For this phenology assignment, I went with a couple friends to the Burlington Waterfront and walked north along the lake, slightly past the skate park and towards the more forested area. I enjoyed using the iNaturalist app to post about wildlife signs and found it easy to navigate. We mostly encountered birds, and though we expected to see other wildlife like rabbits and squirrels, we did not encounter many signs of them. Some images include links to the iNatural posts.
We saw many American Robins flying around and eating berries off of trees (unsure what type) on the waterfront. The robins were easy to identify by their orange and grey feathers, and we also took the time to observe their tracks in the snow. They had a hopping gait that had about 4 inches between each set of tracks. Walking along the bike path we also heard cardinals (we confirmed it with the Merlin Bird ID app) and saw one flying which was easy to spot due to the bright red color. We also did see a squirrel next but no squirrel tracks in the snow around it. I thought it was a bird nest at first, but it is most likely a squirrel’s because they tend to use more leaves whereas it is more rare for birds to use leaves in their nests, especially robins.
