{"id":47,"date":"2019-02-03T16:14:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-03T21:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/lkolba\/?p=47"},"modified":"2019-02-03T16:14:00","modified_gmt":"2019-02-03T21:14:00","slug":"a-new-semester","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/lkolba\/2019\/02\/03\/a-new-semester\/","title":{"rendered":"A new semester"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m back in Vermont for a second semester and revisiting my phenology site after a long absence.\u00a0Winding around the trail’s bend today I didn’t expect the site to look much different than it did in December, but I quickly learned I was wrong.<\/p>\n

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Where there was once running water there is now just a slightly lower layer of thick snow. Without the bridge the brook would be practically unidentifiable. There is also even less plant life than I had last seen. The contrast between the forest edge and my site’s clearing is starker than ever.<\/p>\n

Looking for signs of wildlife was tricky. Fresh snow has been falling all morning, covering up whatever evidence was already there. However, I did follow a few tracks I was able to find.<\/p>\n

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The first, pictured above, I believe was a cottontail rabbit because the stride was quite long and the hind feet were very large in proportion to the front. These tracks led into the underbrush where I couldn’t follow to see any destination.<\/p>\n

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The second tracks were much smaller, and pretty faint. I think they belonged to a white-footed mouse since they’re also in a galloping pattern, and showed him scampering \u00a0towards warmth beneath a log.<\/p>\n

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The last tracks that I saw a ton of (above) gave themselves away with their sporadic behavior and impractical energy use as unfortunately not a fox or coyote, but my little tracking companion Willow (below).<\/p>\n

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Identifying all of the deciduous trees on my site was a little difficult since many species within the clearing I’m not very familiar with, and then the forested section is mostly coniferous. The deciduous trees I could see and identify were white and red oak, striped maple and American beech.<\/p>\n

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Above is a photo of some twig samples I took from some of the dominant species I saw in and around my site. I tried my best to identify them there and at home, and from left to right I believe they are red oak (Quercus rubra), staghorn sumac (Rhus hirta), glossy buckthorn (Frangula alnus), American basswood (Tilia americana), and eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis).<\/p>\n

Below is a sketch I did of the staghorn sumac, definitely one of my favorite species in my phenology site.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m back in Vermont for a second semester and revisiting my phenology site after a long absence.\u00a0Winding around the trail’s bend today I didn’t expect the site to look much different than it did in December, but I quickly learned I was wrong. Where there was once running water there is now just a slightly … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “A new semester”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5332,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/lkolba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/lkolba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/lkolba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/lkolba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5332"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/lkolba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/lkolba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/lkolba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions\/56"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/lkolba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/lkolba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/lkolba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}