I really liked the potash brook lab and I wondered what it would look like in winter and I was not disappointed. I didn’t know that potash brook was a UVM managed natural area like Centennial Woods. The only downside was that since the snow was over a week old, the snow was churned up by dog tracks so it was tough to distinguish wild animal tracks at a distance.
Here was an interesting one, I don’t think this was a dog because it was travelling in a straight line away from the trail. Also, these are not the sloppy tracks of a happy dog. Given the size, with my own footprint for scale, my best guess is that this is either a grey or red fox.
I had some trouble figuring out what this is. It looks like it has a bounding gait, roughly 3-4 feet from hind to front foot, and about a six inch straddle. Given the context, this is close to a large stream and I saw an otter slide (pictured below) near the brook, my best guess is that this is a fairly large river otter that I came across.
I was really excited to see this snag in the middle of the forest. This is such a good example of why snags are so ecologically important. Not only it it pocked with woodpecker holes but you can also see larger holes in the dead wood which provide the perfect habitat for birds and rodents.
Thought I’d just throw this in, here’s the stream frozen over with the floodplains on either side. Most of the tracks in frame are either human or dog but they could have covered up some wild tracks.