On this day it was a chilling 17 degrees, but I managed to make my first visit to Salmon Hole of the second semester! Just as it was in December the ground was covered in snow, though quite a bit deeper this time. There was several snowfalls worth of accumulated snow topped with a fresh sprinkle of powder, perfect for tracking. All trees and plants were dormant, braving the frigid temperatures. The only significant difference in appearance from my last visit was the almost entirely frozen river.
I crossed the Winooski Bridge and looked upstream from the dam, all areas of slow, calm water were frozen over. Only the water falling over rocks and actively flowing was still fluid.
The outlet pipe of the dam was also completely frozen from its edge to the surface of the river. Though I could hear water continuing to flow within the ice capsule.
I walked along the Burlington Wildways path parallel to the river that I took on my last visit, finding some interesting things along the way:
Rodent tracks of some sort. You can see a tail drag mark in the trail.
This series of tracks were quite difficult for me to identify. At first I thought they were fox tracks, possibly from the same individual that I tracked on my last visit. However, unlike my last visit, there were several human tracks along the entire length of the trail. What made me so sure that last visit’s tracks belonged to a fox was the untouched and pristine snow, allowing me to clearly see the whole trail and foot fall pattern without interruption. The fact that human tracks were absent last visit also assured me that they were not dog tracks.
This visit, it was much harder to spot the tracks as the path was churned up by hiking boots and snow shoes, erasing the precise trail of animal tracks. The presence of human tracks also increased the possibility that these tracks were from a pet dog and not wildlife. Despite this challenges, some tracks were quite well preserved and visible so I was able to look closer at the details of the paw. The size of the tracks appear to be about the size of a fox’s if not a small dog’s. I also considered the possibility that they were feline tracks, but they are too big to be a domestic cat’s and too small to be bobcat or other.
With all evidence taken into consideration, especially the active den I found and my knowledge that there is a fox on the area, I think they are fox tracks again.