Shea’s Phenology Project!

The phenology of my site has changed dramatically since the first time I have visited but only really in the past week has the site changed in appearance in a long time! This week my Red Maple Tree started to flower!! It was so exciting it was almost like I proud mom moment. Every week I kept saying that the next week it would definitely flower but it was a bud for longer than I expected!

I’ve become very familiar with the small wooded area near the gold course. I have been running through it since the beginning of the school year but when I first tried to reach this spot walking I got so lost that I was just wandering around the gold course because things looked different when there is a foot of snow on the ground. Now I am more familiar with the little walking loop that will take you to my spot and I can find my spot by looking for the older trees off of the younger path!

Nature and culture intertwine very frequently in my phenology spot and in my spot near my phenology tree! My phenology spot borders the golf course where in the winter it was very quiet and filled with more wildlife species. In the spring and summer though, the Burlington Golf Course starts to fill up with more people, creating a larger human disturbance near the wooded trails. More people also start to walk on these paths and on the Bike Path including including my team that starts running on them as well. Humans are definitely have a large presence at both of my spots!

I would say I do feel part of my place. I feel most connected with my tree more than my actual phenology spot just because I visited my tree more. But I still feel like I am always on the Bike Path and on the trails running so I still felt close to my original phenology spot as well! I will definitely continue to check on my Red Maple tree every spring to see when it flowers and when I come back every fall semester to see when it will lose it’s leaves! This tree will always have a special place in my heart!

When I visited my tree it was on Thursday where it reached above 80 degrees!! My BCOR 12 professor teacher told us it broke the record for the warmest day in April in Vermont. The previous day that set the record was in 1945. I would like to hope this is a one time thing but judging by the state of the climate this will probably be more common.

Anyways, when me and my friend walked back towards the red maple were both expecting to see blooms because they are one of the first tree species to start flowering. There was no flowering but there was a larger bud than last time!

From how the past days weather wise, me and my friend are hoping next phenology blog there will be some signs of flowering:)

Bonus Feature!

On our walk we found a dead tree filled with holes made by a species of woodpecker! It would be so cool if next time we saw the woodpecker as well!

This time revisiting the tree I thought I was in for some blooming of some sort, but I must have been confused with the Massachusetts weather over break! Walt mentioned that Red Maple would most likely be the first of the tree species to show some signs of spring. Even though there was no signs of flowering yet, the buds looked different than last time! They were more of brighter and darker red than last time. The branches also had a maroon coloring that stretched down the branch about an inch as well!

There was no noticeable difference between the physical tree this time than the last. There was definitely less snow coverage on the ground this week showing signs of the weather warming up! Most Red Maples in warmer southern climates bloom in late March with iconic red flowers that form new leaves for the tree. I am making an hypothesis that next phenology spot visit in early April, there should be some signs of blooming then!

As me and my friend were walking towards our usual winter phenology spot in the wooded area directly between the George D. Aiken Forestry Science Laboratory and the Burlington Country Club located off of Spear St. I came across a really cool Red maple (Acer rubrum) that I decided to choose for the assignment!

I knew that the Red Maple was not one of it’s lookalikes, the Sugar Maple or Norway Maple because of the coloring of the bud and the upper part of the twig. The bud shape resembled a bud of the maple family, with the terminal bud being slightly larger than the two lateral buds on either side of the terminal bud. But unlike the Sugar and Norway Maple the buds are bright red in color similar to it’s iconic bright red leaves.

I could tell by the bud shape and coloring that it could be a maple. But by looking at the branches of the tree I could see that it had opposite branching, which is a characteristic of the Maple family! Looking closely at the buds of the Red Maple I saw, there was no evidence of flowering yet. According to Walt though, there will most likely be signs of flowering when I come back from break!!

Red Rocks addition 🙂

Me and my friend Liv who is also a NR student on Thursday 2/16 went to Red Rocks to go winter tracking! There wasn’t much snow left in the park but there was definitely mud! We encountered a lot of dog tracks within the muddy main pathways of the park. We knew it was a dog over another canine or feline because the nails were bent and the tracks were very close to the human made walkways so we assumed they were made by leashed pets.

We also saw many Grey squirrels leaping around through the trees digging for the acorns that the squirrels dug shallow in the dirt before the winter begun. We found piles of acorn shells and the pulled apart pine cones as we wandered off the trails into the forest. We didn’t successfully find a squirrel track though, but I got a picture that I uploaded to iNaturalist!

We also think we found a deer track in the mud, but it was unclear to us if it was or just a footprint left near the path. We saw the two hove marks, but something was a bit different about the print that made us questioned if it really was a deer track because we did not see another one near by.

Lastly throughout the park there was a handful of vernal pools that were scattered across the landscape. Because the snow melted, natural divots filled up with the water creating the pools. In spring time many amphibians such as salamanders will use these pools to lay their eggs and hatch young! I also uploaded a picture of the vernal pool to iNaturalist.

This semester I decided to move my spot to a new spot just because I would be more challenging to get down to the beach when the weather and wind chill factor start to worsen. My new Phenology Spot for this semester is a wooded area that I would run through during Cross Country season. We call the four mile run “Cornfield loop” even though we do not actually run through the corn which is by the wooded area in the fall. The wooded area is located directly between the George D. Aiken Forestry Science Laboratory and the Golf Course located off of Spear St.

Directions to my Phenology Spot!

From UHeights South you travel behind the Patrick Gym where you will find the Bike Path that travels beside Spear St. You continue down the bike path passing the UVM Co-Operative Barn, the corn field and the George D. Aiken Forestry Science Laboratory. Then you follow the bike path until you get to the solar panel farm. At the solar panel farm you take a left onto a wooded path that will lead you to part of the gold course. You then cross the section of the golf course to the wooded area on the other side. And that’s where my spot is!

Some Cool Tracks and Other Pictures of My Spot:)

Since last time I visited my Phenology Spot, not much has changed. When I visited my spot last time there wasn’t really any leaves on the tree species present at the site. When I visited this time, there was no leaves still. The buckthorn and other woody shrubs that lined the bike path and higher part of the beach that were still lively looking last time I visited. Now they looked more bare and had less leaves than last time. All the Queen’s Anne’s Lace that was planted there for aesthetic purposes were now dead as well.

Down by the shore line, the aquatic grasses were now all brown when last time the majority was still green. This lead me to believe that the aquatic grasses were hardy than other species at my sight or the lake has been recently decreasing it’s temperature more rapidly now as the weather is getting colder and more windy. Each time I visit my sight the more and more windier it seems to be down by the water’s edge.

I saw some Canadian geese footprints on the beach but I did not see any this time. I also saw more crows down by the water than I saw last time. In other places on campus I’ve been seeing many crows so this makes sense to me. The leaf litter of my spot also has been pushed into the rocks lining the beach rather than being scattered along the beach last night. I think because the wind has increased recently the leaves have been pushed up to the edges of the beach before the bike path.

What aspects of my Phenology Spot do I like the most?

I really enjoy being by the lake. That is the reason why I picked this spot. Yes it is not covered by many species but it still has it’s own unique ecosystem that we have not looked at in NR 1 this year. I always wonder how important the aquatic grasses are to keeping the bike path from getting damaged and from excess flooding to occur. I imagine that there was probably many more grasses acting as riparian buffers years ago and how the loss of the species along the coast of Lake Champlain has effected the flooding incidents along the waterfront?

This is the location of my place! It is a place I occasionally stop at during my runs to look out at the harbor. Grape Island a Boston Harbor Island is about 400 meters away across the channel. The Hingham ferry boat will head through here when going towards the port at the North End in Boston. I will kayak from a beach 5 minutes away from my spot with my brother sometimes and cross the channel to head to the island!

Comparison of My Place at Home and My Phenology Spot

I picked this place because it is very special to me. I usually sit and listen to the waves or music and look out towards Boston or at the beach below. I didn’t think about it but I again picked a place on the water. My place at home has less trees but more wood plants that can withstand the force of the wind. The meadow in the spring is usually filled with yellow flowers and weeds that can live in the rockier soils of the cliff. The landscape of my place is not like the cedar filled ledges of Rock point. In my spot there is more fertile soil that can support the grasses and different kinds of flowers on the cliff.

Hi! The bird’s eye view map of my phenology project spot is uploaded on black board because sadly word press will not allow me to upload the file type:(

15 minute Sit Spot

In the 15 minutes that I sat in my spot I heard all the birds that were slightly down the beach from me. There was a couple seagulls and probably fifty Canadian Geese! They were all diving into the water and relaxing on the shore line. I heard the wind moving around the leaves on the beach and making the waves crash along the shoreline. I saw people coming down from the bike path like I did to check out the little beach area. I noticed the green aquatic plants along the shoreline were starting to turn color as well just like the other woody plants above the shore line.

Changes Observed in My Spot from the Last Time I Visited!

Almost all the leaves are blown from the trees and littered on the beach. The only color left is the yellow leaves on the buck thorn that wrap around some of the larger trees and the faint green in the aquatic grasses. Majority of the leaves are blown against fallen trees and the rocks lining the area between the start of the beach and the bike path. I have also noticed that people started to conjugate on the beach. There are some trees on the beach that are bent because of the wind beating on them over time. People choose to use the larger bent trees as extra shelter from the elements along with other housing supplies. I can now see why people choose to migrate to this spot when the weather becomes harsher and colder.

I choose a little beach that is off the Lake Champlain bike path! I found this spot when I was on a 10 mile run with my teammates! We call the run where we run on the bike path “Waterfront”. While running water front I noticed a little nook beach that looked really pretty. I went back on my own long run to the beach and saw people wind surfing and knew this would be a cool phenology spot:) 

The beaches official name is “Hobo Beach” but I wanted to clarify that I did not know this until after I picked my spot. Don’t let the name mislead you it’s a very pretty location!

Directions

How I reach my spot is to first, run through Redstone Campus and continue left until you reach Cliff street. Then at the bottom of the hill take another left and continue until you reach an intersection. Then cross diagonally right down Locust St. Once you reach the bottom of that street take, a left onto Pine street and continue until you reach a Cumberland farms. Down that street there will be an overhead bridge. You will want to climb the stairs to get on the bike path. Once on the bike path, follow it until you reach the beach!

Observations

At the location there is both beach and common woody plants. There are large trees right in the sand with some roots exposed. There are also some smaller shrubs and other plants lining the bike path before it reached the trees that line the beach. There are also some aquatic plants in the area that I plan on identifying in trips to come!

(Sorry about the size of the image!! I couldn’t shrink the picture for some reason!)