Erin Kelley's Phenology Site

The time has finally come to say goodbye to my phenology site. I have to say, I was really glad for the shorter walk to my site this semester, but I think I probably should have stuck with salmon hole. I don’t think I really got to see the overall cycle of change in centennial or salmon hole and that was a little sad for me. I think because of this, I don’t feel as deep of a connection to my site as I wish I could have, though I think it probably would have gotten there if I went more unprompted.

I could see the change from my last visit, the trees were blooming, I could hear woodpeckers and other birds, a tick landed on me (gross!), but I still didn’t feel as deep of a connection.

I think that centennial woods is such a cool place to have a site though. I think that it really reflects the history of the natural arc of Vermont. With so many white pines, it’s pretty clearly an early successional forest, and looking into the history one can learn that it was agriculture, then outdoor education for UVM before becoming a forest again. But now it’s a natural wooded area again, and it’s one of the biggest in BTV. I think that it’s super cool how it provides recreation and such an important habitat for wildlife in the city as well.

Last weekend was the global city nature challenge and the global BioBlitz! Walt and Chris instituted a competition and so I went a little bit crazy. I recorded over 200 observations and130 species as an individual. I went all over Burlington, and even down to Winooski briefly. Most of my observations were here on campus, and a lot of them were in the Intervale as well. Here’s a map of all of my observations and where I saw them:

The coolest species that I saw was a cooper’s hawk. On the very first day, it was just there, on the howe library window as I was walking to class. I had a few more really cool observations like that (I know they are called common ravens, but seriously dude, those things are massive, really cool birds,) but mostly what I made official observations of were just plants that most people would call weeds. Honestly, I think the best part about the BioBlitz was that it reminded me to notice. There was so much stuff that I was just going by without really thinking about it, but feeling like I had to notice and really pay attention put me back in my body, which was really nice. I also loved listening to the birds and I really feel like I’m better at observation in general now, because I did so much of it. Overall, I think that this was a rewarding experience, but next year, I think I’m going to chill out a little bit, because I couldn’t walk on Saturday night. Enjoy some of the photos that I took:

After our Winooski Floodplain Forest visit in lab, my mother visited and I decided to take her down to the forest because I knew that she would enjoy it.

It was at the very beginning of April, and it was so cool because even though there weren’t any leaves on the trees yet, the forest was teeming with life.

We heard and saw so many migratory birds but my favorite were the spring peepers, I love their the way they sound and it is a surefire sign of spring, and so I wanted to include a recording with birds and peepers audible:

I didn’t get out to take pictures till Sunday, after the storm up at Hubbard Park, so it doesn’t seem like spring is coming in my pictures, but throughout the rest of the week I could observe that it was, which was really exciting. One of the wonderful things about living in one place my whole life is that, even when I don’t realize it, I’m really in tune with the phenological processes.

I live very close to the Winooski River, I can look down the hill to see it right from my backyard in Montpelier, across the river from Bar Hill. Over the course of the week, I was able to watch the ice melt and breakup. I saw large patches of the river that were completely clear, patches that were completely iced, and sections where there were ice dams forming. It was awesome to be able to see such a range of how the ice melts without even leaving my home.

One of my favorite phenological events every year is when the buds start to pop up. Just before the snow came, I was able to see this starting to happen, especially next to buildings. I also have been able to hear (and see!) so many more birds in the morning than the last time I came home.

One of the sweetest parts about the springtime is the sap that starts to run. I saw a bunch of tubing and buckets all around, pretty much everywhere I went. I also tried to go to sugar on snow, but the Bragg farm website lied. I still got to have a donut frosted with maple butter which was wonderful. A less wonderful things about spring is that all of the back dirt roads were utterly terrible, especially when we visited a friend in Worcester. Another human centered phenology thing that I noticed was that more and more people were out and about in town, walking and chatting in the beautiful weather.

Also, as we are starting to warm up it facilitates a lot of melting, and the precipitation sometimes shifts to rain, which means that I also saw a lot of vernal pools starting to form.

The snow always feels like a regression back into winter a little bit, but I feel like having a last huge snowstorm is probably a phenological event in and of itself. It happens pretty much every single year, and it’s another way we mark the passing of time. On that note, please enjoy some beautiful pictures from my walk up to the Hubbard Park tower with my mom after the storm:

I had an ordeal today trying to explore and track in centennial woods, and I am going to tell you the story because it pains me, and my roommates do not want to hear it. Firstly! It was incredibly slippery today as the snowpack was just icy enough on the surface and just shallow enough that I couldn’t break through to less slick snow. I pretty much slid into centennial just having to trust that I could catch myself on trees on the way down. When exploring, I heard a beautiful and distinct black capped chickadee, and I tried to record the sound, but inaturalist was being incredibly stubborn and refused to save it so I wasn’t able to actually make that observation, because sometimes it refuses to work at all ever. I crawled through a bush to find a track I saw only for it to be incredibly indistinct. At some point I lost my phone and my tracking book in the woods, having to go back and find it, awkwardly passing a wildlife camera several times on the way. In going back to find my phone I slipped and fell, perilously careening down a hill towards the stream and was only able to stop myself at the last minute due to the grace of falling on a log which while not a pleasant experience was better than being cold and wet. By the time I found my phone sunset was fast approaching and I was only able to get one or two pictures… and then my phone died. So, I had to get out of the woods in the increasing darkness having gone fully off trail. Plus, when I saw a mouse right in front of me I couldn’t take a picture because I had nothing to take a picture with. Also, a lot of the tracks that I tried to find ended up being dogs, which was somewhat of an expected consequence of being in a well-loved natural area but frustrating none the less, because they really didn’t always look like dog tracks at first.

Any who it was a pleasant experience overall because I really do like being outside especially in the warm winter days and I did have snow pants on so I was not too cold, but it was certainly a trial. I did have fun though and it was really cool to see so many of my classmates exploring as well.

This semester, I decided to find a new phenology spot! I am a little sad, looking back at my pictures of salmon hole, but I am really excited to get to know centennial woods better. The spot that I eventually settled on was at a location with this latitude and longitude:

44°28’40.8″N 73°11’07.1″W

44.477992, -73.185315

(I could not get a screenshot of google maps to come out looking like anything that made any sense, unfortunately) To get to my site one would follow the main trail down over the bridge and then down along the creek when the path forks. When I got to the area with an incredible number of downed logs, I went up to the right and settled under a small evergreen. By the time I settled on my site it was getting dark and so I did not pay as close attention as I should have and don’t remember the kind of tree that I was settled under. Already in centennial I saw more signs of wildlife activity than I did at Salmon Hole so that was really exciting for me. I saw some deer prints (I think! they were a little old and it was a little dark):

I also saw what might be a collapsed tunnel of some animal that lives in the subnivean zone:

I’m very excited to get to know this new spot, and when I said goodbye to it this week I got to walk into the most beautiful sunset:

I was so excited this week to be able to get out and possibly see some tracks! Unfortunately, by the time that I was able to make the walk over to Salmon Hole not only had the snow melted but it had also just rained, thoroughly dashing my hopes. Luckily, there were still plenty of interesting things to observe.

Even though there weren’t any exciting tracks from the natural world there were some human tracks! And just a few canid tracks that I’m pretty sure belonged to a dog:

I noticed that the water level had lowered significantly since the last time that I had visited, which was cool because it allowed me to explore more without the fear of being washed away. I also saw a huge flock of crows in the woods right before I get to my actual spot, and I was able to take a video.

I didn’t get any good pictures, but I enjoyed seeing all of the birds’ nests and squirrels’ nests that were visible in the deciduous trees now that the leaves are mostly gone. It was cool to see that the of all the deciduous trees the only ones with leaves still hanging on were the red oak, and the white pine were so much easier to see without all of the other leaves in the way. Once I got closer to the river and the trees and bushes were smaller, I was already able to see some of the buds that will bring about the new leaves come spring, which was pretty exciting. I recently went to a “Festival of Light and Darkness” and these buds were evocative of one of the ideas of that festival, which is that light exists in darkness, and life persist even in the dead of winter (though, really, we’re not even close to that yet.)

Even though my goal was to come to my site to look for the annual patterns of nature I ended up becoming distracted looking at the rocks and the water. There were beautiful ripples in the water which were constantly changing due to the incredibly windy nature of the day, but there were also ripples in the rock. The Winooski river is so ancient that it cuts through the Green Mountains, and these rocks have to be pretty old as well. Looking at this ripple pattern shows that these two things have been interacting for a long time, and I just thought that that was incredible.

Another thing that I thought was super interesting and exciting but wasn’t sure if it was a phenological something or not was a group of small trunks that had been shorn through. It looked really clean, so at first I suspected that it might be a human but looking at the chips surrounding the trunks, and possible bite marks I’m not quite so sure. I believe that beavers may still potentially be around and collecting stems like these for food storage, so that’s what I’m leaning towards now. I didn’t really see any other signs of aquatic mammals though, so maybe that’s something I’ll have to wait to figure out for sure until spring.

Last week I decided that I was going to accomplish my phenology map while I took a walk to a fall celebration at the Unitarian Universalist Church. To get there I walked down Main Street till I got to South Willard Street, where I turned right and walked down to Pearl Street, and then walked down that street till I got to the Church.

It was really interesting to see how many green leaves were still up on the trees, even in early November. I was also interested in how many flowers I was able to find, and I really enjoyed the amount of birds I saw/heard even if I couldn’t identify them. I really enjoyed the noting down what I was noticing/feeling about as it was happening.

Today our assignment was to create a map, but it was also to find a sit spot. As a kid who grew up with an E.C.O. (Educating Children Outdoors) program at my elementary school sit spots are something that I’ve been doing for a very long time and are very precious to me. I’ve had sit spots that I’ve continued going for years. I believe that the act of sitting and noticing is a really good spiritual one. Sit spots were the first time that I was really introduced to phenology as well.

Speaking of phenology, one of the very first things that I noticed when I went to my sight was how much further along the leaves were. Last time everything was still incredibly green, and this time many of the trees were changed or bare. I didn’t see any animals or hear any birds but I don’t know whether this can be attributed to the fact that it’s getting colder or just that I went at a later time of day, because I didn’t want to venture out on a rainy Sunday.

Considering the rain, the river was significantly higher than last time, but it has been consistently higher every time I’ve visited. I’m worried that my spot will have to move back as we get later and later into the season. I am curious though, whether water level is something that is a phenological event even though it is not organic. The water level usually raises in the fall and spring, and lowers in the summer. This almost certainly affects the life living on the riverbanks and makes me wonder what other inorganic processes follow a season based timeline.

The place that I chose for my phenology site is Salmon Hole on the Winooski river. I chose it because it looked like a beautiful interesting spot, and I don’t get to spend as much time at the river as I like, so I thought that choosing this would be a wonderful way to get out more. I also love the fact that this river goes past my home in Montpelier, and is fed by the North Branch of the Winooski which is one of my favorite rivers to explore, and so it literally connects me to where I come from.

To get there one has to go past Trinity, almost all the way to Winooski before doubling back on to Riverside Dr. From there there’s very clear signage to get to the river.

I loved looking at the different trees/vegetation this week. This area is very different from most of the ones I know, so I’m going to have to learn what the vegetation is called, but I noticed a lot of tall and small grasses, lichen, flowers, and a bunch of other shorter leafy greens. I did notice a lot of familiar trees though, like silver maple and cottonwood, which makes sense because we are next to a river. I also noticed common buckthorn, American beech, basswood, northern red oak, Norway maple, boxelder, and paper birch. I also nearly stumbled into some poison ivy as well.