On a beautiful, sunny Tuesday I cruised my bike down to the waterfront to visit my phenology site. I hadn’t been down to the water in a while, and I couldn’t believe how high the lake was! There was barely any beach left to walk on, as opposed to this fall when there was at least 10 yards between the rock wall and the water. I suppose it makes sense, as all of the snow from the mountains is melting, and being carried through the Winooski River watershed, among many others, into Lake Champlain. Still, I was amazed to see the water that high, and saddened when I saw a lot of trash floating around the shoreline. I picked most of it up, but I know that if there was a lot there, there’s probably a lot everywhere. Cleaning up beaches has to be a community effort – if every person picked up one piece of trash every day, that would be 8 billion pieces of trash per day. I bet our world would get cleaner very quickly.

The Eastern Cottonwoods and the Silver Maple (who was partly underwater) had begun to bud. I saw a few chickadees, heard a goldfinch, saw a cormorant, some gulls (of course), and even had a staring contest with a garter snake for about 10 minutes. This snake was incredibly tame, I sat about a foot away from her, taking pictures, inching my way closer, and she simply didn’t mind my presence. I bet with all of the people who walk by, most of the wildlife are used to human’s presence, and know that people aren’t going to harm them.

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