To explore the greater Burlington area, I took a trip down to Lake Champlain’s waterfront. When I arrived at the water, I took in the fresh air, feeling how the warmer air surrounded me. It was in the thirties and everyone had the same idea of heading down to the waterfront. There were so many people exploring the lake on its frozen surface. I would say that at least fifty people were out on the ice exploring. This was one of the first big signs of spring approaching, signs of life and community appearing once again.
I first took a trip to the backside of the ECHO center in hopes of spotting some waterfowl. On the frozen ice, I spotted a mallard sleeping right outside the docking area of the Marcelle Melosira! While I couldn’t get a great picture due to distance, I am positive this is a mallard as I am familiar with waterfowl ID. The day after I explored the waterfront I tabled at Wintervale doing Winooski River Waterfowl!
After spotting the mallard, I made my way down the waterfront more, headed towards Rock Point. I found many American Robins and spotted a ring-billed gull. I think the biggest trouble I had white trying to record observations using the INaturalist app was taking quality photos from far away.
After encountering these birds, I found what I believe to be house sparrow tracks, shown in the left image below. I believe these are house sparrow tracks and not another species of bird due to the very small sized tracks and commonality for sparrows to eat seeds off low plants like these ones. I also passed by many dog tracks, shown in the right image below. I believe these to be dog tracks and not another species due to the trail shape. This trail was all over the place, coming off of the biking path and returning to the biking path in a zigzag shape. This is evidence that a dog was the one who made these tracks as domestic dogs do not need to conserve their energy by walking strategically like wild animals do.
As I continued down the bike path, I noticed a variety of nests and hives! I found what I believe is a yellowjacket hive, pictured below in the left photo. I originally uploaded this photo to INautralist under the general “ants, bees, wasps, and sawflies” family as I was unsure on what type of hive it was, but a member of the INautralist community came to the ID of “aerial yellowjacket.” I saw many similar hives on my walk as well! There were a few nests up in the trees that I spotted. One of them is pictured below in the right photo. I am unsure on what species of bird lives or lived in this hive, but I wanted to document it and its location for future reference. It was hard to get a closer look at it as it was further back in a bushy area.
As I was looking around in this bushy area I found the nest in, I spotted what I believe to be an eastern cottontail. These tracks are very distinct due to the pattern of large feet landing in front of smaller feet. The tracks are depicted below, however I could not get a great photo due to distance.
Finally, as my journey wrapped up after exploring the area for a couple hours, I ran into what I believe to be american robin tracks. There were wing imprints in the snow and many tracks surrounding a small bush. This was a cool sighting as there were countless tracks all over the place!
Overall, this was a very fun spot to surround my phenology blog on! INautralist was a great tool to use when finding signs of wildlife. I really like how other people of the INautralist community can comment on a posted photo and help to ID things. I enjoyed being able to see everyone else’s phenology findings through the NR1020 Wildlife sign in Burlington as well!