Rather than my typical phenology spot, for this assignment my location was in my backyard. More specifically than that, my backyard which is in northeastern Virginia. Identifying the environmental features here was different than my typical phenology spot as even though I had grown up here, I am much more adept at the composition of the environment in Vermont than Virginia.
This led to some challenges in identifying the species of trees but with the help of INaturalist, I was able to identify most of them.
Some of the most notable species I found in my backyard were
- River Birch
- Eastern Red Cedar
- Chinese Holly
There were a few others that I wasn’t able to identify but there is an almost even split to the amount of conifers and deciduous trees in my backyard. The leaves from the deciduous trees blanket the grass in the backyard in the winter which can serve as the shelter for small critters especially butterflies that plant their eggs on the bottom of these leaves. They also return nutrients to the soil which otherwise would just be raked away.
With being in town for not a very long time I wasn’t able to get a gift to leave in my backyard. Although I wasn’t able to prepare a physical gift for my backyard, in the spring and summer I like to work in my backyard growing some plants and hope to do some big changes to the composition of the grasses that will be more beneficial to pollinators and other animals that sometimes pass through my backyard.
Link to INaturalist Profile