A UVM blog Fiona Legg Phenology Project – Salmon Hole

Sit Spot experience – While sitting in my spot I noticed many things. There is always a bird in the water where the beachy area turns rocky, the first time I visited Salmon Hole, it was a stork. This time there were ducks floating in the same spot. Next, the water by the shoreline is pretty foamy, which I think comes from the dead and decaying aquatic plants in the area. I also noticed that the area is pretty loud because it is near the road from Winooski to Burlington, which is fairly busy. This made me wonder what impacts the urbanization of the area has had on the natural ecosystems of Salmon Hole, as well as if there are effects on the ecosystem simply from the noise. Finally, I noticed a lot of drink cans and cigarettes and litter in general, which was sad. I made plans to start bringing a trash bag with me on future visits.

Changes in the appearance of the vegetation – The most obvious change is that now most of the trees have lost their leaves, and the ground is covered in a thick layer of organic matter (mostly leaves). The grasses are much browner, and the majority of the flowers that were in relatively full bloom on my last visit had died. The goldenrod has changed from have small yellow flowers to dry and fluffy as it prepares to seed.

Introduction to Salmon Hole – I chose Salmon Hole because it is far enough from campus that I can make an adventure out of visiting it while I can still go easily without it taking an entire afternoon. I really wanted my location to be somewhere that had water, so originally I was going to do a location on Lake Champlain. But then after doing some research, I thought that Salmon Hole would be a cool spot that still checked all of my boxes. Being from Vermont, I have been in downtown Burlington a lot but never to Salmon Hole, so it is an entirely new location for me. Getting there was pretty easy, I took the on campus bus to Trinity then walked about 15 minutes from there to the water. I could also walk the entire way would would be more like 45 minutes.

Vegetation and Woody Plants – Most of the vegetation by the water were vines that grew along trees as well as some flowers and long grass. The fall colors were still very vibrant so most trees were yellow and orange. The following list includes – in no particular order – the most prominent species I observed at Salmon Hole (woody plants and other)

• Eastern Cottonwood
• Riverbank Grape
• Bittersweet
• White Ash
• Rock Elm
• Silver Maple
• Deer Tongue Grass
• American Asters
• Red Osier Dogwood
• Green Ash
• Buckthorn
• Goldenrods
• Staghorn Sumac
• Norway Maple