My third visit to see Evangeline was somewhat out of the norm.
I went on April 7th with my mom, who had swung by to pick me up for Easter weekend. This meant I had to explain to her that we had to swing by Rock Point to observe a tree. “No, we don’t have to do anything with the tree, we just have to look at it.” Luckily, I got to show her my phenology spot on arguably one of the nicest days we had since the start of NR2. It was beautiful, blissfully clear, cool, and very windy. Better yet, the clear skies meant we were finally able to observe the mountains across Lake Champlain without a haze of fog.
Evangeline was looking as beautiful as ever, however, she was feeling slightly resistant to the awakening of springtime. She appeared to be much the same, however slightly less green since our last visit. Most of the moss on her bark had dried out to a brown, and there didn’t appear to be any progress in terms of budding. However, the rapidly evolving landscape is a good indication that Evangeline will be feeling greener soon.
In terms of other bits and pieces of phenological observation, the birds were absolutely going beserk during this visit, and little bits of green were popping through the ground :)
(Also enjoy a video of a cute chipmunk )