Redstone Quarry - Phenology Assignment Blog

I greatly enjoyed participating in the city nature challenge this past week. I explored Centennial Woods as well as in and around the Intervale. I wish I had time to explore more of the greater Burlington area, but the city nature challenge was limited to days that I was pretty busy. INaturalist is probably one of my favorite apps. I love being able to feel like I understand my surroundings and the interface is so easy to use. Its identification skills are immensely helpful, however, I hope to get to a point where I can confidently identify things on my own. I was able to identify eleven different species, some of which I did not know existed in Burlington. Looking at the other cities participating, it was awesome to see how Burlington was doing per capita. I love how nature-focused this community is. I also loved seeing huge urban cities like Dallas and Hong Kong with such high numbers of observations. It is great to see that there are still ways to foster connections with nature when surrounded by man-made expanses.

Redstone Quarry has become a part of my routine, and a place for me to find solace from the constant pressure of campus. I first visited this place during parents’ weekend. My dad drove me to the base of the quarry and stood against the car as I walked across the slippery redstone. My parents have never been outdoorsy, and markedly have never made an effort to get me into the outdoors. I think walking across the bridge into the ravine and up to the rock face, while my parents stayed behind helped me fill the gap between where I was before I came to UVM and the places that I was going to go.

From that first visit, the quarry has gone from new and exciting to familiar and comforting. From slippery and wet, to icy and snow-covered, to leaf laden and muddy, the quarry has morphed through the seasons. Stark red maple leaves turned brown and stuck to my shoes and the birches grew bare and gray for a while. The winter can often seem never-ending and all-consuming, but over the past few weeks, I have witnessed the quarry’s natural communities spring back to life. While things aren’t like they were in September, green signs of life are poking through.

I did not take much notice of animal life when I first visited, or really until this semester. I’ve become acutely aware of what is moving around me, and am much better at identifying what those things are. I’ve heard the birds return to these trees and watched the squirrels start scurrying around again. This past visit, the birds were particularly active. In the past, I mostly only noticed Cardinals and Robins. But this time, I heard Black-capped Chickadee, Dark-eyed Junco, House Finch, Ruby-Crowned Kinglet, and Goldfinch in addition to the Robins and Cardinals.

I have come to know the path that winds down from Ledge Road all the way to the pond quite well. I mark each trip with the view from the top of the cliff as well as the view back up.

A new surprise found me on this final visit though as I walked towards the Paper Birch tree I was previously observing.

I am forever grateful to Redstone Quarry for connecting me with the natural world beyond and within Burlington. This has been a great project.

I can see myself revisiting this space many times before I leave Vermont as it has become a safe haven for me throughout this year. I think it provides this comfort to a great number of people, as the neighborhood surrounding it clearly takes advantage of the paths for recreation. I love that this spot can foster ecologically and socially beneficial environments. This place has become a part of my experience at UVM and has shaped the way I view natural areas, I hope to impact this space in as positive of a way as it has me.

Today, it feels like spring has finally sprung. All around Redstone Quarry signs of life are more than evident. The grass is growing green, tiny wildflowers are blooming, and the buds on the Paper Birch I have been getting to know are starting to sprout! I tried to get as close to the buds as I could with my camera to point out the beginnings of flowering. Little white feathery hair-like structures have begun to emerge from the new buds I noticed last time.

Mondays are usually some of my busiest days, and this was the perfect way to take advantage of the sun and warmth while still being productive. I found great enjoyment in being able to breathe the fresh air and get outside. Redstone Quarry has become such an amazing resource as a close area for outdoor enrichment.

This week’s trip to the quarry culminated in the re-examination of the paper birch tree I got to know earlier this month. While I was hoping to see significant changes in the birch’s budding, flowering, and overall phenological state, there were not many noticeable differences. The buds are certainly a bit larger than before, but otherwise, the tree looks very similar to how it did two weeks ago.

I did notice some other phenological differences in the quarry though! There was much-increased bird activity, of which I identified Northern Cardinal, Black-capped Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Dark-eyed Junco, and Fish Crow using the Merlin app. Additionally, the pond has begun to melt and grasses are beginning to spring up again!

My spring break this year was spent in and around Conifer, Colorado. Near the start of the week, on March 12 in the early afternoon, I visited Ollinger Mount Lindo Cemetery. This new phenology site differed greatly from my spot in Redstone Quarry back in Burlington. While the natural communities were certainly prioritized and an integral part of the cemetery, the natural processes were not the main land-use priority of this space. The mountain top provides scenic overlooks and gardens which are in place to make the area aesthetically nice for those mourning to find peace in.

Redstone quarry is much different in its purpose as a conserved natural area in Burlington for recreation, research, and also aesthetic purposes. However, the peaceful benefits of nature are exemplified in both spaces. The quarry is also about 7000 ft lower in elevation than Mount Lindo which contributes to the distribution and kind of woody plants I encountered.

• An excerpt from the cemetery website explains the history of the cross.

“If you drive along Highway 285 at night, you can’t miss the huge illuminated cross that rests on the east side of the mountain. First illuminated on Easter morning in 1964, this historic feature is the largest electrically lighted cross in the country. It measures in at 393 feet high and 254 feet wide and can be seen from miles away. The cross was built by Francis VanDeber, who owned the land on Mount Lindo in the 1940s before it became a cemetery. Francis built the large illuminated cross on the mountain so his wife could see his final resting spot from her home in Denver after he passed away.”

The cemetery now serves Denver area families in finding final resting sports for their loved ones. The website describes the pines surrounding the site as dignified which is a testament to the power of wildlife to define a sense of place.

While sitting on the mountaintop, I noticed some birds I did not recognize and used the Merlin App to identify them as Mountain Chickadees and Black-billed Magpies.

The site consisted mostly of coniferous trees which were an amalgamation of pines and firs. I focused mainly on Douglas Firs which had not begun to form visible cones yet. The needles on the trees I examined were also well-developed and I did not see many signs of budding needles.

This week I went down to Redstone quarry in search of one of our focal species of trees. Walking down to the pond area, I saw a Paper Birch. While it could have been one of the winter lookalikes, gray, yellow, or river birch, I was confident in this identification because the bark was clearly peeling, which gray birches don’t do. The bark was also the characteristic white color of paper birches and not the gray/gold of yellow birches. River birch also tends to peel much more than paper birch.

There was a lot of bird activity at the quarry this day as well. I saw a Red-Tailed Hawk and recorded a bunch of Cardinal and Blue Jay calls!

This week, I left behind Redstone Quarry for new experiences with Burlington’s wildlife. I spent time around Centennial Woods instead. I find that the closest green space to my dorm is the one I spend the least amount of time in, and I wanted to better orient myself with the natural communities near me. To start tracking, a few of my NR002 friends and I ventured into the ravine between the woods and the Double Tree hotel. As we walked around, we began to notice tracks in the lower regions of the ravine. After a warmer week, the snow was sparse and most tracks were difficult to read. However, I believe I found prints from Fisher and White-Tailed Deer.

Using the INaturalist App, I recorded my findings and posted them to share with the community of wildlife enthusiasts. While I looked at walking patterns, environment, strides, etc. to identify these tracks, some of the snow cover made clear identification quite difficult. The INaturalist App helped me to make better assessments of what animal may have made the tracks through its suggestion tool. I found that extremely beneficial.

The tracks that I identified as fisher were difficult to determine. The walking pattern of the fisher is a bounder, typical of the weasel family. However, these tracks occasionally looked like bounds and at other times more closely resembled a diagonal walking pattern. The prints were also difficult to read in terms of the number of toes. The characteristic “ice cream cone” shaped print though and the size led me to believe that a fisher made these tracks.

The diagonal walking pattern of the deer as well as the hoof print was quite clear. The size also closely matched the size of the average deer print, and centennial woods is a common place for deer sitings. I am quite confident in this identification, but then again, you can never be too sure.

After a little over a month away from Burlington, VT I have made my way back to Redstone Quarry. The landscape has undeniably changed, and my predictions from December have finally come to fruition. The rockface is filled with hanging icicles and the ground is covered in about 6 inches of powdery snow. The pond and marshy areas are frozen over and solid enough to walk across, and most of the trees have lost all of their leaves; some Northern Red Oak and American Beech are still hanging on to a few stragglers. Squirrel nests are dotting the tallest trees and cardinals flew over the top of the quarry as I walked around.

Many of the tracks I saw appeared to be made by domesticated dogs, and this was well verified by the number of people hiking around the quarry with their animals. However, I did see some non-canine marks. The snow had filled in a good amount of the tracks so there weren’t many defining characteristics I could pick out. I believe the photo on the left is from a gray squirrel because they were on the larger side and they followed a hopping pattern. The tracks on the right seem to be in a walking and trotting pattern with a straight, zig-zag line and the size seems to point to a gray or red fox.

Additionally, the quarry was not completely devoid of signs of winter. Frosted grass crunched under my feet and about a quarter inch of ice covered the stream and ponds. Most of the deciduous trees’ leaves had fallen and many were trapped under the ice. One Northern Red Oak was tightly clinging to some of its leaves and an invasive Japanese rose plant and some Buckthorn plants still had some berries.

Without snow, I was unable to successfully identify any tracks or scat, but I could identify some non-migratory bird species sticking around like the Tufted Titmouse, Northern Cardinal, and Carolina Wren (according to the Merlin app). Squirrel nests also dotted the trees along the edge of the quarry, in addition to the tops of acorns littering the ground that pointed to their activity.

I am sad to be losing my mandatory monthly trips to this spot. The bike ride down the hill always cleared my head and the light chirp of birds that I often miss around campus helped me feel much more grounded. Finding commonalities between this spot and my favorite natural area at home has helped me to form a greater sense of place in Burlington. I think that I will continue to return to this spot when I am feeling homesick or wishing for some time in nature. I am quite thankful for the opportunity to explore the city more and find this place.