With cooling temperatures, the leaves on the deciduous maples, and birches have been quickly changing colors and falling onto the ground. The ground cover ferns have died off, and the buck thorn and honeysuckle plants have littered their leaves across the ground and into the stream.
Squirrels have created nests within the over story white pine trees, and run throughout the site. Within the brook, I have found Green frogs, and riffle beetles.
Robert Hebner
The site that I have chosen is located in Centennial Woods, at the far eastern trail entrance of the commuter parking lot. Follow this trail to the bottom of the hill, and my site is situated on the small stream near the patch of open forest.
My site is a small ravine with a trickling stream leading through the middle of it. The dominant soil type is clay and silt, which provides the optimal conditions for invasive buckthorn and honeysuckle to run rampant. These two invasive species make up about 60% of the understory, with eastern hemlock, and striped maple making up the other 40%. The ground cover consists of lady fern, common milkweed, and red fescue around the banks of the stream. The overstory trees consist mainly of sugar maple, red maple, paper birch, eastern white pine, and red oak.
