually haven’t been since last semester. I searched for about 10 minutes before I found anything. A little ways off the trail, I found some scat. I thought at first it might belong to a rabbit, due to its round shape. However, due to its larger size, I realized it was a white-tailed deer. There were four or five other piles of deer scat within the same five foot radius, so I figure the deer must come to this area often.
I had much better luck now that I was off the trail. I followed the stream for a little while, figuring that it was likely that animals would need to stop and get some water. Plus, the dirt would be muddy by the bank, leading to easier to identify tracks. After searching for a while, I found some prints. I tried to follow them to the other side of the stream, but the ground was covered in ferns, so no prints would have been left. I identified these prints to belong to a raccoon. I also considered that they might be from a porcupine, but I noticed that these prints were bigger and had five fingers on the front paw instead of four. It seemed to be pretty average sized, with a 14 inch pace.
I’d been hearing bird calls the whole time I was in the woods, but I was unable to identify any. However, on my way back, I noticed some rustling in a nearby tree and spotted this Northern Cardinal perched on one of the branches. I was able to get pretty close to him without scaring him away.
Once I got back, I posted the picture of the cardinal, along with some pictures of a few mushrooms I spotted along the way (Pear-shaped Puffball and Lumpy Bracket) on iNaturalist. It was very easy to do with the app, although I had to estimate the location at which I took the pictures a bit. Everything got confirmed to be Research Grade! My friend, Natalie, posted the deer scat and raccoon prints, which were also confirmed. It was really cool to see that we were contributing to such a big project and that our identifications had been correct.
P.S. I ventured outside of Burlington to Boston, MA for the long weekend. Here’s my bonus findings of some friendly seagulls!
