Upon arriving to my site, the change could be immediately noticed. The night before going to my site, there were torrential downpours and flooding, and this was very evident at my site. The thing first noticed was the absence of the bridge that is used to cross the brook, which had been pushed downstream by the flooding. Once I got to my site, I also began to realize that almost 4 feet of the brook bank had eroded away due to the flood waters, and the brook had almost doubled its width. The sides of the bank had also been eroded, although some grasses and other vegetation had held much of the soil together, creating somewhat of a cliff. Around my site, I had noticed that much of the vegetation had begun to turn brown and die off. Many of the trees had completely lost their leaves, including the green ash trees which was one of the last trees to lose its leaves. Now only the red maples were left with yellow tinted leaves. I also saw multiple chipmunks gathering nuts and other materials to prepare for the winter. Surrounding the site, many Eastern White Pine trees stand tall with all of their needles, ready for the harsh winter, a factor nearly unchanged by the coming of fall. The fungus pictured represents the circle of life that occurs throughout my sight and plays an equally important role as any other organism at my site. The act of mapping my sight really made me think about and picture what I have seen many times. By drawing a map before, it brought out my perception of my site, based only on how I remember it, forcing myself to think about every rock and plant at my site. This activity made me more focused when I visited it next because I was looking for the details I missed when trying to map it from memory, changing how I observed my site.
