Author: Sarah Atwood

This week I took my final venture out to my phenology place in Centennial Woods. The woods was alive with birds chirping and singing. I saw a cardinal and I ran into a few dogs with their owners along the trail, as I fortunatly often do. Even though it has taken Burlington a while, it is finally starting to get warm so everything is starting to get greener and more colorful with the arrival of spring. The buds that I saw from my last visit are starting to bloom, and there are more of them. The trail to my spot is more packed down and defined now, you can tell all of the trails are starting to be used a lot again now that it is getting warmer.

One of my favorite things I have learned throughout both my NR1 and NR2 classes, has been up how much nature and culture are interconnected. Nature and culture intertwine at my place in so many ways. Firstly, they intertwine through the communities in Burlington that use the trails and the woods, and also through UVM’s uses of this woods for educational purposes. it is also intertwined through its many histories because the land has had so many different uses and has been re-shaped so much ecologically throughout time.

Right off the bat, I do not think that I consider myself as a part of my phenology place. I feel like I consider myself as a visitor and observer who comes and leaves with no trace. When I go to my place I feel like I am lucky to be there and that I am being allowed there by the trees and plant and animal species who live there. It is their space more than it is mine because it is their home.

However, I consider myself a more active part of my place when I identify myself as a member of the communities who use it for recreational and educational purposes. Thinking very broadly, I am also a part of my place through just being a human being and carrying the environmental contributions that come with that. For example, by contributing to noise pollution and climate change.

But most importantly, I am a part of my place through any actions I take to make a positive difference there-which is the part I hope to belong to the most.

This past week I have gotten the opportunity to participate in the City Nature Challenge here in Burlington!

I explored many parts of Burlington including places on campus, Rock Point and adjacent areas extending down the forested shore of the lake, and the edge of the Winooski river by the bridge in Winooski.

Using the app iNaturalist to participate in this challenge was a really cool experience for me because I had used the app beforehand, but I had never had direct motivation with a competitive aspect to use it so this really gave me the opportunity to enjoy and explore the app more. I found it really easy to use and after using it for a while, it became addicting to keep taking pictures and trying to identify things. I also really liked using the map and exploring different places.

There were so many other cities participating in this challenge globally and that was so cool because I got to see reports from other cities all around the world. It was so interesting to make comparisons between cities and learn which ones were participating the most. I also attended some of the City Nature Speaker events and I really enjoyed them a lot.

Below are some pictures of places other than Centennial, where I spent the most time, that I visited to participate in this challenge:

My venture into Centennial Woods today was really great. I got to my phenology spot and took observations there but then decided to keep exploring the paths in the woods farther. This lead me to a little pond where I saw a beaver! It was such a cool sighting and I made sure not to disturb the beaver by staying very long but I got one pretty good photo. Other animal sightings included some squirrels, some birds such as a bunch of Chickadees and Grey Finches. Also I saw some woodpecker markings in a big tree trunk.

I saw some fish in the brook and after a quick google search, my best guess of the species of fish that I saw are Eastern Black nosed Dace. I also heard a lot of birds and squirrels and ran into some dogs. I spotted some dog tracks and some deer tracks in the mud too.

As for buds and bushes, seen above are some of my favorite finds. The shrub in the second photo was all over the trail. However, I am not sure I can identify any of these in the photos.

Below is my best try at a brief Species Interaction Diagram:

I have been observing the winter ecology throughout Burlington. The most prevalent things I have taken note of include the bird species. I was surprised to see a bunch of ducks swimming by the icy shore in Lake Champlain because it was only nineteen degrees out when I took this photo. I had assumed all ducks needed to migrate to survive the cold. But now I have learned that some ducks stay and remain active in the winters. After some research I think that these ducks are Goldeneyes. I also got to see a Barred Owl during my lab in Jericho Forest this week.

I have also noticed the shores of the lake are very icy and that the leaves of all non-coniferous tree species have disappeared, except for the American Beech tree which I have learned tends to have lingering leaves the longest. It is difficult to identify trees in the winter without their leaves so this is a skill I have been practicing a lot and am hoping to improve at.

Today is my second day of classes for the semester and I finally got to go back and see my phenology spot now that I am back in Burlington. I decided to go with some friends and we went after it had been snowing all day and the snow was still coming down heavy so it was a very fun adventure.

The visibility was not great outside because it was windy and snowing, plus everything was covered in inches of snow. This made it very hard to find any tracks in the snow. When I got to my spot I was not even sure if it was the same place or not because it looked so different. A few tree branches have fallen down in the middle of the circle of trees so there was less of an opening. Plus all of the water down by the brook is frozen over and covered in ice so it barely looks like a brook anymore and we were able to easily go through it.

I have learned so much about the human history of not only my phenology place, but also about what human history means for the natural environment in general. All of the traces that we leave and lasting impacts that we have on the land everyday make a difference and really contribute to the health and future of the land and natural environment.

My phenology place in Centennial has a lot of human history, some of which can even be recognized through observations today. Geological, ecological, and cultural forces have resulted in the current landscape of Centennial. However, humans have also contributed to it as well. From the first human settlers to now. The Paleo-Americans were the very first human settlers in Centennial, before the glaciers and ice sheets and the Abenaki. Eventually European-American settled down there and transformed the forested landscape with mass deforestation. The land was used agriculturally for sheep which can be seen through the stone walls, and for dairy operations, seen through barbed wire.

Eventually however, the woods was bought by UVM in an act towards the growing concern over the degrading natural environment. With the exception of the federal government taking away 19 acres to build Interstate 89, Centennial Woods has since been reforested and a natural recreation area for the City of Burlington and the University of Vermont.

One of the most important things that I have learned about human history and land is the importance of recognizing all the different stories and people that have lived on the land, not only the glorified ones. It is important to dig deeper and really make sure you are recognizing the whole story because otherwise you are not getting the whole truth. For example, the Colonizers and the Abenaki who have very different views when it comes to living and using the land. The colonists left a lot more traces on the land than the Abenaki, and were more glorified for having history there. However the Abenaki were actually here for way longer and actually have way more history with the land.

Since I have headed home for Thanksgiving, my goal was to find a new phenology place here at home and compare it to my phenology place in Burlington. I am from a small, woodsy, area in southern Vermont, so my new place is quite similar to the Centennial woods in northern Vermont. There are a bunch of pastures in the middle of the woods right by my house, so I decided to walk out there for my phenology spot.

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The spot I ended up choosing was this spot right at the entrance of the pasture. It has a lot of Northern Hemlocks and Eastern White Pines and it also has a little stream that goes down into a larger brook. I visited this spot on a very dreary day. It was cloudy and only 30 degrees out. I took a picture of the view of the pasture from my spot too:

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One of the biggest differences between my spot here and my spot in Burlington, would be that this spot is very obviously less often visited by humans. This spot is almost never visited by humans, and Centennial has humans using it for recreation all of the time. My spot here is also way farther from any civilization and way deeper in the woods than centennial is as well. Here is a picture showing the location of my new phenology spot on google maps:

Another difference I noticed between my spot here and my spot in Burlington would be that there are a lot more larger trees here than in Centennial. I think this tells me that these woods have a lot more older trees than Centennial, which makes sense to me.

On the journey to my spot, I saw these really cool Yellow Birch trees that grew together and are covered in moss. I feel like the bark is extra peel-y.

I also remembered an observation that I have always found really interesting. There is barbed wire that has been around some of these trees for so long, that the tree grew around the wire so now the wire is inside of the trees.

One of my favorite things about this spot is all of the old stone walls and stone foundations that it has. They can be seen all along the trails and in the pasture. This is something we talked about a lot in class. This shows that people used to live here and I think that’s really cool and special to think about. This land used to be so much different than how it is today and it is crazy to think about what it might have been like back when it was a farm and settlements were here because today it is in the middle of the woods and cars could barely even get to where the settlements used to be.

The Phenology assignment for this week includes creating an event map for my place. From what I gathered after reading “The World as Events” By Hannah Hinchman, an event map is a map with the purpose of recording the things that are natural and unnatural in a place through your own personal experience and observations there. Here is my best attempt at creating an event map for my phenology place:

It has already snowed this year here in Burlington. We had a lot of snow earlier in the week. My place in Centennial will definitely have been snowed on already this year. As fall comes to an end, the woods is a lot less bright and starts to look dreary. Especially on cold, cloudy days. Without snow covering the ground and branches, everything is dull and sad looking this time of the year and the woods feel a lot darker.

Along with my event map, this week’s assignment has challenged me to write an original poem about my phenology place. I wrote my poem about getting away from the stress of life by going into the woods. I was inspired by how even though there is a whole college campus, city, highway, and even an airport right outside of Centennial, when you are in the woods you can almost escape that chaos.

Erasing Time

The woods is a leisure, a peaceful home

As a kid, it’s where I spent all my time

It was my ladybug umbrella, or the sunshine

The woods here feel like home because of this

When you sit and smell and listen,

The outside of the woods could be anything when it isn’t in sight.

People could be non existent.

And so could the worries and stresses of life.

I feel like I am a kid again. Imagining I’ve erased time.

My phenology spot has not changed too much since my first blog post. The most significant change would be the foliage that can be viewed from my spot and taking place in my spot itself. The colors of the leaves in the trees all around my spot have changed colors, becoming more vibrant oranges and yellows. The leaves are starting to cover the ground more and more. In some places more than others.

One thing I noticed about my spot is that there was a flag left in the middle of it. I am guessing that this was put there for another project which shows that other people acknowledge and come to this spot too. One thing I noticed on the trail to my spot is that there were some cans littered on the ground on the side of the trail. People must have come here to hangout and did not bring their litter with them which made me sad.

I am also still unable to identify this woody shrub in my spot. It has long leaves that sprout in bunches and red berries that each have their own stem. They are shiny and egg shaped.

Here is my very rough sketch of my phenology spot from a birds-eye view or perspective. This is my spot coming off of the main trail which can be seen on the left of the paper. With the opening of wet lands with lots of yellowish-reddish bushes on the right side of the paper:

My name is Sarah Atwood and I am an undergraduate student at UVM in the Rubenstein school. I chose a spot in Centennial Woods for my phenology place because it is a natural area that is easy for me to get to on foot, and therefore convenient for me to visit as often as possible. The venture to this spot is down the main trail of Centennial, taking the first left turn off of the main trail and then following that smaller trail down the Centennial Brook. I chose this specific location in Centennial because I liked how the trees made a circle shape right on the border of the wetland/Centennial Brook and the woods. The spot feels very peaceful and the sun shines in through the trees in a way that drew me towards it.

There are lots of Eastern Hemlocks, Red Maples, and Paper Birch Trees in my spot. There are also many bushes of a species I have not Identified yet, but that has red berries. There is one set of trees in my spot that wound around each other as they grew, so now they are entangled together which I think is very cool.