A UVM blog Nick’s Phenology Blog

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Vernal Equinox

By ncraig

Spring has sprung! Well, on paper at least. But the equinox has passed and the calendar is telling us to get ready for some warm and muddy weather. Despite that, it still snowed a foot this weekend.

Once all this snow melts, I’m expecting an extreme bloom of life in this exact spot. When I found it in the fall, it was a dense thicket of goldenrods and asters, but I’m curious to see what will fill the area first.

This spot is surrounded by a bunch of butternut trees, so I expected to find some buds, but I think the cold may have prevented them from growing very much since it was warm and then suddenly dropped back below freezing for a while, so the buds are very small. But they still exist, and this is still a sign that spring is about to hit us hard.

This video was taken a bit further into the actual forest, past the clearing that I’ve been visiting since fall. But this spot does a really good job of capturing how just because it is still snowy and feeling like winter to me, the biological clocks of the many forest animals know that that’s not the case. The trees are bustling with life, squirrels and birds are everywhere, and you can even hear the woodpeckers tapping away at the trunks of trees, searching for the bugs underneath the bark. It sounds like spring, and it’s making me really excited for the coming warm months.

Wildlife in Burlington

By ncraig

I chose to look for signs of wildlife in Burlington on our very own UVM campus. I didn’t find them all, but so far on our campus, I’ve only seen 4 significant mammals, those being rabbit, skunk, raccoon, and opossum. Pictured here is a set of rabbit tracks I found right outside of the Marsh Life Science building. I didn’t have a ruler on hand, but the hind prints, in front on the picture, were about 2.5-3 inches long and about an inch in width, while the fore prints were about an inch wide and an inch long. I’ve been using Inaturalist since high school and I use it a lot for my own personal identification, so it was no different using it here. I’m super comfortable with the interface and I think that the system in which people can confirm what species you have and help you identify is super unique and really helpful. I didn’t have any trouble narrowing this down. Rabbit tracks are really distinct and even though the fore prints are so defined, its easy to tell that this is a galloper, and based on the length of the back leg, it is most definitely a rabbit.

This is a photo of a raccoon I saw the other day at like 4 in the morning on campus. It’s low quality but it was still really cool. It walked right past me as I was by the Marche, and we both just stopped and stared at each other for a minute before continuing with our nights. It was a pretty cool sighting, and cool to think that the raccoon was totally in its element, going around in the middle of the night scavenging for food while I was about to call it for the night.

Phenology Spot Update 01/29/24

By ncraig

My phenology spot, just off the beginning of the trail into Centennial Woods, is a gorgeous grove of goldenrods and asters in the spring and summer. The last time I visited, the dead stalks of goldenrod filled the area and prevented any real access to the ground. However, now that it’s further into the winter season, the stalks have decayed more significantly and only a few bunches of stalks remain. The butternut and boxelder trees remain dormant, waiting for spring to return.

Immediately around my spot, there weren’t many tracks to find or signs of animals in general. There were a bunch of tracks like this that could be a wild animal, but they were really close to the beginning of the path, and the area was dominated by human tracks, so more likely than not this was just somebody’s dog. But I figured this would be the case, so I went out with my buddy Liam and explored throughout Centennial where there was more undisturbed snow.

These tracks are very obviously that of a raccoon. We found a lot of tracks like this near the stream that flows through the woods, which makes sense not only because the raccoons need to drink water, but because they are known to rinse off their food before eating it. These tracks have large hind footprints pretty much right next to the smaller front footprints, which is indicative of raccoon prints. What seals the deal is the hand-like shape of the back paw with long slender fingers, which according to the tracks and scat guide is definitely a raccoon.

Phenology Spot Update 12/09

By ncraig

The Goldenrod Grove is in its end stages for this year. Most of the flowers have finished releasing their seeds, and the few left are teeming with them, ready for a gust of wind strong enough to carry them away.

It’s reached the stage in the season where everything is really starting to die off until the spring. Winter hasn’t kicked into full gear yet, so everything is dead, but it’s also still really wet, and things are starting to decompose. My guess is that in a year where the freeze sets in earlier, everything would get frozen in time and not really decompose as significantly until the spring.

I was thinking, that perhaps the Goldenrods don’t release some seeds because it gives them a competitive advantage the next year. As everything has decomposed in the spring and the old stems turn into fresh organic nutrients, seeds left behind that germinate will have great success growing in the compost pile that results from all this decomposition.

My Phenology Spot

By ncraig

Just a bit down the beginning of the path into Centennial Woods, you’ll come into a clearing of goldenrods and asters, near a few glossy buckthorns, and a boxelder that’s getting choked out by oriental bittersweet. I’ve visited Centennial Woods many times since coming to UVM, and this location has always stood out as a trove of beauty, especially when the flowers are in bloom. It’s really cool to see how such a biologically unique grove shifts throughout the seasons.

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Thanksgiving Break Phenology

By ncraig

Over the break, I did a lot of hiking with my sister and dog. There are many local preserves and hiking trails that we frequent, so my phenology spot this time was really made up of two seperate places: Glazier Preserve, and Burden Preserve. They’re both a part of the Town of New Castle Recreation and Parks Department. The first of these two locations, Burden Preserve, is less like Centennial woods, in that it is pretty much entirely unmanaged. The understory has been taken over by Barberry, and it is past the point where managing the land would be worth the effort.

Glazier preserve is much more favored by the town. Its landscape is far more suitable to nice hiking trails that people will frequent more often, and the trails and plantlife are more actively managed by the town. I’d say this location is much similar to Centennial Woods because it is frequented by locals more as a place to take your dog, or just go on a nice walk through the woods. Also, with its meandering hills and valleys, the landscape is also more similar to that of Centennial. Ecologically, it’s pretty similar too. Westchester, New York is only about a 4 hour drive from vermont, and the makeup of the forest is similar because of how close they are in the grand scheme of things. The one thing I would say is that these New York forests are much rockier. There are hills completely covered in massive boulders that stick out of the ground, which I haven’t seen nearly as much of near my phenology spot.

Spot Update 11/5

By ncraig

The green is gone! The leaves on all the boxelder, black cherry, and butternut trees that surround the grove have finished falling off. The rest of the green is concentrated in the few bittersweet vines that choke out the trees and the eastern white pines in the backdrop. The goldenrods have all collectively started releasing their seeds.

As the seas of goldenrod have started to recede, the lower ground cover, which was hidden all summer, is being exposed. It’s been very fun to explore through and find new plants along the ground. So far, I’ve only found a few black raspberry and blackberry plants. I’m excited to see what I will find next as the goldenrod continues to recede.

For my meditative reflection spot, I chose this little grotto I found right next to the grove of goldenrod. The branches formed a dome of sorts around me, and it was nice to just sit there and take in the forest around me.

Spot Update 10/16/23

By ncraig

The flowers are completely gone, goldenrod is dropping its seeds and drooping down. I noticed a small, understory buckthorn that is broken and in really poor health with an oriental bittersweet vine twisted up the entire length of the sapling.

Spot Update 09/30/23

By ncraig

The flowers are in their late stages, shifting from being in bloom to releasing their seeds. The smaller ground cover is all starting to wilt, and brown is overtaking green. Last time, asters were spotted alive, but they have mostly since died.

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