When visiting my phenology place today, the ground was cold and muddy because the temperature is nearly 50 degrees, so all the snow was melted. When I walked down the path to the pond, I noticed no sugar maple, red maple, striped maple, or green ash trees had leaves. I did notice that the Beech leaves had turned a golden brown color, and were still on the trees. I also noticed that the buckthorn bushes had their leaves still, but they were shriveled up and appeared to be deterriorating. The red and white oak trees at my location had lost all of their leaves, unlike the oak trees on the UVM campus, which still have most of their now dark brown leaves.
When I walked down to the edge of the pond, I noticed the vegetation was mostly dead and brown. There were no surviving ferns. I saw that what I predicted was wild cucumber vines had spread a lot since my first visit in November, and then died. The only alive vegetation I saw was a ground covering plant that had sprouts with three leaves on the end of each sprout. They look similar to buttercup plant leaves. The pond itself was slightly frozen, and still had cattails growing out of it.
I saw no birds at all on my visit today, and only one squirrel which I spooked on my walk down.
At home, I explored behind my house. I live in the Luther forest, in Saratoga county, New York. Here, Thomas C Luther planted thousands of red pines many years ago for reforestation efforts. My parents built our house here before the area has been taken over by technology campuses, including GlobalFoundries which has recently been headquartered to the Malta location, just five minutes from my house. Our neighbors who have been here for years chose the area because it was away from the major towns in the area, and because it is a great place for hunting, hiking, and snowmobiling. Weaved in the woods is a large system of snowmobile trails that people come to enjoy after hunting season, and some of the largest deer in the area reside in these woods.
There has been a lot of controversy surrounding where I live between homeowners and the new construction. For years there has been a fight between homeowners and the Malta tech park. When the area transitioned from the dirt roads to paved roads and logging began, I feel it has lost some of its meaning because of Thomas Luther’s purpose. I live in a part across the road from more woods and where the tech parks are with more maple, oak, hemlock, paper birch, ash, beech, and pine trees. There is also poison ivy, but not too many wild bushes just young trees.
In Burlington, my phenology place has much more cedar trees, striped maple, and red maple. It also has much more invasive plants. I included photos of the stream directly behind my house named ” Plum Brook” where I have spent a lot of time my whole life. The stream is has a two bridges and connects to my neighbors ponds. Over the years we have created trails throughout this part of the woods for fourwheelers, snowshoeing in the winter, and hunting. In this stream I have made many dams over the years for fun, and have seen lots of wildlife and minnows.
Recently, across the road from the Brook, the completely wooded area as seen by my map included has been deforested along the road to build a development and apartments. This is extremely upsetting because it has disrupted the wildlife and we have seen virtually no deer because of this, when the area used to be greatly populated. They almost did this to the area behind my house, but one of my neighbors bought the large piece of land to prevent that. I came home this thanksgiving to see how much destruction was done, and it was very unsettling. I’m sad to see the place where I grew up slowly being destroyed.
I went to a new place in Burlington, which was my roommates phenology place in Crescent woods. You walk from South Prospect Street, where you see many trees without leaves including maples. You then go past the golf course, Which has little wildlife. You then pass a neighborhood, with apple trees, beech trees, and oak trees. You arrive at the entrance to the woods, and there are many red oak, beech trees, and sugar maples. There is a stream and lots of wildlife in the small area. All around the area were squirrels, and birds. One bird I recognized was a chickadee by the neighborhood at the entrance to the woods.
After visiting recently, there have been some minor changed to the area. The pond still has algae on it. The Red Maple leaves have fallen more, and the Sugar Maple and Norway maple trees have started to change color. The Norway Maples have turned more yellow. One thing I noticed significantly was a change in the temperature compare to my first visit, and it got dark outside sooner.
I chose a location at my site with an opening were you can see the end of the pond but also the cattails. Sometimes there are ducks in this area and squirrels. I did not see any ducks this time, so maybe they flew somewhere with a warmer climate.
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The place I chose to explore for my phenology assignment was Arthur Park located Opposite Burlington High School in Burlington VT. To get there, you look just beyond the bus stop on North Ave across from the sports fields for the entrance sign to the trail.
I chose this place because I heard it was a good place for pond skating in the winter, and I think it is interesting to see how pond ecosystems are effected by their surroundings.
When you enter the trail downhill towards the pond, you find Poison Ivy, Buckthorn, Red maple, Red Oak, Sugar Maple, Beech, Hemlock, Green Ash, and young Striped Maple trees. Once you reach the slimmer trail on the edge of the pond, you will find an abundance of ferns, nettle plants, buttercup, poison ivy, and other plants. In the pond there are many cattails. Growing near the rocks and boulders on the edge of the pond are many Northern White Cedar. There were many Norway Maple, Boxelder, Buckthorn, Sumac, and blueberry bushes. Growing on the trees in vines were wild cucumber plants, and other vines with leaves that looked like squash leaves which I was unable to identify.
