First Visit of the New Semester!

Since my last visit in December 2024....

_{(Image of my spot from the bottom of the hill)}

I've noticed many changes in my phenology spot

_{For example, here is a photo of my spot from today but taken from on top of the hill}

While looking at these two pictures some obvious differences pop out like...

_{-The snow in my most recent photo}

_{-The completely frozen over stream}

_{-A few more downed trees and logs frozen into the stream}

_{But some things that I noticed that weren't as obvious through these pictures included...}

_{-While other plants die off, new plants become more noticeable as they thrive in the winter. An example of this is what I identified as Barberry}

_{Barberry berries grow in late fall and they stay on the shrub throughout the whole winter until they either fall off, or are eaten by birds (which further spreads the invasive plant by acting as a natural laxative)}

Another change I noticed in my phenology spot was the stream

–_{A month earlier before it froze over, I could hear the stream running from a dozen feet, but now since its completely frozen over the stream is silent.}

_{-debris has frozen into the stream, like small rocks and sticks/logs and throughout the stream there are small gaps that have occurred from the thawing}

Lastly, on the trees surrounding my spot I noticed some changes on their bark...

_{After researching for a while, I think that the pink fungus adjacent thing growing on the first picture could be Beech Bark Disease, which eventually kills Beech trees (below is an extreme image of this fungus from google)}

_{And I thing the last image could be a type of Fungi called Mossy maze Polypore (below is an image of it from google)}

Animal Tracks/scat

_{In the past few days most of the snow Burlington has gotten has melted due to warm temperatures and sun, so many existing tracks at my phenology spot might have melted. Plus humans tracks at my area might have covered up animals tracks, but i still noticed some patterns in the snow that could have been smaller mammals.}

_{Here are a few of the tracks I noticed in my spot!}

_{The top picture could be red squirrel tracks while the bottom picture could be mouse tracks.}

I hope this blog post gives you a few fun ideas for winter activities based on identification!