Our assignment for this week was to sit in our spot for 15 minutes and observe. It was really peaceful just sitting in nature and thinking about the natural processes that take place here! I saw a mom and her two kids walking around picking up trash and a few people out walking their dogs. It was a nice day outside to take a walk in the woods!
This is the view from one of the edges of my spot. You can see how all the leaves are on the ground now and some are crowding the creek too. Although it is fall now and most of the leaves are down, there was also a huge storm last night so there is an excess of leaves blown all over and tons of trees fallen down too. Some of the sugar maples still have a few leaves on them, but they are yellow and will probably drop soon. Winter is rapidly approaching even though it is somehow 70 degrees today. It was interesting to see how the land has slightly changed since I was last here. Now that the leaves are down, I can see farther to the other side of Centennial Woods. There is a small clearing across the creek that I can see now, and I saw some Black Cherry trees that I had not noticed before.
We also had to draw a bird’s eye view of our phenology spot. The large clearing is part of the main pathway of the woods and it leads into my area which is mostly filled with pine and hemlock trees. Now that the leaves have fallen from the few oaks and birches, it is easier to see the sugar maples on the other side of the creek. I also drew some logs to represent the fallen down trees from the storm.
Overall, the only major change was the leaves dropping to the ground. The pine trees are still standing strong!
I’ll be back in a few weeks to check out my spot again!