Thanksgiving Phenology

Google Maps Location

Leopold Style Description
The snow made a loud crunching noise with every step I took. There was a thick layer of icy crust that has built up since the first snow. The snow beneath the crust is dense and moist on this warm, November day. The snow was the same color as the high hanging clouds in the sky. The trees too had turned a shade of grey, now that the leaves have fallen. In the field, there were many breaks in the crust of the snow. The dents looked like the path of a deer, its thin legs puncturing the snow. It seemed like the deer had gathered in that one spot on the field. There was a large clump of tracks near the forest edge.                                                                                                                                                               Beyond the field, there were rolling mountains in shades of blue to the west. If you look southward you can see the remains of an old stone wall. The stones themselves are covered in a thick layer of snow. If you continue walking past the stone wall, you enter a sugarbush. Large, old Sugar Maple trees fill the space. Some had peeling bark which made them difficult to recognize at first. There was a trail cutting through the forest which made me wonder who else uses this land. Perhaps a sugaring operation or a hunting camp lies deep in the woods. I guess there is only one way to find out.

Holland Style Comparison
The two locations I have used in this blog are remarkably different considering they are in the same town. My usual location has shown little animal activity compared to what I saw in my temporary location. My usual spot is near a stream and I would assume that the deer like being near a freshwater source. However, I haven’t seen any signs of deer in that location since my first visit. I think that the snow helped me track animal activity. Hopefully, I will notice more animal activity in my usual location now that there is snow. Another potential reason there is a difference in animal activity could also be due to the rise of a hunting season. Animal activity often fluctuates throughout the seasons. As a result of these factors, I cannot attribute the difference in animal evidence to the locations themselves.
In addition to the difference in animal activity, I noticed a difference in sound between the two locations. There is always a muffling effect that happens when there is snow on the ground. Today, the field was nearly silent except for the road nearby. My usual location is loud due to the stream. The stream has also caused my usual location to be very wet. There is a lot of moss in my usual phenology location, there was almost none in this new spot. Comparing two locations has helped me to better understand natural patterns because it gave me a larger sample.

Photos by Hannah Randall

This entry was posted on Monday, November 19th, 2018 at 6:49 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.