The squirrels are feeling scampery, the foxes are feeling like slow strolls, and I’m feeling like slippery runs in the snow are soo much more fun than studying inside!! All of these nature signs point to it being DECEMBER and FINALS week! Despite the high stress commotion on campus, I found great relief from the still silence of snowy woods. I got to experience my phenology site in two different stages of snow this week; the first being a quick look around during a run between classes, and the second was a slower examination of lot of little nooks and fancies throughout the site.
THE RUN: This was the first snow since the weekend, so the only critters who had been out making tracks at midday were squirrels, and they were busy! I followed the squirrel tracks from the stairs to the base of a tree, where the squirrel seemed to have scurried up, and then scurried back down and hopped over to a different tree. I wonder why squirrels sometimes choose foot traffic, and sometimes they choose acrobatics in the tree canopy?
THE WALK: My next venture to my site was Friday, the day it stopped snowing, so unfortunately there were some snowed in tracks, but I still could speculate about who delt them thanks to their size and shape. After a teetery bike ride to the trailhead, I locked my bike and started down the snowy stairs, scouring the ground for tracks. I saw lots of fresh human tracks and dog tracks, but nobody else! Continuing on the path, I heard birds chirping in the tree tops. I watched one little guy flitting about for a little while, and think it was probably a tufted titmouse which is exciting! It had a tawny colored underbelly and a dark top, and at one point it looked down and I could see the crest atop its head. It looked so fluffy and cozy with its winter down coat! I recorded some of its high pitched chirping, and at about 30 seconds or so, somebody starts chucking! It sounds like a pileated woodpecker to me, but not sure!
I left that little guy to hop around, and immediately came across a set of tracks! They had a fresh pile of light snow in the pad, eliminating signs of claws, but you could still see where the front of the paw pushed forward into the snow, and how as the critter picked its foot up, it kicked just a bit of snow back behind it. The tracks were about two inches long, tapered at the front and wider at the back. They looked too small to be coyote, and pretty just right to be fox! Say it was a fox, this fox seemed to be in no hurry. I found two other sets of fox tracks, and given that foxes are pretty territorial, I bet this one came back a couple times during the time snow was on the ground, or took the long, long way home.
Next, I found an awesome log, in which first the fox crossed it, and later a squirrel hopped along it!
I looked up what different fox gaits looked like, and from what I can tell, it looks like the fox (or foxes) were not in a hurry. I didn’t find any scent posts, or digging in the snow, and I’m wondering what, if anything, made this a worthwhile trip for the fox?
It was certainly a worthwhile trip for me.