I visited my phenology spot today, December 8th, for the last time of the semester. It has been snowing the past few days so when I made my trek into Centennial Woods, there were a few inches covering my phenology spot.
The foliage in my phenology spot had changed drastically since I had been there last. All of the Sugar Maples, Oak trees and American Beeches had fully lost their foliage. The coniferous trees (such as the Eastern Hemlocks) remained to have their leaves while the snow laid on their needles.
There was only one hardwood tree within my entire phenology spot that still had some decaying leaves on it and that was a red maple (pictured below). However, the majority of the leaves have fallen off and the ones that were left were completely dead.
What surprised me to see was that the ferns still persisted and were mostly all alive even under the snow with no signs of decay. Instead, the snow fully slid off of the fern, like with the conifers, and was just as green and showing signs of life as they did back in October.
When I was walking in my phenology spot, I began to clear some of the snow to see what made up the ground cover. What I found was most of the ground cover continued to be made up of the same ferns, still thriving since I first saw them in October. In addition to these ferns, fallen and decaying leaves have joined into these ground-hugging plants. The majority of the leaves I observed on the ground, that didn’t fully decay away yet, were that of oak trees.
While I was at phenology spot, I saw signs of animal footprints. They were small in size and round in shape. I am not exactly sure what they are. They could even be misinterpreted dog footprints as there is a trial not too far from my phenology spot. However, I discredited this idea once I began to get further into my phenology spot and it seemed as though the tracks were moving within the spot and away from the trail. Additionally, there were no human footprints surrounding these tracks (the human footprint pictured within one of the photos is my own). This intrigues me to know what critter these tracks were from and to begin animal tracking next semester.
As this semester comes to an end, and this is my last post for this phenology spot for 2024, there are many things I will reflect on that I enjoyed about this project. Firstly, having the opportunity to see the changes of my spot within varying weather conditions was such a wonderful experience. I have visited my spot in sun, pouring rain and now snow. It was interesting to see impacts such weather had on these species. For instance, the below freezing nights and snow led to most of the trees to not have any leaves yet but for ferns, they continue to thrive.
Additionally, one of my favorite parts of this semester assignment was creating a place-based relationship with this spot within Centennial Woods. Treking to a secluded area gave me the opportunity to sit in the silence and just take in the ecosystem around me. It was also a wonderful opportunity to instigate curiosity and continuous exploring. I often found myself looking very closely at the different parts of my phenology spot to see if there was anything new that I hadn’t noticed from my previous visit. There were several patterns I observed within my phenology spot such as ferns growing by conifers that I also began to notice in labs as well afterwards. There was something so peaceful being disconnected from the busy technical world and just looking closely at a place I otherwise wouldn’t have looked at with so much intent and observation.