Signs of Wildlife in Burlington- Feb 2025
For this month’s phenology assignment, I decided to head over to Rock Point. On the walk there, through the bike path, I found a few sets of tracks and spotted many birds. Specifically, the first tracks I saw were a jumbled mess of prints left by a bird. They circled around some seeds dropped by a nearby shrub. Identifying these prints as American Robin required no guesswork since I spotted at least five of them feeding on the seeds shortly before I arrived.
These tracks were located on the side of the bike path as well. They are in a bounding pattern with the front feet (9cm) significantly larger than the rears (5cm). I believe these are from a cottontail rabbit due to the size and pattern of the prints matching. At first I thought they were squirrel tracks, but discounted that due to the hind prints being offset instead of parallel.
At Rock Point I only encountered a few tracks, but they were too damaged by additional snowfall to identify. However, I had another animal encounter heading back downtown by crossing the frozen lake. Here I saw a Canadian Goose.
Recording these observations through iNaturalist was super easy. The pictures I took seamlessly uploaded and were logged with no hassle. After uploading, users confirmed some of my observations. Overall, it is a great tool for data to be logged.