Phenology in Greater Burlington!
This month we were asked to explore the greater Burlington area with your NR 1020 friends and observe winter wildlife signs using iNaturalist during the period of February 15 – 24. Around this same time period, my dorm flooded pretty bad and went home for the weekend. Since I wasn’t really able to get out and explore Burlington, this post will focus on some data collected during one of my NR lab periods!
Where are we?
The Calkins Trail at the Intervale Center is a 1.3 mile long trail encompassing the Intervale’s property. Over 1/2 of the trail follows alongside the Winooski River as it enters Burlington.
February 21st was quite a cold, but sunny day, and there was A LOT of snow on the ground. Large snow storms travelling through the North East had just passed through Vermont, leaving behind a thick layer of powdery snow.
iNaturalist & Observations
A big proponent of this lab was tracking! Due to the type of snowfall, it was difficult to decipher many of the tracks we found as they were either coated in a light layer of snow or so deep into the snow that it was really difficult to see them. That being said, there were a ton of tracks! Slightly off the trails covered in cross-country ski tracks, past wildlife activity was visible.
Away from the trail towards the McNeil powerplant, we saw both pileated woodpeckers flying as well as a vibrant cardinal sitting on a fence. Both bird species remain in the eastern US year-round, so it makes sense as to why they were out!
With so many animals found in the greater Burlington area and fluffy snow, identification through tracking was quite difficult. I got hip deep in the snow trying to follow some of the tracks and find a clear imprint on the snow.
I am honestly not very confident with most of my identifications. I made the rookie mistake of not also recording the size of the prints which makes it a bit more difficult. I’m leaving the more clear prints up to the masters on iNaturalist to identify further. I am probably more sure about the bobcat print compared to everything else. It is the most distinct of the bunch and not likely to ultimately just end up being a dog print, because the trails are frequented by dogs. If you have any better suggestions on ID-ing the first 5 prints above, click the photo to get to my iNaturalist observation and suggest something 🙂