The changing seasons and temperatures has been getting me excited to see the quintessential phenological event here in the Northeast: the changing colors of the fall foliage, in my phenology site. Given the number of trees showing their fall golds and reds I expected to find the same in my phenology site. I was disappointed however. Although the colors of the trees in my site were mainly the same green (with hints of yellow on a few leaves) I saw two weeks ago, they did seem dryer and slightly more shriveled. One curious thing I noticed was small, ovular capsules on the underside of many elm tree leaves. They ballooned out and were connected to the leaf tissue itself.
One other thing I noticed about the leaves was small to medium sized holes/rips in the leaves. I tended to notice this mainly in the patch of elm saplings but it is probable that these are simply the leaves I could see the best. Possible explanations for these holes are the two recent hail storms we have had or caterpillars have been feeding on them. There has been minimal to no changes in the herbaceous vegetation.
I was on the lookout for more evidence of wildlife during this visit. Immediately as I walked into my site, I recognized the chattering of three grey squirrels. This time of year they were almost certainly on the lookout for nuts and seeds to cache for the winter. Grey squirrels in particular are one species that buries their food stores in various locations, called scatter hoarding. See this interesting article to learn more: (https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/10/squirrel-behavior-cache-fall-video-spd/). Other evidence of wildlife was bird poop scattered on the leaves of saplings underneath the large elm tree at the center of my site.The birds most likely use the large elm as habitat. I noticed one small snail in the relative shelter of the crevasse of a tree.In this same patch of saplings, I noticed many spider webs and spiders themselves. Lastly, I saw prime evidence of a pileated wood pecked. Although it is possible that my site was used by pileated wood peckers as habitat in previous seasons, the evidence is still clear. I counted at least 15 oblong holes in just the three trunks on one tree. There were about 8 other holes in a total of 2 other trees. These holes were left from where the woodpeckers used their strong beaks to bore holes into the tree where they proceeded to use their sticky tongue to slurp up the grubs and insects inside of the tree.
This visit to my site, I did a much more extensive tree count and approximated there to be 28 large or medium trees in the vicinity of my site (> 5in circumference). I also noted there to be 26 small trees (< 5in circumference, but taller than head height).There were a plethora of small saplings. There are also 5 standing snags in my site. I estimated the sky cover to be 75%.
Below is a birds eye view of my phenology site so you can better imagine the lay out: