For this phenology assignment, I visited Salmon Hole which is a protected part of the Winooski river, and the waterfront in Burlington.
At Salmon Hole I didn’t really many interesting things. The only tracks that I found were human tracks and dog tracks, and the only animal I saw was a seagull that was flying overhead. What was cool to see was how parts of the river were it was calmer had frozen over, and some part where thick enough to walk on as well, and how where the river flowed stronger stayed unfrozen which of course is how rivers work but it was interesting to see it on this large of a scale as it was a very windy part of the Winooski which is probably because the area is protected so there are very few things to prevent natural river meandering there.
When I went to the water front I found a few more interesting things.
At the waterfront, I saw a few ducks and this very active squirrel at the Echo-Center. The squirrel shows winter is ending, as animals that become much less active or hibernate through winter like squirrels are starting to return to our sight as they become active again.
Along the frozen shoreline, I found a lot of tracks preserved into the snow as well, I do not know what they are from but I assume something small as it was unable to break through the ice which wasn’t thin, but was to thin for a person to walk on. I noted how they seemed to either lead from or lead to the rocks, and in the final image it shows how the animal seems to be emerging or going into the crevasse created by the rocks.
These last few images I included because I thought they looked very cool. There of the shards of ice floating along the shore in Lake Champlain, I found it very cool how they floated and moved with the waves and its something I’ve never really seen in person before.