This week, when I visited my spot in Centennial Woods, I paid close attention to the tree species and later looked in Wetlands, Woodlands, Wildlands and discovered that the natural community at my spot is a Northern Hardwood Forest because there are many Sugar Maples, Yellow Birch, and American Beech. There are also Eastern White Pines, Eastern Hemlocks, and Oak trees. There are also many Intermediate Wood ferns. This makes sense, as this community is common in the Champlain Valley Region.
So much has changed at my spot since my first visit. In September, the deciduous trees, like the maples and the beech all had their leaves. Now, all that is remaining are their winter twigs. Also, there was no snow. I wonder if the snow has been deep enough for long enough for animals to live in a subnivean layer below my spot. In the fall, I saw many more birds and occasionally I would see a squirrel or a cottontail rabbit. Now, however, the only animal signs I see are those in the snow. When the leaves started to fall last fall, the ground was damp with the runoff of rainwater. Now, the ground is covered in snow and ice. The brook I walk across is no longer running water as it was in the early fall.