Sunday mornings are the best time in South Olivers Woods

After a few weeks away I was curious to see what changes there were in the Woods. I entered the southwest Chautauqua gate at 9 am.

Cicadas were thrumming prominently. Several were singing in synchrony. Their sound began at a low pitch which increased in a wave of sound that then repeated after a few seconds.

Mosquitoes were essentially absent. I heard only two in two hours.

Ticks were also gone from the open shaded woods where I walked. I stayed in the closed canopy section, away from the beds of sedges. I found no ticks after two hours.

Small flock of robins (3-5 birds) were foraging in the woods near and northeast of the gate .. as they often are. Robins are the bird I see most commonly there and often the only bird I see.

Hackberry emperor butterflies were flitting about and courting in sun breaks north of the dune trail.

Orb web spinning spiders (Micrathena and others) were moderately abundant and their webs, illuminated by morning light filtering through the forest canopy, were beautiful in the shaded forest understory.

A honey-colored libellulid dragonfly perched with me for 2-3 minutes (on a stick I was carrying to clear webs). I wondered if any odonates, birds or other predators in the Woods would pick spiders out of their webs like the big Pseudostigmatid helicopter damselflies in the neotropics.. or chameleons. The spiders are a juicy bit of food, totally exposed.

It might be interesting to follow 30-50 webs for few days. Spend the days walking from one web to the next noting the position of the spider and any activity. What hours was it in the center of its web? Did the web last through the full day or was it destroyed?
Also might be interesting to look at size of web.. for a given species, does web size vary depending on size of the spider, food density of the micro habitat, architectural constraints of anchor points, or randomly? Did individual spiders tend to spend webs in the same location each day using the same anchor points?

One nice damselfly held its wing like a spreadwing lestid .. could have been ?

Two or three damp rotten logs laying on the forest floor had prominent fresh piles of frass beside them. I wondered if this might be from immature Dynastes Hercules beetles. Lifting one of the logs I found a couple of passalid beetles: one dark black (i.e. mature) adult and one late instar larva. This is a subsocial species with overlapping related generations occupying the same space.

New white bleached snail shells rested on logs which had been in the flooded zone.

I saw no deer but found a recent (?) track of a young faun.

Of the thousands of young seedlings (mostly green ash) that were abundantly growing after the spring inundation receded, I found none remaining.

Several nice displays of fungi: big fleshy Auricularia eared fungi the color of dried blood growing on a recently dead tree trunk perched off the ground. A dozen small pleurotid oyster mushrooms were growing from the first log across the trail (with saw cuts). The large polypore tower-like conks on the log by the big broken cottonwood snag had produced new conks of similar size from the same log. A nice patch of Marasmius-like agarics light gray brown was along the trail. Covers of white, yellow and orange decay fungi thalli were common under damp logs and around the base of standing dead snags.

Persimmons scattered through the woods had dropped abundant, green, full-sized fruit in patches. Some of the fruit had recently been chewed open (by rodents? opossums? raccoons? deer?)

Around the base of a few green ash and many elms there are evident small roots, half inch to one inch in diameter growing out of the trunk of the tree above the soil. I wonder how the prevalence of these roots correlates with the depth and longevity of inundation. Appears trees growing in the more flood prone sites had more of these adventitious or aerating roots (pneumatophores?); the rooting pattern could be a rough index of flooding.

Along the southwest Woods trail the Polygonum smartweed and sedges were growing well in sunny breaks.

At the north end of the cross dune trail Acer boxelders (several young canopy trees) had dropped their leaves, now bleached beige on forest floor.. (Caused by number of 100 + degree F days in July?) The trees were growing new leaves.
In the same spot Smilax green briar had fully formed clusters of fruit – still green; and a beggars’ lice Bidens, had yellow orange flowers beginning.
Along the dune trail weedy regeneration was dominated by compound leaved low shrub Rhus.

West of the north end of the cross dune trail the Woods trail had been cleared of all litter by water flowing from the east, leaves and twigs down to the soil along a 100 meter length, 2 meters wide. The litter was piled an inch or two deep along the side of the trail and in small debris rifts. Consequences for habitat patchiness for decay biota, arthropods etc.. are interesting.

In area of bare soil 2-3 inch (?) deep crevices have formed as soil dried with clay content. Crevices produced should serve as refugia for microarthropods and microflora and add diversity to forest floor biota.

Does the National Weather Service have an observing station across the highway that would give very accurate rainfall and patterns of temperature? Rainfall here is often very localized.

Along the Chautauqua fence Campsis trumpet vines were in abundant full orange bloom.