All of the snow at my phenology site has completely left, the ground was dry, and signs of spring were everywhere from emerging ferns and ground cover to bird calls. Because my site is mostly evergreen, there weren’t too many budding trees. However, there were ferns covering around 60% of the forest floor, uncoiling and stretching upwards. A photo of the ferns is attached below. There were also some barberry budding along the entry point to my site, with new green growth sprouting outwards. The one budding tree at my site was what I think is a boxelder, from which the buds had begun to open up.
As mentioned earlier, while sitting at my site I heard a variety of different bird calls. Although most of them I couldn’t recognize, I did hear one owl hoot. I also saw holes in the snags at my site, likely left from wood-eating insects such as ants or beetles. Another sign of life I saw was a collection of pinecones left in a hole at the base of trees. As squirrels eat pinecones to eat the seeds, this could have been leftover pinecones from a squirrels stash over the winter. Photos are also attached below, as well as a species interaction map depicting the relationship between different plants and animals at my phenology site.
