Amanda Lindley's Phenology Blog

I was excited to visit my phenology spot one last time before the end of the semester on a beautiful spring day. Since the time I visited the week before, very little had changed in my spot. I noticed that some of the norway maple buds were getting bigger, and I found some fiddleheads by the stream bank that I had missed earlier.

I spent some time relaxing in my spot, listening to a few chick-a-dees chatting in the treetops above me. Dipping my fingers into the cold stream, I realized that I truly became connected to this spot over the course of the year. I’m not sure I became a part of my spot, but it certainly became a part of me. We had both grown and changed throughout the year, and I feel as though this little area in Centennial became a significant part of my freshman year story. Even if I never visit this spot again, it will carry on just as it did before I knew of its existence. But I changed a bit since learning about my spot. I regained a childhood love for the environment that I had outgrown a bit since growing up. I’m thankful that I got a chance to fall in love with nature again.

Nature and culture are certainly intertwined in Centennial Woods. Member of the Burlington community come to walk their dogs and escape into a calm outdoor setting. I’ve passed UVM students picnicking on sunny days and exploring the streams. As a recreational outdoor experience, Centennial Woods plays a key cultural role in the Burlington and UVM community as an escape from the stresses of modern life.

Today has been a cold and rainy day in Burlington. The creek in my phenology spot was higher than I’ve ever seen. I could hear the roaring waters before I even reached the area.

Some small plants have just begun peaking through the soil, yet it’s still too early for me to be able to identify them.

Most of the trees in my spot are conifers, so there are very little flowering trees to work with. The Norway Maple on my site is budding but has yet to flower. I searched the surrounding area hoping to catch a flowering tree, but unfortunately, no one has opened their buds yet! Hopefully, when I return before the end of the semester, my Norway Maple will have opened up its bud. Here is a sketch of the Norway Maple buds I discovered.

Lastly, here are the photos of what I uploaded to the NR2 Earth Week Blog!

Hopefully all of these April showers will bring May flowers just before I have to return home to Massachusetts. I’ll definitely miss exploring my site over the summer!

Over spring break, I decided to visit the Attleboro Springs Wildlife Sanctuary managed by the Massachusetts Audubon Society. Over 100 years ago, these trails were once part of a sanitarium. Patients and caregivers would walk the trails in contemplation, looking for spiritual renewal and healing through nature. Today, there are open meadows were fruits and vegetables once grew in orchards and fields, and stone walls are still standing, showing where the designated trails once were.

My phenology spot was specifically an area of vernal pools along the trails. Unlike the stream in Centennial Woods, the vernal pools were mostly unthawed under the warm spring sun. I couldn’t find salamanders or toads around the water; the weather has not warmed up enough for them to come out of hiding and warm under the sun.

Around the pools were a mixture of white pines and red and white oak trees. The forest was densely packed with these pines and oaks, while Centennial Woods has maples, eastern hemlocks, and birches distributed throughout the forest.

Similar to my experiences at my phenology site in Burlington, I was able to find tracks of a galloper atop the still frozen sections of the pools; based on the track length and stride, I believe this could be tracks of a cottontail rabbit.

Just before leaving my site, I was greeted by a male cardinal hopping along the trail. I haven’t seen many birds in Centennial Woods except some crows a few months ago. The ecosystems of Centennial Woods and of the sanctuary as a whole are very similar with a mix of both wetlands and wildlands.

I’m excited to revisit the sanctuary again in May. Hopefully next time I will find some salamanders hiding under logs or sitting atop of rocks by the pools. They are one of my favorite animals!

Upon visiting my site, I took the time to listen to the barely trickling stream, slightly thawing under the early March sun. I realized how much I missed the gentle sounds of the stream when visiting my site; it added an extra layer of peacefulness that was missing the last time I visited while the stream was still frozen.

The eastern hemlocks have grown new pinecones that are beginning to spread open as spring approaches. I found some beautiful new tracks in the snow, most likely from a rabbit and a mouse or vole. I noticed that the area changed immensely since the first time I visited. The small wildflowers and ferns I encountered are covered under the snow, and the bank of the stream seems to have eroded with the amount of precipitation from the winter. I remember hearing lots of birds during my visits in the fall, but this time I noticed it was silent except for the soft sounds of the stream.

According to the Wetland, Woodland, Wildland text, I would classify Centennial Woods as a northern hardwood forest. Beech, red maple, sugar maple, and birch trees are very common throughout my forest. Classifying my site specifically is more of a challenge. My site is dominated by eastern hemlocks with a few white pines and striped maples, and this mix isn’t listed as its own natural community that’s best expressed in the Champlain Valley. I would say that my phenology spot is on the edge of two communities, one being an eastern hemlock forest and the other being a white pine-transition hardwood forest. The dominant eastern hemlock population leads to my first conclusion, while the abundance of white pines, maples, and beech trees on the other side of the stream create a completely different forest composition. In Wetland, Woodland, Wildland, this type of forest is called a
transition hardwoods limestone forest. I’m unsure if my area is abundant in limestone so this classification could be incorrect.

I’m excited to visit my site as spring rolls into Burlington!!

Citations:
Thompson, E. H., & Sorenson, E. R. (2005). Wetland, woodland, wildland: A guide to the natural communities of Vermont. Montpelier: Vermont Dept. of Fish and Wildlife and the Nature Conservancy.

I was very excited to return to my phenology site to see the beautiful landscape covered in a layer of snow. During my trek through my site, I was able to document a variety of animal tracks, but unfortunately many were too filled in with snow for me to identify them. Below are some photographs of some interesting tracks I found.

The majority of the trees in my spot are conifers, specifically White Pines, and Eastern Hemlocks. The deciduous trees I was able to identify from their buds were Box Elder and American Beech.

 

Here’s a sketch of the Norway Maple twig with labeled parts.

 

The phenological changes I’ve seen have been drastic from the harsh winter. There are significantly more old branches on the ground since there are a few dead Eastern Hemlocks that are breaking apart in the wind. The living Eastern Hemlocks and White Pines still have their needles while the rest of the deciduous are bare with only a few brown leaves hanging. There are still a few fungi growing on the rotting logs. The small amount of water in the stream has frozen over but will lively unthaw in the next coming days.

My phenology spot can be found in the Centennial Woods Natural Area, one of UVM’s nine natural areas. The land includes property from Baxter (1891), Ainsworth (1904), Hickok (1908), Kirby (1938), and Unsworth (1968,) who were landowners in Burlington and South Burlington. To fully understand the history of this area, one must go back 19,000 years to the Laurentide ice sheet which created the mountains and hills of the Vermont landscape we know today. This ice sheet was responsible for the creation of Centennial woods and its features I have been studying today. Before this area was known to be “Vermont,” it was known as Ndakinna by the Abenaki that lived on this land long before the arrival of the Europeans. Historians have estimated that up to 10,000 Abenakis lived in Ndakinna. UVM students have found direct ties between the Abenaki and Centennial Woods; in 1999, anthropology students discovered evidence of Native American tool making while conducting research in the area. The Abenakis had an organic perspective of the landscape and saw the environment as a nurturing mother that provides for mankind.

Due to the popularity of farming in Vermont in the 17 and 1800’s, it can be inferred that parts Centennial Woods may have been cleared for agricultural purposes. Since the trees in my phenology spot appear to be decades old, the land was most likely abandoned by farmers in the mid to late 1800s, allowing the White Pines and Eastern Hemlocks time to regrow. During my visit, I found barbed wire hanging off of an Eastern Hemlock tree, leading me to believe this might be leftover from the farming period of the natural area.

Today, Centennial Woods is utilized by both the public and UVM students as a place to enjoy the outdoors and also conduct research to further their studies of the environment.

 

Sources: 

Anthropology Students Practice Fieldwork on Campus. Vermont Quarterly 1999 (Fall): 10

The University of Vermont Research Guides (2016) Centennial woods natural area. Retrieved from http://researchguides.uvm.edu/c.php?g=290508&p=1935271

The Vermont Historical Society (n.d.) The abenakis & the europeans. Retrieved from https://vermonthistory.org/explorer/vermont-stories/becoming-a-state/the-abenakis-the-europeans

 

 

 

For my new phenology site, I decided to spend some time right in my backyard. My brother and I used to play in the woods behind our house for hours. We would try to create mini woodland homes complete with logs for chairs and old toys for tables. We would splash around in the swamp and search for frogs even though it smelt terribly of decaying leaves. It was here where I was first introduced to the wonders of nature and grew my love for outdoor exploration.

Aldo Leopold:

It is late November now, and it is clear that the world is preparing for winter. The silence is deafening as the spring peepers hibernate and await the warm nights when they can sing again. The day is warm, and the swamp has begun to melt again after just a few days of freezing. There is a sense of peace and gratitude as the heat warms the back of my neck, reminding me that the sun will still come before winter conquers the land. I notice there are a few footprints left in the swamp mud, perhaps from one of the raccoons that enjoys checking for food around our garbage bins.  Just this past May, a mother raccoon gave birth to 5 kits that run play around the swamp and live underneath our back shed. It dawned on me that I have never seen the father, only a mother with 5 rambunctious babies that eat the vegetables from our compost no matter how well we secure the fence.  I notice that the landscape has changed since I’ve last been here; my dad and brother are constantly cutting down the dead trees and reusing the wood for their next project. Even when we aren’t changing the landscape, it never quite looks the same every day. Nothing is ever staying still, and I stand in awe at the beauty of the land before me as it changes season by season, day by day. It is a new piece of art every time I close my eyes.

 

Mary Holland:

Both my phenology spot at home and in Burlington have bodies of water in them, yet their ecologies are very different. At home, the swamp is always still. It is filled with years of branches and leaves, mainly red and white oaks and white pine needles that decay and create a nutrient-rich mud at the bottom. It freezes easily from the lack of movement and stays frozen for the majority of winter. In Burlington, the stream moves quickly and carries the fallen leaves with it. There are no oaks at this spot, only eastern hemlocks, Norway maples, and a few white pines. There are an array of ferns by the bank of the stream in Burlington, but the ferns by my house are far from the bank of the swamp. I have heard some chickadees in both places before, yet they were surprisingly absent from my backyard when I searched for them this past weekend. I could not find any fungi in my spot at home, yet there was mushrooms and other fungi sprouting everywhere by wet logs near the stream here in Burlington. The stream has its fair share of small fish jumping in and out of the stream, yet in the swamp there is no sign of fish in the still, algae filled waters. As winter falls upon New England, I expect both spots to appear similar when under snow in just a few weeks.

 

Google map: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?hl=en&hl=en&mid=1ShNVFy0nRpFcUQkSEqgHt8QBZoVmhQEC&ll=41.9162309605435%2C-71.19213002690634&z=13

Hello! To start things off, here is my event map: 

While visiting my site, I noticed that the Norway Maple trees still had most of their leaves while the rest of the Hemlock forest was already mostly bear. The unknown shrubbery I wrote about at the beginning on the assignment has turned brown, and the area seems much more open. The ground was covered in significantly more orange needles compared to when I visited a few weeks ago. The stream was much larger and was moving faster than when I last saw it because of the amount of rain Burlington received throughout the week. I also noticed some new fungi growing; the significant amount of rain over the past few days and the fallen decaying tree trunks created the perfect environment for these fungi to grow. I uploaded the fungi to iNaturalist and will update the blog when I receive an identification.

I also noticed a rusty barbed wire hanging from one of the dead Eastern Hemlock trees, which lead me to think that the stream was most likely blocked off to preserve the surrounding vegetation at some point in time.

Finally, here’s a photo gallery of pictures I took on 11/4/18.

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I visited my site again this past weekend and found that the ground was covered in a layer of norway maple leaves and a few pine and hemlock needles. Most of the ferns that I had seen a few weeks ago were completely brown and dead. There also seemed to be more fallen branches in the area, possibly from the rain we’ve experienced in the past few weeks. Most of the tree coverage seemed thinner from the leaves falling for the winter.

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I also came across some evidence of wildlife using my area as a habitat. A dead eastern hemlock tree near the center of my area showed evidence of termites in the bark. There were also slugs under logs and branches near the water, as well as some small fish in the stream. I could hear some bird calls but I was unable to identify them.

 

Finally, here is a birdseye view of my phenology site!

 

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/2/edit?hl=en&mid=1vjbXp07eyWmVPwiTJn1MkTakKUMjnPaN&ll=44.47829998947827%2C-73.18579999999997&z=18

(I’m not sure if you can see the embedded map, it says it is embedded yet I cannot see it. Here’s a regular link: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/2/edit?hl=en&mid=1vjbXp07eyWmVPwiTJn1MkTakKUMjnPaN&ll=44.47829998947827%2C-73.18579999999997&z=18 )