Phenology Blog

As stated in my previous blog post, I have not been in Burlington, but I have been able to return to my spot from Thanksgiving. This spot is on the bank of a stream and is largely composed of Red Oaks that are starting to leaf, but the leaves are nowhere close to being full. The biggest change from last time I was here is the emergence of ground plants. There are mostly two plants and I know neither of them. One is a longer leaf that grows near the banks of the stream and the other is what I have decided to describe as a cabbage looking thing even though it looks nothing like cabbage. It has very big and broad leaves. The field that looked very downtrodden in November is now full of the cabbage plants. There was also a duck swimming when I was there. It is hard to describe how my relationship to this place has changed as it is both a place I have known for most of my life and a place that I really have not put too much thought into throughout my life. It seems very familiar yet there are so many things that I just have not noticed before. The two plant I described earlier are ones I have never really noticed before, they just blended into the surroundings. In many ways, that is what a large majority of the nature in this park is. It is a public park where people go to take their dogs on a walk or kids to the playground. There happens to be a brook and a woodsy area, but that is just a background to 99% of people. Just a setting to enjoy a sunny day. This is not bad, it is just interesting how much is going on that people do not pay attention to and that I also usually do not pay attention to. I do not know if I would describe myself as part of my place. I know that humanity is a large part of this spot, but I am unsure if I specifically am a part of it. I know I have affected it, but I also know that the majority of the life in that spot would not be meaningfully different if I had never been there or if I went there every day. I do feel quite connected to this area as it is a place I have been to a lot in my life, but I have always thought of myself as separate from it and I do not think that perspective has changed.

As I have been unable to be in Burlington of late I have been forced to abandon both my phenology spot and tree that I have been monitoring. Luckily I am in Massachusetts, a location with a similar climate. I was unable to find a paper birch like the tree I was monitoring in Burlington and had to settle for this River Birch. The leaves of this birch were just starting to emerge in early May.

The main takeaway I took from revisiting my tree is that the convenience of doing homework while waiting for the bus is outweighed by the awkwardness of standing at a bus stop taking a picture of a tree wile not waiting for the bus. Other than that the paper birch seems to not have changed very much. There is still no sign of flowering or buds.

I found a paper birch near the bus stop by Davis and figured I would get an assignment done while I waited. It was definitely a paper birch as the bark was pretty distinctives. I am also pretty sure that this was the paper birch on our tree quiz in the first semester. The buds were pretty much all dormant an not flowering. Updates on this tree to come!

To find some winter wildlife I decided to venture outside of my phenology spot and visit Centennial Woods. At first it was difficult to find any sort of evidence that was not a domestic dog as a large percentage of the snow has melted and the area that hasn’t melted has had ample time to be stomped on by dogs and humans, leading it to be a slippery layer of ice. At first I was pretty discouraged, but I spotted an area with relatively decent snow cover and less human disturbance across the brook in Centennial. I found a place where I could make a daring but reasonable leap across the stream and I was set. I immediately found my first track.

This track is pretty clearly, at least in my opinion, a deer. Outside of just this picture there was a diagonal walking pattern about the right size for a deer and the hoof print is a clear indicator that it is a deer. It has melted a decent amount, but is still relatively in tact compared to what my other tracks were.

This was a much more challenging track. It has definitely been melting for quite a while, making the shapes quite distorted and large but there was definitely a gallop pattern to the tracks, as there were repeated clusters of four feet with the ones in front being the largest. I think it is some sort of hare or rabbit as the tracks seemed bigger than a squirrel could make and the front paws were not always parallel and were sometimes skewed.

This final track was definitely the hardest one for me to identify. It was moving in a weird pattern that my best guess was a bound but would occasionally look slightly different. It definitely was not a diagonal walker or a galloper. I decided to go with a bounding pattern and when I felt the paw print in the track it had five toes. Based on the size of the tracks and the walking pattern my best guess is a fisher but I could definitely be wrong in my guess. Overall this was a fun trip and despite starting off slow I found my groove and had a good time despite the conditions. iNaturalist was also pretty intuitive and I had a good experience with it.

Returning to my spot from last semester, the biggest change that I found was that there is actually snow now! This a very exciting development, although it makes traveling on the bike path to Rock Point a little bit more treacherous. Interestingly, the snow cover near my spot is less than in other areas I’ve been to in the Burlington area. There are spots of bare ground visible and where there is snow it is only a couple inches deep. Although this is slightly disappointing, it has led to an interesting animal track. Instead of an impression left in the snow, there is a spot where there is compact snow due to human travel that an animal tracked mud over, due to the exposed dirt in some spots. It is a pretty faint track but if I had to guess I venture that it is a racoon. The path that my spot is along is also a pretty common dog walking spot so almost every time I would get excited about finding a print it would be a dog. Another small change that I noticed is that the foliage of the cedar trees is more yellow than it has been in the past. I’m not sure if this is just me misremembering the trees before or if they yellow a little in the winter, but they definitely seemed more yellow.

I was expecting snow for my final phenology spot post of the semester, but we don’t always get what we want. Despite my disappointment in the lack of a winter wonderland, I still had a very enjoyable experience wandering around rock point at sunset. At first I went to my actual spot and spent about 10 minutes exploring the area. The cedar and hemlock trees are still living their best lives with their needles, but there are no deciduous trees with living leaves on them. There was one white oak with dead leaves hanging on along with a few beeches, but most were bare. There were a few small plants with small seed pods, pictured above, but I don’t know the species. I could not really find much evidence of animals in the area where my spot is. I didn’t have my blue jay friend this time which was a little sad but excepted. I was honestly a little disappointed with what I found at my spot, so I decided to wander. On my little walk I heard a high pitched bird song. I also saw evidence of woodpeckers, the most recent example being the birch tree pictured above. There were fresh bits of wood scattered on the ground below, which was how I found it. It seems like there was less activity in general, but things were still happening. As I finished my wandering and returned to the spot I noticed the sun was setting over the mountains and decided to sit, call my parents, and watch.

If I were to describe what I like most about my spot I would say that I enjoy that I can find some really cool ecology, but also have a spot where I can sit and watch a sunset while talking to my mom. The natural community of the cedar bluffs is really cool and unique, but beyond that it is just a really beautiful spot with a great view. I just feel happy being there and exploring. I also really like that it is not a spot that I go to often, like Centennial, because it makes the trip feel new and more like an adventure and the spot is more special.

I chose to visit a spot that I have gotten to know very well in my childhood. Behind my house in Belmont, Massachusetts, there is a small preserve called Beaver Brook and I spent a large percentage of my childhood either exploring the woods and brook or playing in the field with the many dogs that people bring. The exact spot that I chose is one of the two bridges over the brook. It acts as an entrance to the rest of Beaver Brook. Coming from this direction, it is the first bit of nature that you enter. The area is dominated by Red Oaks. I saw a few Norway Maple and one American Beech, but mostly Red Oak. There is also a small marshy area along with the brook. It is mostly grasses in the marsh and at this time of year it is pretty downtrodden. On the other side of the brook is a big open field where people bring their dogs to play. In the middle of the field there is a giant American Elm that I lie underneath at night and look at how the knotted branches divide the stars. This entire area is defined by its relation to humanity. It is in the middle of a Boston suburb, so it deals with all of the effects of runoff and storm water. There is a large, clear cut field and an asphalt path that goes around the field. People leave trash all over the place, and even smashed a pumpkin in the marsh. This trash made me consider what gift I would leave. I felt conflicted in leaving an actual item, as I was worried it would contribute to the litter problem in the area, so I instead decided my gift would be to pick up some of the litter and free the area of the ten year old Dorito bag.

I chose to go to Rock Point on an unusually warm day for November. It was about 70 degrees fahrenheit at around 11 in the morning, which is way too warm for me. As I sat at my spot, still sweating from the bike ride down, I felt the wind from the water and I cooled off a little. In previous excursions to my spot it had not been that windy, but this time it was. The waves were larger than I had seen and I could even hear them from on top of the cliff that I sat near. As I sat in my spot I noticed that almost all of the leaves had fallen off of the deciduous trees, giving me all of the visual cues of a cool New England autumn day that I had experienced many times before, and that I was not currently experiencing. A few of the ground cover plants had browned a little bit but there were still some ferns keeping the green. While I enjoyed the view and marveled at the Cedar trees, somehow thriving while growing out of a cliffside, I saw, but mostly heard, a few Blue Jays flying around me singing their songs and felt pleased to have some company. They scattered when another hiker walked by but they didn’t mind me, even when I moved around a little bit, which made me feel special and a little like a Disney Princess. Overall the experience made me feel much closer to my spot and I am looking forward to develop that connection even further.