This was a really amazing visit! It was the first time going back to my site after the long break, and it was good to be back. One thing that I noticed immediately was how open the entire location was. All the underbrush was packed down with snow, and the leaves had fallen off of the deciduous trees. The entire place seemed a lot smaller, and I got a great feel for the topography of the woods. One interesting thing was how small the stream looked. Previously it had sloping banks with mini floodplains, but in the winter, everything except the fastest moving water was frozen and covered with snow. I had to watch my step when I walked to make sure I was traveling on the bank, and not on fragile overhanging ice. It was really great to be able to walk around in the field nearby my site without getting sticker seeds all over me.

Here is a picture of my site all covered in snow

I didn’t really see very many tracks other than ones that humans made traveling through before me. I did see one path that was probably made by a house dog walking with its owner. I have never seen much wildlife at all at my sight and was looking forward to seeing some evidence of critters with the fresh snow. I might have to go right after a fresh falling to make sure that I am the first one out there.

One new interesting thing on my site were these mystery seeds that I saw laying on top of the snow.

They were lying all over the place, but it took me a little bit to actually pin down the source of them. I didn’t figure it out until I saw a dead cat tail with some seed clumps still on it.

I don’t know if I am correct, but my hypothesis is that cattails wait until fresh snow falling to release their seeds, and they use their height advantage to get up above the snow level. The seeds sit on top of the snow, evenly spread out, and then when the snow melts they fall to the ground and start rooting just in time for spring. It is an interesting strategy to avoid rooting to early, but I worry what will happen if the snow melts and then we have a second cold spell with more snow.

I saw a box elder bud shown below with my expert artist’s rendition beside it. (the drawing is on the left just in case it is so life like that you can’t tell the difference)

   

All in all I had a lot of fun during this visit and look forward to going back!

This entry was posted on Monday, February 4th, 2019 at 8:56 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.