A UVM blog Phenology- Jager

Hello Blog! Today is the day that has come where these blogs have come to an end:( I thouroughly enjoyed spending the time on these posts and walking around not only my spot in centennial woods, but all the other spots I got to go to during this assignment. Ofcourse though I had to go back to my spot in centennial one last time (at least for the phenology blogs, maybe I’ll go back just for fun!)

As I sat down to sketch I looked around me, I noticed that the ferns have started to spring up and become more vibrant, there are many more trees and branches on the ground, buds are starting to bloom on the trees and bushes, but one thing was still the same. The iconic curved tree that caught my eye in the first place when I was choosing my phenology spot. Big and very eye-catching it is the most prominent thing in my sketch because it – to me – is the most prominent thing at my site.

Hello Blog! Today, during the four-day BioBlitz, I explored the greater Burlington, VT area. Due to the super awesome sunny weather, I went down to North Beach Campground to get some sun and observe some nature! While I was there, I saw many things, including oak trees, thorn bushes, which I believe were Japanese barberry, eastern white pines, squirrels, ducks, and honeysuckles. There were many other species there around the campground, but not in the spot I had chosen.

As I sit down in the sun to write this and reflect on my experience today I realize I had a great time. Inaturalist was super easy and functional to use at North Beach, and it even helped me a lot with some of the identifications. There was also this really interesting nest in the leaves, which definitely had some type of larger animal living in it, such as a porcupine or skunk.

When I looked up City Nature Challenge on the projects in iNaturalist I came across this one from 2020 in South Gloucestershire, which I had never heard of this place before and had to look it up, turns out it is in southwest England, which is really interesting as it was the first city to pop up, even though it is so far away from here. But there are many species on this project around 1130 species were identified with 5469 observations. Species like the Marsh Crane fly and the Maple gall mite were identified, which I have never heard of before.

Regardless, I really enjoyed participating in this! Till next time blog!!

3/31/25

Hello Blog! This week I went out on a walk around campus to observe the 5 trees assigned, White Oak, Red Oak, Red Maple, Sugar Maple, and Norway Maple. For the most part, all 5 of these trees were in similar phenophases, with not many buds breaking or flowering. The red oak had the leaves still attached from the fall but were all dead and dry. The only noticeable change was that a few of the trees such as red maple had leaf stems beginning to sprout out of the branches and the oak trees had a few acorn caps, but no acorn body as of yet.

Post-phenology walk when exploring the United States National Phenology Network I came across this article about how plants and animal species are beginning to respond differently due to climate change. This study found that spring and summer phenological events are beginning to start earlier than they did 40 years ago. This was found from data of over 2,000 species, which helps researchers to understand how climate change is affecting species’ relationships. I wish I took a picture of the trees but I did not get to it on this walk, so thats all for today!

Hi Blog! Today I went to the Waterman Green to have a bit of a change in scenery, not too far I know but it’s all I had time for this weekend. But you’d be surprised at how many tracks and species I saw while walking along the green, or should I even say green because it was completely covered in a foot of snow, I have snow in my boots to prove it!

This last picture is just a funny one of my friend Erin who had just fallen in the snow due to us having to walk over a big snowbank, we had a lot of fun frolicking around following the tracks and their patterns!

Hey Blog! Today, walking back to my phenology spot it was a bit more challenging than usual, that being there was snow-packed ice, but even though it was stressful as I tried not to slip, it was fun sliding around on the ice with a friend who had a spot nearby. There was something so different about my phenology spot this time, I looked all around and it just looked so bare and barren, I could see everything around and the trees looked droopy in a way. It kind of made me sad, missing the beauty and joy of the lush warm weather but I know its only a few months till then, so for now I will frolic in the snow.

In this last Phenology of the semester, I really took my time walking around my spot, observing the many things around as I have seen for the past 3 blogs. Except this time, they were drastically different, the most obvious difference being that there was a white blanket of snow. The more time I spent there, the more I started to notice how I could easily see right through the woods, what made me notice that was that there was a couple walking their dog about 50 feet from me way into the trail a couple of months ago I wouldn’t have noticed that due to the leaves filling the trees. But everywhere around was pretty much bare. The animal tracks pictured were most likely that couple’s dog that had been with them or previous dogs walking the trails, but I liked the way you could see each individual ped within the dog’s footprint pressed into the snow. I also noticed during my time that there was less noise around me; I rarely heard a bird chirp or a chipmunk yell as they had in my previous visits. My favorite part of this phenology spot, as I believe I mentioned in my first-ever post, is the curved tree that I took a picture of and posted above, there’s something about my walking down to my spot and watching the curved tree get closer and closer, knowing that I have made it to my phenology spot.

This spot that I chose today is special in that it is my favorite spot to go to when I am staying at my grandparent’s place on Long Island. They live in a 55 and over community that is very cookie cutter and similar all around(even the pond is dyed to look a certain way as pictured below), but it is the only semi-natural area that I can walk to, and it even has my favorite tree a weeping willow. This place is completely different from my Burlington phenology, everything was placed there or made there by man and is routinely taken care of. There are multiple types of trees, willow, birch, some sort of maple, and hemlock. The birches are similar to my original phenology, but the sounds are very different. At this long island spot, there is a highway right next to it, loud sounds of cars and trucks wooshing by take up the majority of the noise, while the centennial woods sounds are taken up by birds and crunching of leaves. I really enjoyed comparing my two spots and seeing the difference in how these areas are kept and altered by man.

Today’s experience sitting quietly in my phenology spot was honestly just what I needed for the day. It truly reset my day and allowed me to focus when I had gotten back. Today, there were many wooshing noises and leaves blowing due to the super windy winds. My spot has changed in that there are a lot more needles and leaves on the ground(the trees are pretty bare), but also, as I was walking down, there were many trees that had fallen. I’m assuming that’s because of the intense wind or old age. But as I sat there, I noticed there were more trees bent to my right and that there were only a few trees with leaves still attached, they were some kind of maple tree, but I forgot to look closely and identify it, I was too distracted drawing. Also, as shown in my drawing, I noticed this really curvy tree across the way from my spot, which was super awesome. That is it for today 🙂

Hello! Welcome to my blog, my phenology site is nestled right in Centennial Woods. I chose this spot because I knew I wanted somewhere very accessible to me that I could get to very easily, so once I knew that I started walking down the trail till something caught my eye. As I was walking these two curved branches as pictured below caught my eye and I saw a dead tree lying across that I could sit on and I was sold! To get here you follow the Centennial trail until there is a fork and you can go right or left(go left) and keep walking until these two curved trees appear.

The vegetation surrounding consists of many ferns, maples(I saw sugar and striped), birch, black cherry, beeches, and lots of leaves and pine needles on the ground, there is not really any spot where you see soil, it’s all needles, leaves, and ferns. Something I saw that was pretty cool was this completely white fern, I’ve never seen that before, I looked it up and it says it could be a winter white fern? or that it absorbs all of its nutrients and that’s why the color is gone, I put a picture of it below.

This first phenology assignment was pretty fun, I really enjoyed sitting in the woods by myself for a while and winding down, there were lots of sounds around me that I didn’t realize until I sat down and focused, it really reminded me of this mountain semester that I did in high school and it was awesome!