Warm winter afternoon - storm coming.

Lovely, warm (55-60 F) afternoon in the Woods; but storm is coming. Along the East Wash there were flocks of robins and sparrows and other mixed species flocks moving in to shelter in the privet and under the eleagnus growing there. The Weather Service this morning issued a "Special Weather Statement" a significant winter storm is heading our way Christmas Eve Day possible rain and snow and colder.
Out in the Woods I heard (but did not see) a deer snort and looked again for the soapberry on the upper escarpment.. this time with GPS coordinates. I found the location but only smaller trees and dead. I'll look again in the spring with leaf out.

Why do I never see squirrels in Olivers Woods when they are abundant on campus? There are plenty of pecans and other hardwoods.

Russell and I cleared trail with loppers. I waded into the (cold!) East Wash to settle and firm the Elm Bridge logs. Better now.

I also painted more trees along the Northern Loop to replace the dark blue tape.. some is already falling. That loop trail is now well marked but needs additional clearing of small coral berry/ buckbrush/ Symphoriocarpos. Also marked more trees along the connector from the Fence Corner to the fallen pecan junction.

Friday last week Delong and I walked the loops from the NE. He would like to run the labs for Xiangming's spring Geospatial class there. Plots of trees, georeferenced, diameter, height with new instruments. We walked west from the Hackberry Alley trail to the sharp break in the honeysuckle cover at the edge of the inundation zone. With ecology class it would be good to run multiple transects across that break looking for snails to the east, under the honeysuckle there should be many of the terrestrial, flatter spiral snails and to the west in the litter that is sometimes inundated we should find the aquatic snails.. or their old shells.. other differences? .. ground spider species, ground beetle species, millipedes and centipedes? opilone daddy long legs, basidiocarps on the ground, green forbs Viola, Stellaria etc..

Going through old OWP correspondence, found letter from Gary Schnell to state about problems with beaver dam blocking drainage from Woods in 1994. Today the dam (all clay) is still there. I will reopen the drainage. Fifteen years of extra flooding from the dam.

A week prior I walked with Jason Julian around the same loop trails. He will bring his Physical Geography and his Soils classes down for lab exercises.. prepare a land cover analysis of photos from 1938 onward... prepare a high resolution Digital Elevation Map of the Woods. Delong is going to inquire if spectral analysis might give the location and dates of flooding.

Friday afternoon 18 December late I walked in via the SW entrance up to junction with SE running yellow wire flagged Hollow Log Trail. I walked SE to the old red OWP sign on the south fence line and then west past survey post F0 and on to post G0 by the south end of the Dune Trail. I should clear this trail for access to southern Woods.