This assignment began with spending 15 minutes experiencing my spot in centennial woods.
During this time I heard a variety of things. Faintly in the background I heard the hum of cars driving up and down the roads outside of the woods. Much closer to where I was though, I heard the the flow of the water and the croaking and splashing of frogs going about their business. I could also hear the crumpling of leaves from nearby walkers and tree limbs scraping one another when the wind blew through.
I saw a lot more in this 15 minutes than previous assignments as with trees shedding their leaves, the area has become much more exposed. This increase in sunlight may have impacts on the productivity of the centennial brook. In Centennial Brook, there were a lot of leaves that had fallen due to the change in seasons. This influx of leaves in the water can impair the water quality as the leaves contain nutrients such as phosphorus.
The second section of this assignment was to draw a map with a top down view of your area.
The final section of this assignment is to describe the changes in the area since i’ve last been there. The first thing I noticed was that the area was much more exposed as a lot of the cover from leaves was gone. This led to a larger organic layer on the ground as well as more leaves in Centennial Brook which I mentioned previously. The crabapple trees nearby were not as ripe with fruits which dominated the area when I went on previous visits. Perhaps the most noticeable change was how yellow the area seemed. This was due to the Norway Maples leaves turning a bright yellow in the fall. The Norway Maples in my area are the last deciduous tree with a substantial amount of leaves still on the tree leading to this dominant yellow in the color of the under and overstory in the area.