November 2015 – Miranda Garrow's Phenology Site

The location I chose for my site at home was just inside the woods behind my house. There is a tiny “pathway” between the outside wall and the exposed ledges.

I especially enjoy this spot because those ledges continue inside my house. It is such a unique feature that not a lot of people I know have around or inside their homes. Not too far into the woods, there is a stonewall that continues on for a long time. The wall is also covered in barbed wire which was most likely used to keep livestock out of an agricultural area.

I have never explored much past the wall because I would be trespassing because it is not my family’s land. The rock ledges make for a bit of a rough terrain and rougher conditions for trees to grow on. This is one of the main differences between this site and the one I have back at UVM. The soil conditions of my Burlington site are richer and moister. Because the soil is dry and low in nutrients because of the rock being closer to the surface, Eastern white pine and yellow birch grow well behind my house because of these more extreme conditions. There was more of a story mixture at this site than in Burlington where there is not much of a midstory. When I was exploring my site, I heard no animals or squirrels like I always do in my site in Burlington. The days have been a few degrees colder here than they have been in Burlington. When I was younger I always remember hearing woodpeckers in these woods and being able to watch them outside our kitchen window and I was going into my site expecting to see evidence of them but there was nothing and I left feeling disappointed. This site and the area around it is also habitat great for black bears. There are berry bushes that grow alongside the bank of the stream that runs off the mountain. There are also American beech trees that grow just behind the berry bushes not too far into the woods that black bear love.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zaqeeXReOQCI.klQ_M3gVbzq0

Since all the leaves have fallen at my site, I have really taken notice of how much dead material there is. This dead material is perfect habitat and feeding ground for the Pileated Woodpecker. A lot of the damage had been done by the wood peckers took me by surprise because that is not something that I have the chance to see a lot. The squirrels are still playing but spend a lot more time digging under the leaves to look for nuts. They are starting to get noticeably fatter than they were in my first few visits. The snake hole that I found on my last visit had been disturbed by people hanging out at my site I am assuming. There were also carvings in some of the trees from students as well, a few that I could not include in my post. I also had some birds circling over my head while I was at my site as well although I am not sure what they were because they were too high up for my eyes to see. There is a bank that I did not include in my site and I wonder if there was something dead over the bank that I could not see that the birds were after. I included the picture of the toilet just outside of my actual site because it always amuses me to see it when I enter my site. I wonder about how it got there or what the persons thought was when they put it there. I hope no one uses it. I wonder if the squirrels explore it or call it home perhaps.

Miranda Garrow's Phenology Site

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