Tracks On The Frozen River

     On the 27th, I used my lunch break to walk with Jack in the woods near FHS. The Sudbury River is completely frozen over and the ice is blanketed by a consistent half-inch layer of snow from a couple days ago. We decided to take the risk and carefully shuffled out onto the river. As soon as I stopped worrying about the ice's sturdiness, I found a line of animal tracks. And then another. And even more. Some followed the river, others just crossed from one bank to another. 

                                                          We found trails left by domestic cats:

                         There were many trails left by the two foxes which den along the riverbank:

                                               ...and of course there were some Raccoon tracks:

The female Red Fox (called the vixen) has most likely already been impregnated by her mate, and around the beginning of April, I'm going to set up my trail camera there for the whole month, to get photos and videos of the kits coming to the entrance of the den to accept food from the parents.

Maybe a member or two of last year's litter is still alive, and are crossing the river too, further upstream, because there were also fox tracks on the ice around the base of Wickford bridge. Also near Wickford Bridge were cattails in the process of shedding their millions of spores, and a Great Blue Heron, which I could only get a horrible photo of, due to it's distance from me. I need to get a telephoto lens.

The tributary of the river which the tracks were at was completely white. It's strange to think that there are thousands of crayfish, bluegill, bullfrogs, turtles, snails, and pike waiting out the winter, underneath the ice, in the complete dark. The ice clearly helps out any animals that are still active, though. In warmer months, all the foxes, raccoons, coyotes, cats, and rodents had no better way across the river than using the concrete bridge which connects the school's parking lot to a suburban neighborhood. The ice makes daily travel much more convenient for animals...