Hello again! This weekend I trekked back to Salmon Hole to visit my phenology spot in the new semester. Immediately I noticed a thick layer of ice covering almost the entire waterway. There was slightly less snow than at my last visit, however, there was plenty of ice this time to make up for it!
While walking in, I spotted some tracks along the trail. I believe they are bunny tracks because of slightly rectangular shape of the prints and the distinction between the large and small footprints. Once I identified and snapped a picture of the tracks, I kept walking and heard birds around me and noticed there was a woodpecker in the tree above! Although the woodpecker was being shy to the camera, I recorded the sounds of the other birds nearby!
The rest of the site yielded no significant signs of animals aside from the beaver marks from my last visit and some prints from a dog and their owner. There was much less leaf little peaking out from under the snow than last time, but the basswoods still had a few leaves remaining on their branches.
The final bit of winter excitement occurred on my walk back when I spotted a series of fully frozen waterfalls! It was so interesting to see how, even though there was less snow than at my last visit, there was so much more ice! See you next time!
