Phenology Assignment

Many things have changed since January. While it is still quite cold on some days, overall the temperature seems to be increasing slightly, pushing the winter season closer and closer to the thaw. With these increasing temperatures, various species are making themselves known around my spot in Centennial. While I didn’t get to see much wildlife at all, I did get to here constant chatter from multiple bird species high up in the trees while I was visiting my spot. These birds were much more active and vocal than they were last month, likely due to the temperature shift and the seasons coming closer and closer to spring. While there was still a good amount of snow on the forest floor it was nowhere near as thick as it was in January, and the brook has even thawed (pictured above). You can tell that even though there is still constant snow on the ground, the seasons are warming up because the subnivean zone is much thinner than it was last month and the moving water around my spot is no longer frozen solid. Along with the melting of the brook, more active birds, and lighter snow layer, there was no ice covering on any of the trees in Cenntanial, a huge differnce from last month’s visit.

With this light layer of snow comes the opportunity to see many tracks of various wildlife that have recently passed through the area. Even though I didn’t personally see any wildlife during my time in Centennial, I did notice many signs of their presence.

For instance, one of the tracks I noticed was likely a rabbit scurrying along the ground under a suspended log. These tracks were located very close to an exposed root system that seemed to provide a den-like area, dry and protected from the elements, a very likely place for this rabbit to call home during the winter months. If this was, in fact, a rabbit, it likely spends most of its days sleeping and sitting still, conserving body energy and heat. Rabbits prefer to use the darkness to conceal themselves from their common predators which can include coyotes, hawks, and foxes, and therefore do most of their foraging at night time and early morning. When they are out and about they are looking for the scarce winter shrub or berry, but since most of these plant species have died off they are forced to resort to eating the woody part of plant-like bark and twigs during the winter months.

Since I noticed these tracks right near a fallen oak tree, I can pretty much guarantee that the rabbit uses this dead oak tree as shelter and protection from the harsh conditions and nearby predators. Many rabbits interact with various tree species throughout the winter in multiple ways. Whether they are using the trees as a food source and eating their bark or fallen twigs, or using them as shelter from predators, they highly rely on trees to provide food and protection in order to survive during the winter. Another species that rabbits interact with during this time of year in Centennial could be the Eastern coyote. Since these canines have become so comfortable around people and are encroaching more and more into densely populated areas, it is very likely that a coyote could find itself in Centennial, looking for the occasional rabbit to hunt. The cold temperatures makes food for these canines very scares, meaning that they need to make their hunts count. So, if you’re a rabbit in Centennial woods you need to be extra careful whenever you go out to forage because it is very likely that there could be a coyote waiting to gobble you up.

I am fairly certain that this is a domestic dog track and not a coyote track, but either way, this is another example of a species that interacts with the rabbits in Centennial. Whether it is a coyote or one of the many dogs that go on walks with their owners through centennial, it is very clear that rabbits are constantly having to interact with canines and need to always be on guard when out foraging in Centennial.

This is just another example of how there are multiple ways to figure out the various wildlife that have visited an area besides simply spotting them. This shows a hole in a dead tree drilled by a woodpecker, likely looking for small insects and larva living inside.

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During my visit to my phenology blog spot, I noticed a ton of animal signs, ranging from, tracks, to scat, to even holes in the sides of trees. There were many tracks around my spot in Centennial and while a lot of them were difficult to identify, I was able to make some pretty good guesses. For instance, the picture on the left is most likely a grey squirrel because of the arrangement and size of the tracks. The one in the idle is likely a fox’s print because of the size and the fact that its claws pointed straight in front, as supposed to domestic dogs which point in many different directions. The picture on the right depicts a tree with multiple holes in it (there were also woodchips on the ground below), a sheer sign of a woodpecker. So, while many species do migrate or settle down for the winter there are still many others that are quite active and it just requires looking a little harder in order to find signs of their existence.

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I saw many buds at my spot this week. Some of the ones I saw were Red Maple (depicted above), Sugar maple, Striped maple, Beech (pictured above), basswood, Norway maple, and possibly white oak. Here is a sketch of one of the sugar maple buds I saw at my spot.

Overall my spot hasn’t changed a lot since I last visited it in December. The temperature has stayed pretty much the same throughout the time I’ve been away and other than the frozen stream there weren’t many huge changes to the area. The snow when I visited has more crunchy than I remember it in December, likely due to snowfall, freezing, covered by more snowfall, and that freezing, and so on. One difference that was noticeable was the number of leaves on the trees around my spot. Other than the evergreens, all of the trees were bare, whereas in December most f the trees were bare. Also, I don’t know if it was because of season changes or simply because I was actively looking for animal signs this time around, but it seemed like there were way more animal tracks on the ground in my area than there were in December. Another cool thing to mention is that there were many instances where I stumbled upon holes in the ground with broken nuts around them (pictured below) which leads me to believe that now is a time when local squirrels and chipmunks are going through their winter stashes of nuts and hanging on until the snow thaws and they are able to feed on the blossoming trees once again.

Sense of place is a very general term and can be interpreted in many ways, but for me, I see it as someone’s connection to a place that is greater than any other. This connection draws us to that one special place and makes us feel safe, happy, and rooted while we are there. For me, this place is my home in Belmont Massachusetts. I have grown up in the same house since the 3rd grade and our house before that was also in Belmont, so that’s pretty much “my” town. Its where all my animals, friends, and family are, and there is no other place that I feel more comfortable in. It’s a pretty urban town, about a 20minute drive from Boston, but has never really felt like a city to me. Which is good because I don’t like cities at all.

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The interesting thing is that I have noticed my connection to my home even more so now that I am in college. While a 3 1/2 hour drive isn’t the worst commute in the world, this separation from my friends, family, and pets has really made me want to go back. Yes, I do enjoy UVM, but my desire to go home grows more and more as we get closer and closer to winter break. While the physicality of a place definitely plays a role in developing people’s sense of place for an area, I would say that the people who are a part of my hometown has a much greater impact on my connection to that place. Although, there is this image of me looking out my living room window, on a snow day, at the street down below and the snowman we build in our yards, all wrapped up in my PJs, that just keeps popping up in my head. As you might expect this makes me a little sad and feeds my desire to go home, mostly because its an image that can only be recreated at home and reminds me of a feeling that for me, can be achieved nowhere else.

Another thing that I didn’t even realize I felt connection to is not necessarily my town, but just knowing where everything is and being used to stuff. While I would say that I have settled into Burlington pretty well, there is always the slight discomfort of not knowing where things are or feeling like things are in the wrong spot; something I never feel back at home because I have become so familiar with the town and the vibe of the area in general.

Throughout my life, I have always had a strong connection to the place I call home, which is partly due to my loving parents, which I am grateful to have. I know there are many people who don’t necessarily have a strong connection to home and look to get out as soon as they can, which obviously greatly affects their sense of place and the area that they feel most connected to. My sense of place for my hometown has shifted a little throughout my life, but no change was as great as making the move to college. Being away for so long has made me feel a stronger connection to home, and I think that’s a key part of sense of place. You don’t get to truly appreciate how much you care for a place until you have spent a significant amount of time away from it. For instance, parts of my life like playing online with my friends almost daily and falling asleep with my cats by my side are just gone and I can only get them back when I’m back home, which is another reason why I am now drawn to my home more than before. I had made my life into a routine and I shattered that routine by going to college, so I’m trying to settle in here by restoring a routine similar to the one I had before, but in different ways.

Overall, no matter where someone calls home, or where they feel most connected/drawn to, most of the time its is about the people who make up that place and the general feelings they, and the aesthetic of that place inspire within us.

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Today was the start of a large snow storm that will likely last into tomorrow night. I picked the perfect time to go because while it was cold, 29degrees Fahrenheit, the snow had just started and was lightly falling in a powder that wasn’t completely sticking yet. If I went back now(5 hours later) while I’m writing this entry there would probably be an 2 inches covering the whole forest floor just for some perspective. So obvious the snow is a major change since the last time I visited this spot, but were a lot more changes as well that might not be so obvious. The brook that I always walk next to on the way there was down a significant amount, and you could see the damage those huge floods last week did to the bank. I only heard one or two birds and only saw one, I thought it was a Chickadee but am not entirely sure. I saw one Chipmunk scurry across the trail, and that’s all the wildlife I encountered today. This makes sense though, because as the temperature drops and the snow arrives more and more animals are either hibernating, going dormant or migrating. Very few are active in the winter because it is more difficult to find food and stay warm. Each time I visit this spot I feel more and more at peace with it. Even though I am miles away from home and would love to be there, I also appreciate the serenity of the woods, no matter where I am. An interesting thing to note is that my sense of place, how I feel connected to this spot, has shifted from the last time I came because of the season change. I have always loved looking out my window at home and watching the snow fall on the trees, and today as I was sitting on the forest floor I looked around and felt at home because of the snow covered everything and beauty around me. My site is in a different state, which I now assimilate with the idea of college, which makes me feel less connected to it in that sense, but if I ever come back to this exact spot once UVM has passed out of my life I can imagine feeling more connected with it, probably because there hopefully wont be a lingering stress and homesickness in the air. I often like imagining what an area would look like hundreds of years ago, and I know that a lot of Vermont was chopped down by colonialists in the 18th century, which makes me feel detached from this spot, but I prefer to think about the Native Americans that lived here long before them. I think about how they were truly one with the land and respected it on a level that no one has in a very long time. I wonder if anyone ever sat where I was sitting and looked around, enjoying the calm before the storm of colonialists that would ruin their lives forever and completely change the world as they knew it.

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11/1/19

Today was very windy, and it seemed that Cenntenial was affected by the severe rain/wind storm we had last night. On my way into the woods, I noticed that there was a large number of downed trees and eroded ground. The first thing I noticed was the sheer number of Earthworms littering the forest floor, just absolutely everywhere – probably flooded out by the rains last night. I went down to the brook to check and see what the rain had done to it and was blown away when I realized that the bridge that crosses the brook was about 20 ft downstream. The flash floods last night must have put so much force on the bridge that it ripped it out of its foundation and carried it down stream. When I was about 20 yards from my spot I heard some rustling in the bushes and turned to see the rear ends of two White-Tailed Deer bound off into the forest. It was an awesome encounter. I climbed up onto the log that I usually sit on and looked around, watching a listening. I heard some rustling as two chipmunks scurried around by my feet and the creaking of trees above me. I saw two birds, possibly sparrows, fly around each other in circles. A lot more of the juvenile trees have lost their leaves since the last time I came here, and there is basically no more green except for the evergreen that tower above the canopy and the ferns that litter the floor. The soil was supersaturated today, again, because of the rain, and it actually changed color. There is this uprooted stump that sits just at the base of the log I sit on and last week the soil around it was brownish tan, but today it was completely grey. I don’t know if it’s from the cold, or the saturation, or both, but it was pretty cool to see such a big change in such a short period of time. When I was looking into that pit of soil, I actually noticed a wood frog, which was very surprising because I’m pretty sure wood frogs either hibernate or migrate when it gets this cold. Maybe this little guy didn’t get the memo. I also noticed some slugs, which was expected given the saturated soil. A lot of these species are here for now, but will go away once winter really comes, and I think that is an important thing to be able to realize. It is important to realize that since I am seeing critters such as frogs and slugs, I can infer that while Vermont may be getting colder, we are still definitely in fall, because winter-like conditions would mean that these organisms wouldn’t be present. One thing that was really enjoyable however was adding all of these things to my map. Adding the different organisms I had encountered on top of the various landmarks I already had was like putting the icing on the cake and it made my map really come together. Now I see why mapping areas is so important; because it gives you a complete view of the area as a system and while you can see the whole thing you can also see each individual part that makes up that whole, which I think is essential to learning about areas and how to protect and conserve them.

Today, 10/23/19 I visited my site. It is located on the west side of Centennial woods right along one of the trails that leads out into a residential area. It is very easy to identify because of the large tree(most likely oak or pine) suspending across the path. In order to get there, you must enter Centennial Woods from the main entrance with the bike rack(across from the parking lot and next to the residential living community). Once you enter the woods walk the path and take a left at both clearings; if you cross the brook you are going the wrong direction. You essentially want to stay as left at all trail intersections, and the third trail intersection should be visible from the spot. If you turn left and face uphill you should see the large tree sprawled across the path that I mentioned earlier. Simply walk up to the tree and that’s the spot! I tend to sit on the tree when I’m taking my observations and field notes because it raises me off the ground and provides a 360degree view of the area. It has recently rained so the tree was damp to the touch and had a large chunk of moss growing on what used to be its base. It was a quiet afternoon, not many birds because of the rain and other than a few chipmunks rusting the leaves beneath my feet, there was almost no noise at all. I sat there for about 20 minutes, taking in the fresh air and thinking back to when I had accidentally spooked two or three white-tailed deer not far from that spot during an evening jog. The weather was cloudy, but not too cold, which is interesting because just 4 days ago Mansfield and Camel’s Hump had snow on their peaks. I wonder when the first true snowfall will come, and I wonder how that area will react to the change in season. It is a heavily wooded area composed of a mixture of tall looming pines in the canopy and various oak and maple saplings in the understory, so I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the snow is caught by the pines before covering the saplings once winter roles around. For now I will wait and see when most of the saplings lose their leaves because, surprising, a large majority of them still have a good amount of green leaves.

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