Red Rocks addition 🙂
Me and my friend Liv who is also a NR student on Thursday 2/16 went to Red Rocks to go winter tracking! There wasn’t much snow left in the park but there was definitely mud! We encountered a lot of dog tracks within the muddy main pathways of the park. We knew it was a dog over another canine or feline because the nails were bent and the tracks were very close to the human made walkways so we assumed they were made by leashed pets.
We also saw many Grey squirrels leaping around through the trees digging for the acorns that the squirrels dug shallow in the dirt before the winter begun. We found piles of acorn shells and the pulled apart pine cones as we wandered off the trails into the forest. We didn’t successfully find a squirrel track though, but I got a picture that I uploaded to iNaturalist!
We also think we found a deer track in the mud, but it was unclear to us if it was or just a footprint left near the path. We saw the two hove marks, but something was a bit different about the print that made us questioned if it really was a deer track because we did not see another one near by.
Lastly throughout the park there was a handful of vernal pools that were scattered across the landscape. Because the snow melted, natural divots filled up with the water creating the pools. In spring time many amphibians such as salamanders will use these pools to lay their eggs and hatch young! I also uploaded a picture of the vernal pool to iNaturalist.
