Today is my second visit to my centennial woods nature area! The weather was overcast and there was a warm breeze in the air. The temperature was surprisingly warm for the first week of November (but I’m not complaining about it). On my walk to my spot I noticed that the leaves on the ground were all decomposing, so I was interested to see if the leaves at my spot were decomposed yet. The area was quiet when I got there and at first I could only hear the wind blowing. I was greeted by an eastern gray squirrel sitting on a dead log that lays right in the middle of my spot. I took that as my sign to make that my focal point! I sat on this log for 15 minutes and took in the beauty of my spot.

Sounds:

• The eastern white pine trees creaking like an old wooden door in the wind! This was by far the coolest sound to hear in my nature spot.
• Birds chirping (I heard many different sounds but couldn’t decipher which species they were. Maybe one day I’ll be able to recognize bird calls!)
• Wind blowing
• The branches of the bare trees scraping against each other

Observations:

I noticed that the upper story of trees have all lost their leaves while the understory still have yellow and green leaves attached at the bottom of the trees. The ground last time was dominated by eastern white pine needles. This visit there were more maple and red oak leaves covering the forest floor. I observed that all of the pines sway in the wind. Not just slightly but they violently moved back and forth with the rhythm of the wind. The moss on the log that I observed last time was a bit more faded and less bright than last time. There were new spouts of pines coming up from the ground that I had not noticed before. All of the ferns that lined the floor were still thriving and alive. There wasn’t too much undergrowth because of the shade of the hardwood that are in the area.

Here is a map of my phenology spot!

I can’t wait to see how much my place changes as we enter the winter months 🙂