urbpan | 3:00 snapshot #1161: Tracking

After I got back from Vermont I discovered there was still snow on the ground in Boston. I took the opportunity to walk the perimeter of one of the zoos to make sure the fence was in good shape, and to see what wildlife had been active. Here a bird (about crow-sized) landed with both talons on the ground then lifted back up.

Here you can see the fence butts up against a stone ledge. The fencepost has been cemented to the stone, but a natural opening under the rock has seen some wildlife traffic. Tracks in the snow implicate rabbits, but this hole needs to be sealed before anything bigger and/or more problematic comes through.

Another weakness revealed by rabbit tracks. I'll have this one buttoned up a little better too, to better exclude roaming domestic cats.

I don't normally do much mushroom hunting on snowy days, but these Ganoderma applanatum stand out in relief in the high contrast landscape.

It's one of relatively few species to be so robust to have fresh fruiting bodies (revealed by the white hymenium and the fresh coating of brown spores) found covered in snow.

It's so robust that it's used as a feeding platform for some rodent (small rounded ended droppings suggest a young chipmunk).

Fully round droppings and orange urine reveal the former presence of a rabbit (eastern cottontail).

A weakness in the old wrought-iron fence--but the tracks show that the animal (eastern gray squirrel) went through the normal gap between bars, not the bent part.