Today, I visited Centennial woods and found and exceptional measure of ice which was somewhat unexpected. At a cool 28 degree, cloudy day, the trail itself had a thick, hard layer which coated its entirety. While the surrounding areas had snow, melts caused by the warmth of previous days had taken the character out of it and allowed the trail to hardened smoothly, causing tracks to become a difficult find.
Despite the struggles between melted ice and snow, there were some potential deer tracks in sight. The melt of the snow made seeing the shape of the paw/hooves impossible. However, the spotted tracks seemed to be about a foot and a half apart and were mid-sized holes in the snow, marked by a walking and trotting pattern, in a roughly in a straight line. Despite the straddle of the tracks being quite small, the hooves/paw prints were quite wide, indicating that this likely was not a greatly small animal. The only other directs signs of animals came from the potentially chewed bark off the bottom of trees. This bark was likely consumed by creatures living in the subnivean zone when the snow was higher.
The main difference I saw between my last visit in December to now, the end of January, was the lack of color. While in December, the trees had lost their leaves, their orange color still littered the forest floor. Now, the ground was generally white with bits of brown and the occasional green moss showing. Additionally, many trees appeared to be shedding their bark much more noticeably than in December.
