It’s finally spring! Temps are getting above freezing so a lot of the snow is melting. This made traveling to my tree a little difficult because it was so muddy in the forest. The prompt for this week is to just make any updates about phenological changes about our tree. Nothing drastic has happened to my American Beech.
You can see the snow cover is significantly less than last visit. The bud also might be slightly more developed in comparison to my last picture, but there are no flowers and definitely no leaves yet.
I made another observation on iNaturalist.
Overall there was nothing super interesting to report but I am excited to see as the weather warms up a little more what phenological changes happen next!
I went home for spring break and observed the phenology around my neighborhood for extra credit. Home for me is Waxhaw, North Carolina. Waxhaw is one of the oldest towns in my county and is named after the Wysacky Native American tribe. It’s very different from Vermont March weather. Here it feels like spring! My friend and I went on a walk and I took some pictures of the trees that have buds or leaves.
I didn’t recognize the leaves or the bark of these trees so maybe they like the south better than the north. My favorite tree I saw while walking was this pretty purple tree that is flowering. I looked it up on the internet and I think it is called an “eastern redbud.” It is one of the first trees to flower in North Carolina.
I tried to take pictures of birds that I saw but they are very hard to photograph. I saw lots of red cardinals on my walk, which makes sense because they are our state bird! You can tell if they are males or females by if they are fire red or not (only males are). The last thing that caught my eye was something that I talked about in my blog post while I was home for Thanksgiving break, which is the kudzu problem we have down here. I walked the trail behind my house to check out the situation.
You can see the vines growing up the trees and over the ground. Unfortunately that is something that is present here all year round. It was interesting to see other phenological changes though and compare them to Vermont!
This week our assignment was to visit somewhere near our spot and find a specific tree! My friend Maeve and I went and found a couple of American Beech trees to observe.
This is my beech tree! We had to double check and make sure it was not a young maple because they can look kinda similar. Beech trees have smooth bark and look gray and brown. This beech was definitely a beech because it has the disease on its bark. I also looked at a twig from this tree and it had pointy tips which are a sign that it is a beech twig.
TwigClose up of Tree
I also uploaded my findings to iNaturalist. Looking forward to seeing this tree change over the next few months!
