A UVM blog Avery Absolon’s Phenology Site

On this warm, sunny May day, my site in Centennial Woods is the greenest I’ve seen since early last fall. The yellow birches, red maples, and small bushy plants like barberry are fully leafed out. The understory is beginning to come in as well, with all of the fiddleheads nearly unfurled. The wetlands as well are appearing more green and full of life by the day. 

Humans are intertwined with this ecosystem in many different ways. Centennial Woods has been utilized by humans for a variety of things since it was reforested and acquired by the University from the late 1800’s into the early 20th century. Now, however, it is mostly visited by humans for its spiritual and emotional value. My site is particularly designed for this purpose, as it is a human-made clearing within a circle of hemlock trees. The unique design of my site draws people to it all the time. Throughout the course of visiting my site a fort was partially built. There was also a time that someone was sitting in my site when I arrived and I had to find somewhere else to settle. This didn’t bother me though because there is a very mossy fallen log not far from my site that I often visit to meditate on or look for mushrooms. As a COVID-college freshman, I found visiting my site revitalizing, as it always felt like an escape from campus and the stress of school. I appreciated that in just 10 minutes I could find a place that felt secluded and wild. That being said, I always see people in Centennial Woods, but that is part of its draw as well, it is a place where humans and nature connect everyday. Still though, I was always able to spot new plants, animals, birds, insects and fungi on my visits. Connecting to the specific species in my site helped me feel more like a part of it and less like a visitor with each stay. 

5/3/21

On Saturday, the second day of the BioBlitz, I logged species while walking around the Waterfront and up to the UVM campus. On Sunday, I spent a few hours tromping around Centennial Woods, and documenting small plants, one mammal, one insect, and one fungus. My most memorable observations were Pinewood Gingertail and a Dunning’s Miner bee. I found the miner bee under a small log. It appeared to be resting or hiding, either way I haven’t watched a bee act like that before. After searching on iNaturalist I think it was a Dunning’s Miner bee, which makes sense because they are solitary bees. My other most memorable observation was a stump covered in Pinewood Gingertail mushrooms. They were some of the first fungi I have seen this year, and they looked beautiful spattering the dead tree in tightly packed clumps. I found using iNaturalist very helpful for identification, and overall simply enjoyable to use. Being able to identify plants allowed me to collect and eat some, which was very rewarding. There were times, however, when I wanted to simply observe, and taking a picture or looking something up on iNaturalist felt distracting. Especially when I was watching the miner bee because I was very curious about its behavior. Scrolling through the species list for the City Nature Challenge, I was surprised by how birds there were. I knew it would be mostly plants, but birds were a close second. I wonder if this is because they are easy to see or because birdwatching is a very established pastime. I was surprised by how few fungi there were. I was also incredibly impressed by Cape Town and the number of observations some of their participants were logging.

Over the past month things have really been springing into action at my phenology site. The eastern white pines and eastern hemlocks which dominate my site still look more or less the same, but the surrounding area is full of budding shrubs and trees, such as yellow birch and barberry. The wetland has water again, and small plants are starting to push through the layer of dead grass and leaves. The canopy is singing with birds, including the buzzy call of a pileated woodpecker, which I followed and watched for a while. I noticed the way it bobbed its head as it walked up a tree, and then began pecking away when it reached its final destination. 

I started my walk outside of Harris Millis, and then met up with some friends on central campus. On central, I took pictures of many of the different trees, including white oak, eastern white pine, and silver maple. I didn’t see any animals other than bundled-up UVM students on the green. The snow was not conducive to animal tracking, as it was all packed down creating an icy layer on top that wouldn’t leave prints if an animal stepped on it. March weather means a lot of freezing and thawing, and since it hasn’t snowed in a while, this leaves behind an icy snowpack that doesn’t really break when you step on it. Most of the trees have no leaves, but there are a few, like the white oak, that have managed to hold on to them despite them being brown and dead. I’m not sure why some leaves don’t drop, but I’m sure they will sluff off once the new leaves begin to grow in spring. The eastern white pine, of course, still has its green needles. I stopped and looked at the unique silver maple buds, and it made me think of the tree slowly starting to prepare its leaves that will completely transform campus, all within those tiny buds. 

After meeting with my friends we walked downtown. At this point the sun was starting to go down and it was about 20 degrees, so we were all thankful to be wearing hats and jackets. Downtown Burlington does not have a lot of snow, maybe in part because of the number of black roads and heat-absorbing surfaces. I didn’t see any animals out and about, but the people walking around were all hunched forward and moving quickly. This seems like typical human behavior during the winter months. There weren’t many clouds in the sky, but the ones that were there appeared smooth and stretched, suggesting that maybe it was windy up high. Looking back at these photos it is hard to believe it is supposed to get to 55 degrees this week!

2/7/21

The last time I visited my site there wasn’t any snow on the ground, but today there was a white blanket that revealed lots of wildlife activity I would have otherwise missed completely. Other than the snow, my site has not changed that drastically, seeing as most of the trees are coniferous and the deciduous trees had already dropped their leaves before my last visit.

In addition to the phenological changes there are also some human-caused changes on my site, as you can see in the first photo there are the beginnings of a fort being built. Closer inspection at some holes in the snow revealed that small mammals were building forts as well.

The entrances to the subnivean zone were not the only evidence of mammal activity. There were also tracks and scat, which told more of a story. I found some dog-like tracks that I think were either actually a dog, or a fox or coyote. Following these tracks led me to the site of some sort of interaction, but I’m not exactly sure what. Next to an old piece of metal fence was an area of snow covered in some brown brown and larger pieces of scat, as well as bits of wood. The scat itself was full of fur and pieces of bone, leading me to believe it was probably a coyote.

I found other scat around my site as well, which I think most likely belonged to a fox or other small mammal. I also found tracks which I think belonged to a rabbit. I haven’t ever spent a lot of time looking for tracks, but it made me want to develop my identification skills much further because, especially with regards to the first scat I mentioned, I could tell there was a story there and I would have loved to be able to piece it together.

The three images above show the site of the scat with the bones in it, as well as the tracks that were leading to it.

I included this last picture because I was so amazed by how this little yellow birch was growing.

12/03/20

Before settlers arrived in Vermont, Centennial Woods was not called Centennial Woods. It was Abenaki land, so there is no way of knowing exactly what it was used for, but we can be sure that they had very different land use practices than the settlers. Practices that involved farming and hunting without clear cutting forests and completely reassembling the landscape. While today I was able to use my site in Centennial Woods as a method of studying the phenology of Vermont’s forests, there was a time when Centennial Woods had no trees. Vermont’s farm production reached its peak in the 1870’s, when about 80% of the state was deforested, including Centennial Woods. Eventually, when sheep farming in Vermont became less popular, many of the forests grew back. Many of the trees in Centennial Woods are the same size, which is evidence of the abandonment of farms that allowed for regrowth, all beginning around the same time. The University acquired most of Centennial Woods in parcels between 1891 and 1908. For a long time it was used as a dump for the University, including being a dumping ground for medical supplies from the hospital and even cadavers. In 1963 a small ski hill called South Burlington Kiwanis Ski Area opened in Centennial Woods, but it fell victim to arsonists four years later. Now Centennial Woods is primarily used for academic purposes such as labs and as a recreation area for students and Burlington residents.

Sources:

Abramovich, C. (2020, March 31). Curious Centennial Woods. Retrieved from http://obscurevermont.com/curious-centennial-woods/

Merck. (2019, October 25). History of Vermont Forests & Farmland. Retrieved from https://www.merckforest.org/history-of-vermont-forests-farmland/

11/29/20

Weather: 40˚F and sunny

My new phenology site is at my aunt and uncle’s house in Montpelier, where I am staying over break. The spot I chose is on the edge of a man-made pond, and a forest that is primarily American beech, as well as striped maple, red maple, paper birch, and a few coniferous trees like hemlock and what I think are red spruce and young eastern white pines. This site is somewhat similar to my previous site, in that it is a mixture of forest and wetland, however this site is primarily deciduous trees rather than hemlock and eastern white pine, and there is a pond instead of just a marsh. Unfortunately, my knowledge of the plants in the wetlands is pretty limited, and it is especially hard to distinguish them since they are all dead, so I can’t compare the two wetlands that well, but I would imagine there are a lot of the same plants since the environments are very similar. Overall the forest at this site feels less dense, and there is much more American beech than in Centennial Woods. Most of the decaying leaves on the ground are American beech. I also found some striped maple leaves, although I did not see the actual trees, and my site in Centennial Woods did not have any striped maple. It is a little sad that I didn’t get to go home for break, because I would have loved to compare the coniferous forest in Idaho to my little area of Centennial Woods, but I still appreciated being able to examine another area of Vermont closely, and spot the small differences and similarities to my site in Burlington. The final thing to point out is the man-made rock wall which I included a picture of because it reminded me of the rock walls from Vermont’s hill farming days. There is a large chunk of quartz in the rock wall, and I found a lot of other massive pieces of quartz while exploring the forest. I wonder if students in 100 years will look at this rock wall and study its history.

Sources:

How to identify New England Trees (Coniferous). (2019, July 27). Retrieved from https://kidsendehors.com/guide-to-coniferous-trees/

11/8/20

Today I visited my site pretty late in the evening, and I got to watch the clouds turn pink through the red maple trees to the West. It is wild to think that the sun now sets at 4:30. It feels like winter is coming fast, and yet today was 70˚! The yellow birches in my site have lost their leaves entirely, but the hemlocks and eastern white pines still keep the area looking dark and green. The marsh to the East is very brown and dry, and birds are still singing across the wetland. 

My Event Map:

I often think trees with no leaves give us a glimpse of the magic 

that is underneath

and in between the soil.

The roots that talk in a language we don’t understand,

a language we denounce

a language we’re afraid of.

Sources:

Hinchman, H. (1999). A trail through leaves: The journal as a path to place. New York: W.W. Norton.

10/25/20

Today, October 25th, was a pretty chilly day. It was partly cloudy and was around 41˚F when I was at my site at 5:00pm. Many of the leaves are still on the trees in Centennial Woods. Most of them are yellow, some are orangey-red, and a few are still green. Many of the leaves on the ground, especially in my phenology site, are brown. I heard a lot of birds, especially in the trees along the edge of the wetland, but I wasn’t able to identify them. Parts of the wetland are still very marshy and muddy, which I discovered at the expense of my shoe.

Below is a map that I drew of my phenology site from above. In my map North is not at the top, because I started drawing the way I was facing instead of orienting myself. The shaded area roughly separates the hemlock forest from the deciduous forest but the different symbols, clarified in the key, show that there is a lot of mixing. The line between the forest and the wetland is much harsher.

Hemlock Forest – 10/11/20

To get to my phenology site, you have to walk into Centennial Woods and take trails that are trending to the North until you get to a trail which follows the forest edge, by the side of a wetland meadow. My site is located in a clearing surrounded by hemlocks. If you East from my site, you can see the marshy wetland. I chose this site because it is a place I often go to meditate. I also recently wrote about hemlock forests in my Environmental Studies class, so I am curious to learn more about them and watch how they change through the seasons. I am also interested in seeing how the wetland changes as we transition to winter. 

The ground within the clearing is mostly packed soil sprinkled with eastern white pine needle deadfall. The forest surrounding the clearing is made up of hemlocks, yellow birch, eastern white pine, and a few red maples. The understory mostly consisted of ferns and barberry. It is common for ferns to grow in the understory of hemlock forests, so what I observed fits with the normal trends for this type of forest community.

Sources:

Eastern Hemlock. Virginia Tech Dendrology. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://dendro.cnre.vt.edu/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=116

Video about barberry made by UVM students, provided by Walt and Chris: https://bb.uvm.edu/webapps/blackboard/execute/displayLearningUnit?course_id=_148708_1&content_id=_3464662_1