This week’s assignment had us going back to our site, finding organisms, and mapping our location from memory. On October 29th, I visited my spot and there weren’t many changes from my last visit, except for the weather. Another change that I noticed was that almost all of the leaves had fallen off of the trees that had tons of leaves last week, most of the trees only had a few leaves left on the very top. On this day the weather was beautiful. It was sunny and in the high 50’s. My day did although come after a day of heavy rain so the path and my spot were a bit muddy and the water in the brook was higher than the week prior. The mud also brought out one species I could identify which were Lumbricus Terrestris, also known as earthworms. The earthworms were all over the bank and the surrounding area due to the excess of water. Another animal that I saw while at my spot was a small Black-Capped Chickadee (Poeicille Atricapillus). Chickadees aren’t a species that fly south for the winter because they have adapted to survive the winters here in Vermont. I was also able to easily identify the Norway Maple (Acer platanoides) due to our tree quizzes in lecture. This tree that still had its yellow leaves with black patches unlike many others in the forest. Two other species were the Sciurus carolinensis (gray squirrel) and a chipmunk from the Sciuridae family. Another tree I saw growing low to the ground was a young Northern Red Oak (Quercus rubra) which large red leaves growing out of its short and small trunk. Another species I was able to see was a beetle from the Coleoptera order. This beetle was shiney, black, and had many legs.

After mapping my spot, I was able to realize how much this place means to me. I could remember almost every detail of the place after taking so many field notes.

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