Month: November 2023

I spent Thanksgiving break in beautiful Fairfax, Vermont. For my new phenology spot, I chose the top of Prospect Rock. It’s located off the Long Trail in Johnson, VT. It’s just a short, if steep, mile long hike to get to the top. Prospect Rock is also a rare place where hawks go to nest during the summer.

At the top, the view across the valley was stunning. The surrounding vegetation was primarily made up of Norway Spruces, Eastern White Pines, Red Oaks, and Paper Birches. I noticed that as the elevation increased, there seemed to be a decrease in the number of birches and an increase in the coniferous trees. This is one explanation for why my new place has such different phenology- the higher elevation impacts both soil conditions and shade conditions. Paper birch, for example, is very shade intolerant, so it’s much more suited to the open mountain of Prospect Rock than the dense forests of Red Rocks Park.

Another difference was the terrain, which was mostly made up of rock with some patches of soil. This made it so that trees could only grow in certain spaces and had to fight for that space.

Back at my phenology spot, it was immediately clear to that fall had been in full swing in the time that I’d been gone.

I picked a nice secluded spot on a rock to sit for about 15 minutes to make a sketch of my area, shown below.

The most obvious change was the leaves – the maples were fully orange-yellow, and the oaks were almost completely bare. I think I just barely missed the best foliage. Still, it was beautiful. The ground cover had also changed a lot. What was once 70% pine needles was now covered by about 90% fallen leaves. The pines also began to shed their cones.

When I went back to visit the rocky ledge where I’d spotted a small bit of lichen last time, I found that it had spread quite a bit.

Later, I walked down to the lake to go see if there were any ducks around, and spotted four swimming pretty close to the shore – two males and two females. I was also surprised to see that algae had begun to cover the entire shoreline.