Welcome to my blog! I am very excited to show the progress of my site throughout the seasons!
Post #1: October 10, 2024:
I chose the opening in front of Centennial Woods. I chose this location because there were two distinct different biomes: meadow and forest. After going on the birding walk with Dr. Allan Strong during UVM Weekend I realized how interesting this environment was. It is very easily accessible on foot or in car. Since it is just the opening of the forest and you don’t have to hike to get into the actual woods. This location is also a five to ten minute walk away from the UVM Medical Center. Vegetation: The vegetation in this area is pretty diverse because there are forest plants and meadow plants. There are lots of different coniferous and deciduous trees lining the edge of the forest with lots of tall grasses and flowers growing in front.
Woody Plants: – Boxelder – Eastern Black Walnut – Cockleburs – Beggarticks
Post #2: November 4, 2024
When I returned to my site after a few weeks of not being there, a lot had changed. None of the surrounding coniferous trees has any leaves left on the branches, they were all over the ground instead. Because of this you could see the branches of all of the trees so clearly. Another significant change I noticed was in the small plants front of the forest. The grass changed from a bright green to a more muted yellowish green color. All of the tall surrounding plants had either fallen or were very obviously dead and going to fall over soon. While I was sitting in my location and just taking everything in, not much happened. It was interesting to see how the squirrels ran around searching for a last morsel of food. I enjoyed watching the birds hop from branch to branch, because the leaves have all fallen it was very easy to watch them move around. It was pretty windy on the day I decided to go down to my spot. There was a lot of noise from the leaves rustling and the trees bouncing off of one another. Although I wasn’t able to witness anything crazy I did enjoy just sitting and watching for a period of time.
Post #3: November 29, 2024
The site I chose as my temporary phenology place was my backyard at home. I live in a town called Barrington in Rhode Island. My family has 1.3 acres of land with 1/3 of it being forest. This has always been a place for me to go and feel at peace and not feel like I have to act normal or pretend, I can always be myself in my backyard. All of the memories I have with my friends and family provide me with a connection like no other place ever has.
The ecology and phenology of my backyard compared to the ecology and phenology of my UVM site are very similar. Since I live in New England there is not as drastic of a change. The leaves have definitely fallen less in Rhode Island but besides being a little bit behind in that way they are very very similar.
Final Post: December 9, 2024
During my final trip to my phenology site I spent some time there and just took it all in. Some of the trees in the area still had leaves, like the evergreens and a beech tree here or there, but most tweets were empty and appeared dead. None of the vegetation in the meadow area in front of the forest had any life left to it. It looked more like two large piles of dead sticks and old plant matter with a path in the center. Unfortunately I did not have my phone on me since this was a spontaneous trip and I was not able to capture any images. In the beginning of this project my site was a bright and lively green area with what seemed like a hundred birds flying around in the edge of the woods. When I went this time there were very few birds and the scene was grey and dull. It is so interesting to me to see how one specific area of land changes in the span of almost two months. All of the plants having an almost complete transformation and the animals almost disappearing is so amazing. The only animals tracks at my site were human foot prints and what I am assuming are dog prints along side them. I would say the aspect of my phenology site that I have enjoyed the most is being able to watch the complete transformation of this one spot. Like I said before watching it go from beautiful and full of life to dark and dull has been so interesting. And being able to capture all the stages along the way as well. I will also mention I rally enjoyed how there were two different types of natural area. I was able to experience the change in the meadow as well as the forest. Thank you for following along!
Post #1: 1/27/25
I decided to choose a new phenology site to start the new year. I chose an area that had some rural elements but in a suburban neighborhood to see what it would be like. To get to my phenology site, you walk towards south prospect street from WDW and walk south towards the entrance to the country club. Once you reach the entrance you walk over to right in front of the woods and you have reached my spot! While visiting I chose to capture images of some of the animal tracks I saw in the snow.
Post #2: February 24, 2025
For this assignment we were asked to go and explore somewhere in the greater Burlington area. I chose to go to Hobo Beach. I had never been here before so I went in with no expectations. The beach was right off of the bike path. It was beautiful and covered in snow and ice. Very cool to see a beach in winter! When I was walking up to the beach I saw a beautiful red-tailed hawk fly over me and I documented it in iNaturalist along with the beautiful snow bunting I saw as I was leaving. I documented two different sets of tracks as well. The first being dog tracks, these were easy to identify especially knowing that they allow dogs at the beach. The other tracks I said were raccoon based on the pattern of walking. However I do think it highly possible they are squirrel tracks, I was unsure when I added those. I found it very easy to use iNaturalist, I have some experience with it already so this was not my first time. I took multiple pictures of all my tasks and uploaded them all so there were multiple options when it came to identification. I really enjoyed the trip to my site and the view from the beach as well!
Post #3: April 17, 2025
On April 17th I went around Camus following the map provided and recorded phenological data for five different trees. I noticed that most of the trees had flower buds, but they were not open yet. The red maple was the only tree I saw that actually had open flower buds. On the red maple tree I thought it was really cool that I was able to see the flowers open. Unfortunately the flowers were too high up for me to collect any information on the pollen. A few of the other trees had leaves still attached to the branches from the fall as well. I thought this was very interesting because I would have assumed that all of the leaves would be gone by mid April. I would say all of the trees besides the red maple were in the same phenophase, the red maple seemed to be ahead of the others. While I was exploring the NPN website I came across a page on the predictions of grassland bird nest timing. I learned that information about nesting timing is lacking for grassland birds in the central part of the U.S. This caught my eye because I have heard of so many different studies on birds and their patterns, so I thought it was fascinating that this group was lacking information. This made me think about how we don’t know how climate change may be affecting this species because we don’t know a lot about their nesting habits in the first place.
Post #4: April 28, 2025
Today I went and explored on some side streets off of S Prospect street for the City Nature Challenge. I walked around for about half an hour nothing the tree, bird, and flower species I saw. I tried to choose species that seemed more natural, like I didn’t record that I saw tulips even though a saw so many. I went down Maple street, Summit street, Cliff street, and South Prospect. Although it was a small area I observed a lot of different types of trees and a lot of different types of birds. I took pictures of all the plants and uploaded them to inatrualist when I got back to my dorm after my walk. I have used Naturalist a lot so following the instructions on bright space and my prior knowledge made my experience very easy and simple. I observed 16 different bird species, 14 of those being observed by sound through the merlin app, and 12 plant species-including trees, flowers, and bushes- by eye. I found it really interesting that the San Antonio metro area had almost 100,000 observations with almost 5,000 species. I also thought it was interesting that a daisy was the most observed species. I also really liked exploring the observations from other countries, I explored the Brisbane page from Australia. I loved that the most observed species was a koala that made me laugh. But it was really cool to see the different animals and plants that aren’t in America.
Post #5: May 2, 2025
Today I returned to my phenology spot for the last time this year. I very roughly, sketched out my site and I have included the image below. It was a nice and sunny day and the birds at my site were going crazy. I was able to observe robins, blue jays, cardinals, crows, wrens, chickadees, and more. Over the semester my site has gotten so much greener and more alive. I have become very familiar with the big golf course sign right next to the area I focus on, I have also become very accustomed to the line where the grass meets the woods and the area becomes wild. This site is very unique when it comes to how nature and culture intertwine. It is technically an area of the gold course so there are always cars and humans and golf balls flying, especially in the summer. But there is also the woods right there that provides an area for the animals and nature to thrive and grow. And it is packed full of animals and plants. I don’t think I personally am a part of place because I have never golfed and it’s not something I am rally interested in. However there is a huge human presence at my site which is really important to take note of.
