It was a cloudy and windy day, around 35 degrees with the first light snowflakes of the season just hitting the ground. The canopy cover at the site was about seventy percent – compared to about eighty percent when I first visited in early October. Many of the maple and elm leaves were starting to turn yellow, but the buckthorn trees still hadn’t showed any change. The forest floor was carpeted with a layer of maple and oak leaves. There was a barberry tree with bright ripe red berries right next to the rocks of my site.
Over the course of my visits, I’ve noticed grey squirrels, chipmunks, crows, and piliated woodpeckers. The forest floor is also home to quite a few spiders and terrestrial insects.
Bird’s Eye View Map:
(a note on the map: looking at the image upright, the top of the page is north!)