It has been a while since I visited Centennial Woods so I decided to make a visit and explore how the scenery had changed. My friend from my home town, Garrett, was visiting so the two of us decided to walk down together.
The entrance of the trail was very icy, we ended up having to slide down the hill. This was probably caused by the fluctuations in temperature we have been seeing the past few days.
The goal of our trip was to find as many new species as we could. We came across a tall bush with berries, iNaturalist identified it as a viburnum plant, which usually flowers in the spring.
Next, we came across shelf fungi which iNaturalist couldn’t identify. When location-based suggestions were turned off marshmallow polypore was listed. However, these fungi are found in western comfier forests, so it is not a likely guess. After doing further research using the iNaturalist Centennial Woods checklist, my guess would be that this is birch polypore, because they are visually similar and the fungi is located on a birch tree.
Once again using the iNaturalist Centennial Woods checklist, we guessed that the orange fungus in the image below was a lobster mushroom based on the color.
Our last iNaturalist find was callicladium, a species of moss which was identified using the iNaturalist app.
Next, we started looking for animal tracks. The image below shows what we believe to be grey squirrel tracks based on the length between strides and the side by side hopping pattern.
The next set of tracks was in a waddling pattern, it was hard to tell which animal it might be because of the melting snow, toes marks were very difficult to identify. Based on the length between strides and the size of the tracks that it was a skunk. But there was much debate.
We ended our hike at the small stream. The last time I was at Centennial Woods the stream was flowing in full force. But now, even on this 35 degree day, there was ice cover over the stream. However, it was not frozen solid, there was still water running beneath the ice. This was by far the most interesting sighting on our hike.
