A UVM blog Centennial Woods Phenology Blog

I went to Centennial Woods one last time before the end of the school year. I have really appreciated being able to go to this spot throughout the school year to see how it has changed with the seasons. Right now, Centennial Woods is starting to get greener and looking more and more like how it was when I first visited in September. I enjoyed being able to see some wildlife again such as some minnows in the stream and being able to hear the birds chirping again.

I think that nature and culture can have a large connection at Centennial Woods since the land is owned by UVM. I think natural areas being owned by a large university like UVM can have cultural implications in how the land is managed and who is managing it. After spending a lot of time in Centennial Woods, I would consider myself to be a part of this place. I think UVM owning the land means that students and other visitors are able to learn here, and I feel as if I have been able to learn a lot from my visits.

For the city nature challenge, I explored Centennial Woods and went to the lakefront where I encountered many different species. I enjoyed being able to see more birds now as the weather is getting warmer, some bird species that I saw were Chickadees, Bluejays, American Robins, and a Red Cardinal. I also saw many different plant species, the one that I saw the most that we haven’t seen much of until this week was Daffodils. I enjoyed using iNaturalist, I really like to see where other people saw different animals around Burlington and it reminds me how close this city is to nature. I liked to see what other people are seeing in their cities, I looked into what people are seeing in Chicago and some of what was found really surprised me since Chicago is such an urban environment and many people would not be thinking to look for this variety of birds there.

Over my spring break, I went to Sedona, Arizona, and was able to do a few hikes while there. Where I went hiking felt like the opposite of my phenology site at Centennial Woods. Since we were at a higher elevation and in a colder desert there were more plants than I expected to see, primarily Cyprus trees, some shrubs, and cacti. The soil was also very sandy and an orange color, which is very different than what we see in Vermont. There also was not much wildlife except for a few birds. The different birds I saw were ravens, a few hummingbirds, and some different types of Jays, primarily Scrub Jays. While there, I learned that Scrub Jays hide seeds in between during the winters, but sometimes they forget about them so many of the trees that grow in between rocks are planted by Scrub Jays.

For second semester, I chose to continue to come to Centennial Woods. I chose to continue to come here because I loved visiting my location throughout first semester to see how it has changed, and I want to see how it changes as we move from winter to spring. When visiting Centennial Woods, I was able to see some animal tracks, but they were difficult to identify as it was snowing throughout the morning. This made the tracks less detailed so I was not able to see specific shapes. But from the tracks I saw, I think some of them were rabbit tracks and many tracks from dogs. Since I lasted visited Centennial Woods in December, much of the stream has frozen over, except for a few smaller spots where you can see the water moving.

After sitting in my spot in Centennial Woods for 15 minutes, I felt a lot calmer. I chose to sit by the brook and while there I was able to listen to some birds as well as the water running by. Since my last visit to Centennial Woods, a lot more of the leaves have changed colors as well as fallen. I have been enjoying watching the leaves gradually change colors while visiting Centennial Woods.