For this phenology assignment, I spent about two hours walking around Centennial Woods looking for tracks. Last Saturday we got about a foot of snow and it has stayed below freezing all week so I assumed I would find plenty of well-preserved tracks, but I was wrong. While there were plenty of tracks, most of them have melted and aren’t easily identifiable. I didn’t let that deter me and with the help of the tracking sheet and iNaturalist I was able to identify a few good sets of tracks.
I believe these first two sets of tracks are both White-Tailed Deer. They are the right shape and length for deer.
This last set of tracks is a challenge to identify. They are clear enough to get a general outline but not detailed enough to easily identify. Due to the track pattern, I believe this animal to be a galloper. I remember seeing almost identical tracks at Jericho, and I identified those to be field mouse tracks, so I believe that these are also field mouse tracks. They have the right patter and length though the tracks were not detailed enough for me to get a good look.