A UVM blog Salmon Hole Phenology

Posts

City Nature Challenge

By lhbaron
5/6/23

iNaturalist Rampage

There were four main location that I did the Bioblitz in: Downtown, Centennial Woods, UVM, and Salmon Hole. First, I went downtown on Friday morning to meet up with a friend who was passing through Burlington. From there, I recorded observations while walking back to campus until my phone died on main street. I recorded 80 observations here. Since I wanted to cover all bases I tried to get as many insect species as possible, since I think many people will skim past them. I went to Centennial Woods three times (Friday, Sunday, Monday) where I was able to make the largest chunk of my observations (244). I also visited salmon hole with a friend and walked the riverside trail to get 98 more observations. I would also scan as many plants, animals, and fungi while walking on campus, which got me another 217 observations. I as more focused on species than observations though, which is the main reason I tried to go to so many different locations. At each location, there were many species that I had not discovered at the other locations.

Downtown Observations
Centennial Woods and UVM observations
Salmon Hole Observations

Due to my ADHD hyperfixation of this project, I was able to get 306 different species, however after the cultivated ones were marked, I had 250 species discovered. I really like the service that iNaturalist provides, but I think it works best in pair with other identification apps. I used Merlin Bird ID to be able to identify some of the birds, Picture This to identify some of the plants, and Picture Insect to identify some of the bugs. With using all of these apps, I was able to learn more of the species and be more confident with my reported species or genus for the observations.

I was looking at the results for the greater Seattle-Tacoma metro area throughout the weekend, since that is where I am from, and I was disappointed. With a population just over four million, they were only able to get 10,000 observations and with the exception of someone that seems to have gone scuba diving to identify species, I easily had more species and observations than anyone in Seattle. Their 10,000 is barely more than Burlington’s 8,000. I found it interesting how much impact NR2 had on the observations. Without the help of NR2, Burlington punches in its weight class, but due to the incentives of NR2, we punch way above our weight.

Flea Jumping Spider at Centennial Woods
Star Rosette Lichen, Candleflame Lichen, and Orthotrichaceae Moss on a Cherry Plum tree at UVM

Final Phenology Visit

By lhbaron
4/29/23

Changes

With the ebb and flow of water level, the land bridge is only sometimes traversable. More recently, due to the snowmelt, the water levels have been at their highest, limiting the walkability of the bridge. Of course, the most obvious change must be stated: Through the seasons, most of the trees lost their leaves, and have recently started to bud new leaves. This base level of change ripples out to the types of life that can accompany the phenology spot through the winter. However, I would say the largest change is in myself. I have noticed more and more aspects over the months of visiting Salmon Hole. At first I just noticed the Heron and the Beeches, but now I notice even the variety of lichen and mosses that find their way on the surface and in the cracks of the stone. I would break the location up into a few segments.

Original Salmon Hole Sketch

Using my original sketch of the location, there are a few clear parts. First the island in the middle of the page. Then, moving down the page, the land bridge, which only sometimes is above water. Continuing down to the right is a flat raised rock shelf past which is forest. Instead continuing down to the left of the land bridge is more of a sandy forested area. However, the most notable parts are the melding edges of these places. Different types of mosses and plants are found at the edge of the different parts, such as dogwood and Woodsy Thyme-moss.

I still would not count myself as a part of my place. For that to be true, I would have to be be going to Salmon Hole for a few years. I have only really seen a handful of times. And I don’t mean simply looked at it, I mean times where I could see it a whole made up from all of these complex interwoven parts. I am still just someone that visits the place. Yes, I know more than most about Salmon Hole, but I don’t know close to everything. If I were able to compare this year’s phenology to previous ones, then maybe I could consider myself part of the place, a sort of ambassador of Salmon Hole. But for now, I am just one of the many people that crosses paths with it.

Final Salmon Hole Sketch

Burlington April Phenology

By lhbaron
4/10/23

Revisiting my Tree

On the day that I happen to be revisiting my tree, it is a balmy 62 degrees out. Some of the buds on the tree have burst and have thin strings coming out from them. All of the buds, even the ones that have yet to burst are a deeper red color than on my previous visits. The snow around my site is completely melted now and there was more animal activity. Upon entering the site, I immediately noticed the call of a black capped chickadee and a few other bird calls that I couldn’t recognize.

March 2023 Vermont Phenology

By lhbaron
March 25th, 2023

Adopting a Tree

There was still a small coating of snow packed on the wooded parts of my site, but all of the snow from the rock flat has melted off into the river. All of the snowmelt from upstream has raised the water level to the highest that I have seen as a part of this project. The land bridge is not much of a bridge anymore, half being submerged by the flow of the river atop.

I scavenged the site to find one of the following trees: red maple (Acer rubrum), Northern red oak (Quercus rubra), paper birch (Betula papyrifera), or American beech (Fagus grandifolia). I remember from the fall seeing many beech and some red oak, too. However, on going back to the site I had a much harder time finding these species with no leaves to go off of. I started to see some red oak leaves on the ground peeking out under the snow, so I looked around. I managed to find one that still had some dead leaves hanging down from branches. This made it really easy to identify that the tree was a Northern Red Oak. Looking specifically at the bud, it has the characteristic many buds from the end of the twig. To differential from other oaks such as white oak, I looked at the length of the buds. White Oaks generally have stubbier buds than Northern Red Oaks and the bud that I had found. To differentiate from maples, I looked for bud scars, since maples tend to have many. Cottonwood buds are sharper than the buds that I found, which rules out cottonwood. There were very few, so my determination from the bud seem to match the clear Northern Red Oak leaves.

March 2023 Washington Phenology

By lhbaron

Orcas Island

I was lucky enough to be in the San Juan Islands of Washington over the “spring” break. I stayed on the eastern tip of the Orcas Island (circled on the maps below), which is almost completely forested with a scattering of roads and homes. All of the snow had been completely melted for at least a week before I visited and spring was just turning the corner as it was an almost balmy 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

Whereas the most common forest composition in Vermont are mostly hardwoods with some coniferous interspersed, the Washington forests are mostly coniferous with some hardwoods interspersed. Maybe because of this or due to a number of other factors, there are fewer shrubs throughout the forest, but far more ferns and mosses under the tall canopy of evergreen trees. The trees and other plants that were come across were also adapted to less sunlight and more rain, as is common in the Pacific Northwest.

Much like Vermont, Washington had a large period of glaciation that put the San Juan Islands under around a mile of ice. The glacier started retreating 17,000 years ago and hadn’t fully uncovered the islands until around 15,000 years ago. There were many glacial floods and lakes that eventually settled down into the current ecosystem of the Puget Sound, much like with Lake Champlain in Vermont.

Wildlife here is much different to the East coast, however. Foxes and chipmunks are far less common, and we lack fishers. But, we do have far more black bears, cougars, bobcats, and coyotes. On top of that, since the Puget sound is so large and connected to the ocean, we have many marine mammals such as sperm whales, orcas, and seals.

Harbor Seal

In the area of the Island that we stayed, by far the most common bird was the American Robin. We also saw a good few bald eagles circling above, and the common seagull, house finch, and house sparrow. There was also often a pecking at wood from yellow-bellied sapsuckers.

Yellow Bellied Sapsucker
Bald Eagle

iNaturalist

By lhbaron

I went to Centennial Woods for my phenology this week. We first followed the the trails, spotting tracks beside or intersecting our path. Many of these were dog tracks, with the occasional fox and squirrel, so we tried finding more open fresh snow. When doing so, we were able to make out coyote, white footed mouse, mink, and red and gray fox. Many of the tracks were hard to narrow down to the specific species, especially since nobody in our group was a strong tracker. We were able to determine the coyote tracks from the toes held together well and the realization that people are less likely to let their dog run free by a frozen over creek that could be dangerous. As for the mink, we saw the clear 5 toes and walking pattern, which with the size of the tracks narrowed it down to mink.

After a bit of trouble getting onto the NR2 group, iNaturalist was very straightforward to use. One thing that I wish you could do (maybe you can and I just didn’t find it) is to report something as just “fox” or “squirrel.” I suppose you could just leave species blank and put it in the notes, but having it in species would show more confidence. On some of the identifications, we were very hesitant to add it to iNaturalist out of worry of being wrong, but eventually we got most tracks up to iNaturalist.

White Footed Mouse
Fox
Coyote
Mink

Winter Ecology

By lhbaron

In the new year, Salmon Hole finds itself covered in crusted layers of snow. most of the tracks that can be seen in the snow are from people with the occasional other animal tracks. A path of compressed snow that is almost ice has been clearly laid out from the many people that trod before me. The stairs that once led down to Salmon Hole is now closer to a ramp formed of snow, so to get down, you have to follow a slightly longer, but less precarious path on the loop.

Frozen/snowed over land bridge with frozen water to the right.

The land bridge that was only sometimes above water is now mostly frozen over with ice and snow, causing the water to flow more rapidly on the other side of tip of Salmon Hole. Where the water is slower moving, the edges have been frozen over with about an eighth of an inch of ice. For much of my journey I saw tracks that seemed to be from a medium sized mammal, maybe the size of a large dog. After finding this tracks somewhat parallel to those of humans, I think they may in fact just be from a large dog.

The tracks that I could easily identify were the Grey Squirrel tracks and they were more common towards the entrance of the site with no visible larger tracks up in that portion. The other larger tracks were found on the flatter unforrested parts of the site

Grey Squirrel Tracks in a gallop pattern
White-Tail Deer? prints
Mink prints in a bound pattern
Canine prints

Washington Phenology

By lhbaron
Washington State

Redmond Watershed

While back at home for thanksgiving, I visited the nearby Redmond Watershed. An immediate difference from the Winooski River could be seen. While Vermont is full of shorter understory trees like maples, beech, and poplar, Washington was almost totally coniferous trees. The most common here at the watershed were Douglass Fir and Western Red Cedar. In the understory were young coniferous, as well as Oregon White Oak, Vine Maple, and Dogwood. While both Vermont and Washington have maples and oaks, the two phenology sites contain different species.

Ice covered pond with many fallen trees
Full Redmond Watershed Preserve with trails overlay. The small pond at the bottom is my phenology site.
My Phenology site with the parking lot on the left.

Over the last few days we have seen a lot of snow. Or at least a lot of snow for Washington. 5 inches. Likely due to this, I only saw the occasional squirrel and didn’t hear many bird sounds. Unlike Vermont quite a few of the understory trees still had some leaves to them or had just lost them.

Second Visit

By lhbaron
Salmon Hole

Observing

As I sat on the jutting rocks of Salmon hole, I first noticed how much lower the water level was compared to last. I was able to walk out onto the rocks where there was rapidly flowing water on my initial visit. On these sometimes-covered rocks, there were fewer woody plants; there were mostly just grasses, lichen and moss. Even back on the flatter rocky section that I stayed the first time, there was a noticeable increase in the growth of these types of plants.

Instead of yellow leaves on most the trees, seldom were any of the leaves attached, instead they sat trampled and brown on the ground after being tread on by humans and wildlife alike.

The lack of leaves stealing sunlight from the understory allowed for thrive, showing more diversity than it did on my initial visit.

Second Visit: jagged rock faces at an angle with water poolingInitial Visit: water quickly flowing over the same rocks

However, the first thing that I noticed were the few other people that were there. Unsure whether it was not peak fishing time or if the water level effects it, for some reason there were fewer people fishing on this visit. Instead Salmon Hole was occupied by college students sketching, listening to music, and just relaxing. Then, all of the sudden, a great blue heron swooped down and landed on the shore of the river across from me. It waded through the water, high-stepping in the way that herons do. For a few minutes I just followed the heron with my sight as it looked for fish to feed on, unsuccessful, it flew away to check a new spot.

Few leaves on trees, but more people and grasses
Lots of green in the understory
Green for vegetation with large green meaning trees and small green dots meaning grasses/mosses/lichen. Yellow for sands. Blue to show path of the river which sometimes passes through the middle, depending on water level. Rough topographical lines that show steep drop right and left of the middle chunk and cliff on the far right.

Initial Visit

By lhbaron
Winooski River’s

Salmon Hole

It was actually my sister that stumbled upon this site for me. She had just gotten a roll of film from last year developed, when we noticed this beautiful part of the river with snow covered banks. We went all throughout google maps searching for where it may be and found the Salmon Hole.

The Salmon Hole is a segment of Winooski River just downstream of Winooski Falls and the Winooski Hydroelectric Dam. It is a common fishing location in the area due to having a variety of sought after fish including Atlantic salmon and various trout and bass species.

Left to Right: Beech, Poplar, Silver Maple
Left leaf is what most Norway maple leaves looked like. Right leaf used for identification.
Norway Maple leaf from 50-100ft off shore showing more green than Norway Maple leaves closer to the shore

The most common woody plants down at Salon Hole were Beech, Silver Maple, Poplar, and Norway Maple. All of the trees directly on the river bank already had their leaves turn yellow. If you walk less than a hundred feet away from the river, fewer trees have yellow leaves as can be seen with Norway maple. There was a larger variety of woody plants further away, too. Species like Boxelder, paper birch, and oak were found near the entrance of Salmon Hole. Another discrepancy between entrance and shore is that most of the leaves by the shore had many holes eaten in them, while the entrance trees did not.

Skip to toolbar