On Sunday I took advantage of the warm weather and walked down to Lake Champlain. The snow on lawns was melting away, leaving lots of mud in its wake and causing little rivers to run down the sidewalks. At Church Street there were many people walking around in just sweatshirts instead of bulky winter jackets and muddy dog tracks could be seen all over. There was a slushy snow and mud mix on the boardwalk that made it very slippery.
These decorative Chanticleer Pear trees line the boardwalk. I used the tree database in the Burlington Open Data Portal to identify this species and others that I saw.
As I walked down to the lake shore the only tracks I saw in the snow/mud were squirrel tracks. When I got to the sand there was some very clear dog tracks but nothing besides that. I saw some ducks in the water and heard the occasional crow but I think the fact that there were a lot of people out and active may have been a contributing factor to the lack of animal sightings.
I have never been to a shoreline in the winter, so it was interesting to get to see the seasonal interaction. There was a layer of snow on top of the sand that was melting and flowing into the lake. Also lots of broken up ice chunks and sand/snow mixes.
On the walk back I saw lots of trees with long, thin buds. I used the photo ID plant identification app, and was informed that the these are Linden trees. Unfortunately, all the pictures I took of the buds came out blurry but I also checked on the data base and the species did match.