Over the last week I have walked around Burlington observing different signs of life. I searched through a few different ecosystem types including the city, prairie/meadow, and mixed deciduous/coniferous forest. While the walk through the city was nice, it was also very cold and had few detectible signs of wildlife apart from American robins feasting on berries.
I had more luck with animal signs in a small prairie by the Aiken Forestry Center. I first saw cottontail rabbit tracks and after following them for a little while I came across tons of bird prints and wing prints. At first I was hoping maybe a raptor of some sort, but due to the sheer number and the fact that there were footprints walking about, I concluded that they were most likely crow.
During a walk through the forest with some friends from our lab group we found lots more tracks. the most prevalent were definitely grey squirrel however there were quite a few skunk as well. We followed the skunk tracks all over the forest and ended up fining multiple different paths presumably of different skunks. one of the trails led to a small hole dug through the snow.
iNaturalist was fun to use however I often forgot to log things and enjoyed being in the present more and not have to worry about using technology. I will continue to use it though, especially when I see something interesting or unique. Also while browsing local projects, I found other groups that would be fun to follow an post to going forward.
