phenological changes
Good afternoon loyal followers of my phenology blog. Since my last visit to the salmon hole, which occurred in early december, we have gotten significantly more snowfall, transitioning from scattered sections of still frozen snow, to a blanket at least a foot thick at any given point. This represents a further change in environment, thus causing the area’s flora, fauna, and fungi, to respond accordingly. The only remaining green at the site is some exposed moss, and the lichen on some of the trees, which seem to be growing all the same through the dropping temperatures.
tracks
These tracks were fairly easy to identify as a bird, as they were just a very characteristic shape. Based on the shallow imprint, and the three prongs up, with one long imprint extending down, I think this is a crow print.
We decided this track was from a cottontail rabbit, due to the size of the distribution of the prints (~11 cm), and because they appeared to be distributed in a hopping gait. Also, the animal must have been fairly lightweight, because the tracks barely go down into the top layer of the snow
We were unsure what these tracks belonged to. They were in the woods on the path to the salmon hole, and indicated a walking or trotting gait.
