Gordon Phenology Project Blog

November 23, 2022

Blog Post #3

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵

✩ Phenology Spot In Warrenton, VA ✩

╰┈➤ Today, me and my friends walked to the woods behind our school where we spent a lot of our teenage hooligan years. We walked to the lake to observe the phenology and I was surprised that it was incredibly different! Firstly, the non-coniferous trees still had leaves; no stick season in Virginia! The shrubbery, while dead and dry, was still clinging. There was a different composition of trees, the dominant species was Northern Red Oak, and there were few maples, whereas in Vermont you can’t go two steps without seeing a maple. There were also a few ducks, I think Ring-Necked ducks, which I haven’t seen before; usually it was Mallards or the pair of swans that were the focus of my friend’s photography project last year. Additionally, the lake was frozen 3 inches deep, which usually doesn’t happen. However, by the time we were leaving, the ice had begun to melt. I assume that when the temperatures dip at night and the sun isn’t out, the lake begins to freeze, but then it unfreezes every morning. When I come back for Winter break, I plan to see how much more it’s frozen!

╰┈➤My friend, who did a project on the lake for a class in high school, commented that the lake was extremely impaired due to proximity to the school and the town, which reminded me of my phenology spot in Vermont. She also said that the lake is on track to become a bog, which is a natural process but is not helped by the previous factors.

-ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ-

November 2, 2022

Blog Post #2

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵

✩ Description ✩

╰┈➤ Today, between classes at 2 PM, I walked to my phenology spot and climbed the large mushroom log in the middle of my spot to do my observations. The main thing I noticed after being on campus all week (especially after Halloweekend) was the silence. My spot is far enough away that I can’t hear the stream, the campus, or the road, so the only noises are barking dogs from the houses up the hills, birds, and leaves falling on crunchy leaf litter. Said leaves were mostly red and sugar maples and pine needles, although stick season is not yet in full swing in my spot. The red maple leaves are a bright canary yellow and actively falling, which exposes the Eastern White Pines in the overstory and gives the ferns and buckthorns of the understory more sunlight. When perched on the large log, there is an undercurrent of the smell of moist rot from the dead tree, which almost makes you wary of sitting on it. There were also almost double the amount of mushrooms on the side of the log (Figure 2), but they seem to be cracking (Figure 1), maybe because of the colder temperatures. Next time I go to the forest, I’d like to have iNaturalist installed on my phone so I can see what type of mushrooms these are!

✩ Birds-Eye Map ✩

✩ Changes I’ve Noticed ✩

╰┈➤ The changes in my spot are not as stark as those around campus because of the forest composition which is mainly Red and Sugar Maples, Paper Birch, ferns, and Eastern White Pine, which don’t drop their leaves as readily as the surrounding oaks. There is a smattering of yellowing maple leaves on the ground covering the already fallen pine needles, which both weren’t as present the last time I visited. Also, the mushrooms that I was so excited to monitor seem to be growing more readily, but they will probably start to shy away from the colder temperature soon.

-ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ-