OWP Investigations Projects

Relaxed ramble in the Woods.. they were still today.. cold.. low to mid 30's. East Pond and small pool in Wash were mostly frozen over. West Pond was 80% open water. One cottontail rabbit dashed away near an isolated patch of wild onion 200 feet north of Fence Corner. Four or five recent deer beds- ellipses of flattened leaf litter- northeast of northeastern corner of North Loop. Nice fresh Pleurotus oyster on freshly down pecan snag #175. Lots of fruiting polypores in large deep hole left when snag fell. This is the origin of odd large vertical holes in the Woods.. uprooted rotten snags.
Ecology students can map: Ligustrum privet, Rosa multiflora rose, vines (what vines are on what trees?), cedars (branchy? in rows? dead?), Crataegus hawthorn (by early April blossom), Eleagnus Russian olive, catalpa (by blossom), more 'Liriope monkey grass, persimmons. All large trees in 3 or 4 acres (each 200 x 200' block =~ one acre).
Along the south boundary and elsewhere through the Woods there are patches of junipers all blown over in the same direction, now supporting impenetrable thickets of honeysuckle off the ground.. cozy sanctuary for any wildlife sheltering within.
Winter green on the ground: Geum, Stellaria chickweed (good snack), Galium bedstraw (very small), Stachys-like horse mint-like (same leaf odor, shape and venation).
Need to remap with GPS all of Carpenter's posts found:
1-5: C10,D10,F10,G10,H10
6-8: NE quarter off Pipeline Trail NE of flagged Liriope patch; and SW of patch in Wash; and at the jct of N Loop and Trans OWP
9-10: at Barney Jct; and by Grandfather Cottonwood
11-12: first found post between two green ash; and west in sedges (east of line to break in Chautauqua fence)
13-17: at old western gate; and north (found in the ice); and east on pink line along south border of sedge; and north to small raised clump of trees in eastern sedges; and north (on pink line) to large sedge lobe in middle of woods opening;
18-21: SE corner of West Pond; SE corner of East Pond (in water pit); by big cottonwood; just off trail between two ponds at trail turning.

Opuntia Prickly Pear and Briers

December 25, needing some exercise, I went to the Woods with saw and machete and opened the old game trail from the Two Friends across the dune to the Grandfather Cottonwood.
At the crest of the sand dune was a good small patch of Opuntia prickly pear, not common in the Woods. The dune supports a different community from the surrounding Woods. It is never flooded. The exotic Lonicera honeysuckle grows thickly along with Ligustrum privet, Cercis redbud, and other shrubs and forbs down to a sharp boundary defined by the high water mark of the floods. The two species of Smilax briers under the junipers were particularly dense and I needed some impervious clothing to wrestle with them and open a path. The woods east of the Two Friends had many small 1-3 inch diameter green ash. All the mature green ash down to 1-2 diameter should be killed when Agrilus planipennis, the Emerald Ash Borer arrives. It will be of great interest to observe the fate of this advance regeneration. After beetles kill the mature ash, will the beetles remain and kill the young regen, or will beetle populations disappear and allow many young green ash to survive and the species remain an important part of floodplain forest? I think we will lose green ash entirely and will want to find out what returns.. grasses and sedges? elms? (but Ophiostoma novo-ulmi), redbud? persimmon? Maybe a chance for cottonwood to re-establish. Perhaps it would be good to establish some of the other tree species already present, before the ash die.

Christmas Eve in the Woods

Two o'clock walk in through the NE Gate. Good to get into the Woods and out of the chill wind. Last night's storm brought only 5/100ths of an inch but it has turned much cooler with the wind. Under three damp decomposing logs southeast of the East Pond, I found three carabids.. all the same species of Agonum. The isopods were clumped together in tight clusters like honey bees sheltering from the coming cold. One millipede adult (polydesmid??) and a dozen tiny (first instar? white millipedes). At first I thought they were dolichopodid fly larvae. One thin earthworm.

Under one log there were patches of bright orange slime mold in small decorative beads. Under other logs there were swatches of mauve, or white or orange polypores.. just the thin body of the fungus with no conk. One log has nice charcoal black Loculoascomycetes on top and beneath.

At the base of the biggest down cottonwood there is a nice fresh clump of oyster mushrooms in good shape. I broke off a good sized chunk and enjoyed a fresh snack.

From the bottom of the tree looking up into the hollow center it looks like a cotton rat has constructed a nest there.. lots of broken sticks and chunks of bark piled in a loose assortment providing shelter. This is less than a hundred meters from the only other old cotton rat nest I've seen in the Woods, in the broken triple trunk mulberry.

I have not seen any deer the last four times.. the last five days in the Woods. I have not seen dog(s) last 2-3 times.. although this time I heard a dog when I was on the south border trail.. sounded like it was over by the Beaver Dam.

I discovered (again?) one of Carpenter's solid 1.5 m steel stakes, H9, just 25 feet WSW of Barney Jct. The base fully enclosed in a vigorous young hackberry. I relocated two others of Carpenter's stakes I'd seen before, just off the Pipeline trail NE from Ramin and Victoria's flagged Liriope monkey grass patch.. and laying in the wash just SW of the patch. And I found again Carpenter's stake (with orange flag) by the Bumelia NW of the Two Friends.. just off an extension of the Two Friends Trail.. looks to be due north of the W(?) corner of the new trash station. The trail beyond that point follows a well formed game trail to cross the Dune where I once painted small blue dots.. emerging on the north side by the grandfather cottonwood. It is probably worth opening this trail from the greenbriers as a second way across the dune without having to go to the South Boundary Trail with its new construction worker litter and mess.

No water in the wash.. except the small black pool above Island Crossing. The East Pond (and West Pond) still have good water levels. West of the Burr Oak Bridge the bright red berries of the tall honeysuckle shrub have shriveled to tiny red raisins with the winter drought.

Few birds. The Woods were fairly still. A few cardinals foraging on the south border by my southeastern bug traps. A few robins up high above the Elm Bridge. Two days ago there were a pair of golden crowned kinglets on the South Border Trail.

Looks like fresh active foraging by armadillos along the SE Creek Trail under the cottonwoods.

Along the Main SW trail 50-150 meters west of the beaver dam the soil surface is bare.. the leaves all stripped away by the wind. The soil is cracked into plates. There are small patches of windblown sand and sediment. No sign of the white calcareous deposits Linda Wallace and I puzzled over when she visited there with me.

What a Day to be in the Woods

What a Day to be in the Woods.. at 3 PM on the south side it was nearly 80 F.. mid December! I drove on the grassy service road down to the blower building and then carried a short machete and saw to clear the 100 foot section of trail along the south border fence from G0 post east to H0. Lots of Smilax greenbrier and Symphoricarpos coralberry entangled with dead fallen juniper. I cleared a meter wide path there.
Then I drove out to the Chautauqua entrance by Rudy's. Despite the dryness of the Woods, the toe slope West Pond there is full. There were small fish, likely Gambusia, busily feeding at the surface. Eastward to the Ravine trail I encountered three dogs, a black lab and two German shepherds who growled and barked at me and then ran off east along the trail. I have seen this same group of dogs in there before. Down in the mostly dry West Wash flocks of robins were gathering. A dozen stood by the edge of bathtub-sized pool above Island Crossing.

Cool Saturday Afternoon

I went to the Woods at 3 today, NE Gate. I walked most of the trails except for the NW. Larger group of seven deer down in the SW sedges. No flowing water in the Wash .. a pool was there above Island Crossing from the very light 2/100 of an inch of rain this week. The land hereabouts is unusually dry.

What's green in the Woods now? Sideroxylon Bumelia keeps its old leaves this late in the year; Juniperus cedars, of course; Ligustrum privet is green cover for birds with black fruit ripe now; Lonicera honeysuckle is starting to put out fresh new purple green leaves. Sedge beds in the west are a mix of green and older decadent. There is also herbaceous ground cover starting up..but not much with the drought.

At the G0 post I blazed and partly cleared a trail eastward towards the base of the NS fence. Found again and flagged the H0 post there. I need to return with loppers or saw to clear the trail through dense greenbrier and brush at one point.

Work crews have grubbed out the south side of the Dune trail clearing away leaf litter and soil. Not sure this is good.

Old barb wire fence line is cut at Fence Corner.. good to remove trip hazard.

End of my walk out at Pipeline trail at sunset beautiful brilliant gold sky illuminated the fallen compound walnut leaves laying on top of the leaf litter.

Old tin sleeves wrapped around trees maybe to keep squirrels out of pecan trees?

I found the den of a young mutt living in the Woods beneath a fallen huge cottonwood near and north of the F0 post.

Dry Winter Woods

One hour noon visit to the Woods today. The past 90 days are among the driest for this time of year in the record books. Along the south border and just south of the fence a bulldozer has scraped away many of the brushy young trees, cottonwoods, etc.. leaving a narrower buffer along the fence. The black erosion fence along the construction zone was also scraped away. New rains will push red clay into the Woods until the fence is reestablished. The tree cutting and clearing of the power line right of way will allow much more light (and summer heat). (The growing tall cement wall of the new trash station will shade some or much.) Honeysuckle and poison ivy should take off.
Crew clearing electric line right of way on the north has applied Cambistat to most of the trees along the northern fence line..with aluminum tags.

Veg Plots Revisited and Leaf Layer Cake

August 1966 student paper by Charles E. Olmsted in Botany 348 class with Elroy Rice describes vegetation and soil data from two approx. one acre plots set up along the western border of Oliver's Woods. I have found thin (1/8"-1/4") rebar stakes along two parallel lines that look to be the location of the North plot 145 yds by 33.5 yds. The two east west running lines are 100 ft apart. They should run 435.6 feet. It is not clear where they begin on the western end: at the fence line of Chautauqua (as Olmsted states) a few feet further west along the earlier fence line.. or some feet east into the sedges. The SW corner looks like it could have been a now-half empty green ash.. left open as a low hollow stump with live trunk above it.
Olmsted reports all the trees greater than 4 inch DBH.
I would like to mark the boundary of the two plots and do a before and after 44-45 year snap shot of the changes. Have as exercise for Ecology lab? publish in POAS?
Olmsted's discussion lists 234 juniper seedlings (>6 inches tall) along the western edge of the southern plot. Today there are many good sized junipers there; but almost all are dead, over topped by oak, elm, hackberry or pecan. Olmsted also mentions the common grass in the south plot Leersia virginica. It barely occurs in the forest there now.
In the north plot in 1966 there were 101 green ash greater than 4 inches DBH, six persimmon, one cottonwood and one elm. Today the near west end of the plot is choked with ~30-40 yr old green ash 2-3 in DBH. They are likely most all regeneration from the years after 1961 when cattle were removed. Half are dead standing from periods of high water table.

Coming in the SW entrance the trail is filled with dry new fallen oak leaves. Beneath these are the earlier fallen leaves of hackberry and elm. The different species, ash, elm, oak, persimmon, hackberry each year drop their leaves in the same sequence and deposit a leaf layer cake with oak on the top. Interesting to contemplate the consequence of the phenology being reliably translated into a spatially repeating sequence of species layers in the leaf litter.. with the arrangement varying place to place depending on species near by.

Thanksgiving and New South Trails

Day before Thanksgiving I joined Tom, Chenmei, George, Wendy, James and Sarah for a walk. We entered the NE Gate and walked along most of the trails of the Woods. Encountered one group of five deer in the dense, small diameter green ash.. and another 2 or 3 deer later.

Tom had a good idea about signage in the Woods.. opening beer cans and writing on soft metal interior with ball point pin. Ink doesn't last but the indentation of the metal does.
Label each junction with a number and the names of the trails crossing.

Along the South Boundary trail someone had wrenched Carpenter's G0 post out of the ground (with great effort). I returned it to the same hole and pounded it back in place with a sledge hammer today.

Today, the day after Thanksgiving, along the South Boundary Trail I encountered two of the same dogs by the big hill of bulldozed soil/ debris. The small black dog ran off NW into the Woods running up the drainage toward the Beaver Dam.

In the Woods, all the leaves are down.. a nice crunchy layer underfoot. Should do some litter bags. Wonder which species of tree's leaves decay fastest or slowest, contain the most nitrogen per weight, the most toxins or tannins per weight. Could test green ash, walnut, pecan.

Cut a new south trail from Barney Jct. running east and then southeast to the service road; arriving there a hundred yards west of the South Creek Trail. Applied small dots of blue paint to trees with yellow and black stripe flagging.. and a few pink dots under the blue at the south end of the trail.

The new trail passes by two parallel lines of green ash trees that suggest the edges of an old farm road, cutting through the top of the tall ragweed wet area. (Wonder if this is visible in old satellite photos?) Lots of scars on boles from beaver damage. Wonder if these eventually heal with little pathology to tree.. or if they are an infection court for fungi. Could do a study on healing of trees with beaver scars that either do or do not reach the ground.

Further north in the Woods two parallel rows of limby cedars suggest another old road, now gone. Any association of greenbrier or other species with the old cedar rows? Any change in soil pH still present beneath the old dead cedars?

Dogs in the Woods

Sunday eve at 5..lovely day.. warm and mild.. another last chance to enjoy 2010 in the Woods. I walked along the S Boundary Trail. Near the east end of the old transfer station a group of four growling barking dogs charged over at me coming from the southeast. I yelled at them and they ran back towards the waste water treatment plant. Looked like 3 young dogs maybe 6 months old.. a black lab with white chest, a young german shepherd, and a mixed breed black and brown mut.. along with a larger all light brown retriever sized dog.. maybe a year older? The older dog might have had a collar the three younger dogs did not. Bit worried that they might be forming a group running into the Woods and chasing wildlife.

Walked east then north to Barney's Jct and west back to the main SW trail and out through the gate with the last sunset light a deep orange, red, yellow on the western edge of a dark sky.

Flash mob of biologists at the Woods

Friday afternoon Profs David Durica, Randy Hewes, David McCauley, Bing Zhang, Liz Bergey, Ken Hobson (Zoology) Laura Bartley (Botany) and Celeste Wirsig (OU-Health Sciences Center). Assembled at the NE Gate with eight students for a good afternoon exploration of the Woods. Mild (mid 60's), clear, breezy. We dove in and navigated a figure eight to the Elm Bridge, Fence Corner, Tall Stump, Beaver Dam, Dune, SW Gate, Hollow Cottonwood, Hackberry Alley, East Pond, West Pond, Northern Loop, Pipeline and out via the NE Gate again. Beautiful afternoon to be out in the Woods.

Fresh Fall Woods and New Trail Paint Blazes

Back briefly to the Woods, the NE Gate, just before sunset. Priscilla had provided a supply of blue marking paint and I took a can with me to the Elm Bridge. There I marked the new trail I had made south along the western side of the wash down to the service road. I need the saw to clear off several large down trees across the new trail but it already is fairly easy to follow. I walked on up the Creekside Trail (northern section), walked Hackberry Alley, took the Northern Loop and returned up the Pipeline Trail in late twilight freshening paint where it was needed. At the jct Hackberry Alley and Trans OWP a dog barked maybe a 100 yds west. I did not see but yelled "Hey"..no reply. Not good if dogs start to regularly hang out in the Woods and hunt wildlife.

Previous day, Saturday 13 Nov I enjoyed going to the Woods and slowly wandering off trail as I used to do.. getting lost and discovering interesting features. I found again the row of old limby cedars running west to Hackberry Alley half way from Tall stump to the Trans OWP Jct. Noted again the sharp line between honeysuckle and no honeysuckle produced by the floods; found a second beautiful fresh white Hydnum toothed fungus on a stump where the great display of Coprinus had been out earlier. Sitting for a while inside the three way split mulberry by the cotton rat nest and partly hidden there I watched a family of three deer, doe, buck with modest antlers and yearling move past me. I was downwind and they peered in my direction but could not see me well. A pair of small kinglet-sized birds paused at the Elm Bridge while I rested there. I disturbed a large hawk that flew from the tree tops by the Elm Bridge.
After the one third inch rain on Friday the 12th, water was flowing at the Island Crossing but not beyond the Elm Bridge. With 70-80 percent of the leaves down the forest floor is beginning to green up again.. violets, buttercups(?), Geum, evergreen Euonymus, patches of Stellaria chickweed and similar sized small forbs. Bright red berries on Lonicera shrub west of the Burr Oak Bridge. Clambering up onto the huge Burr Oak washed out and fallen across the Wash upstream from the Burr Oak Bridge.. it had been used as a pooping station that morning by something eating a lot of hackberry seeds. There were two or three piles deposited well up on bole of the tilted tree.

Waiting for the Storm

Expecting tonight or likely tomorrow mid morning, a long-forecast rainstorm and cold front. This fortnight, stretching back to Oct 30, I've been able to get out to the Woods four times for good walks. No seed ticks! Zero. One adult tick. No turtles seen. The small group of four or five white-tailed deer has moved back into OWP for hunting season.
Watching the dry leaves come down.. now sixty percent (?) of leaves have dropped. They make a pleasant crisp rustle as I walk along.. and provide a smooth, old oak or old tobacco curing barn smell.. I associate with oak and hickory forests back east in autumn.

Out on Halloween's afternoon, a lovely day, there were robins flitting along the wash by the Elm Bridge. Distant calls of crows relaxed me into thoughts of distant times and places - like the calls of seagulls at the coast. Lots of deep brown Polistes wasps flying singly here and there.. likely new queens looking for a place to overwinter, under a chink of bark, in a rotten log. Down by the wash at 4:30, I could feel the cooler down drafts and drainage. Up at the top of the slope 100 feet north of the big walnut, two largish healthy persimmons look ready to drop their orange fruit..but nothing shook loose when I banged the tree with my shoulder. At the Elm Bridge, a nice place to sit and observe a couple of daddy long legs. Just west a woodpecker drilled on trees. There are so many broken trees, there should be good foraging.

October 30 I had walked in the SW Gate and headed east along the South Boundary trail and encountered a young dog, a black and tan mut trotting north into the Woods from one of the breaks through the fence along the south boundary by the trash station. The dog didn't seem worried..just trotted away from me into the thick juniper brush. I wondered if it might 'belong' to one of the trash station employees.

On Oct 31 I decided to mark with yellow and black stripe flagging a potential route for a trail extending from the west wide of the Elm Bridge south along the western side of the wash where it spreads into braided smaller channels; continuing southeast to the southern service road. At the southern end it comes into a zone of several medium large cottonwoods blown over, or broken northward with beautiful fresh green leaves of violets growing around the cottonwoods. The route I've marked emerges by the section of large culvert pipe sitting along the service road. I then walked west along the road to the southeastern end of the seasonally wet, tall ragweed half oval. Entering the Woods again at that point and continuing north northwest along the eastern edge to a line of new deep blue flagging Ian's Plant Ecology class marked, extending back to Barney Jct on the N-S fence line Trail. I am sort of happy with the route marked but want to walk it several times and see if it is the best way.

I returned a week later Nov. 6 with a saw to the South Boundary Trail and cleared away some of the old dead junipers and a medium size hackberry that had fallen lower across the trail close to, and east of the old rusted southern OWP metal sign.

On November 7 Russell and I entered the SW Gate and went to find Penfound's old tree plot extending east from near the Chautauqua fence. We found the old small steel stakes of the southern line. It extended 200 feet ? east then 100 feet ? north to the northern line. With Russell's help I tried to flag the straight shortest lines of what looks like the original plot.. need to check published dimensions from Penfound's paper, and mark the western edge. The long rectangular plot included several largish diameter green ash and a section of small diameter ash.. probably regenerated in the 1960's after cattle were removed.. now dying from crowding and flooding. Hundreds of stems rotten at the base, easily pushed over, the bases slightly swollen with aerenchyma in response to floods from the Lloyd Noble Parking area. An interesting 50 year snapshot of change in that forest plot.

Walk in the Rain

Overnight, the skies delivered a much needed full inch of rain.. and this morning the rains began again with another third of inch by midday. I decided to go walk in the Woods. I entered the SW Gate at 10 am.. walked up the Main SW trail to the Two Friends Trail; east on that a short ways to the Two Friends Cut-off. A large tangle of branches and larger trunks has blocked that and I'll need the saw there. At the Two Friends, the big broken top of the cottonwood (#99) has fallen further .. an impressive ruin. SE to the OWP rusty sign on the South Border trail then east to the G0 stake; north on the Dunes Trail across the dam. There was no water by the dam but it was clear that flood water had moved west upstream through the dam and traveled west towards the big hollow cottonwood.. stopping and settling into the soil in a sort of reverse delta about a hundred feet east of the big cottonwood.
I walked east off trail to the NS fence; east into the tall ragweed and more open young ash/ willow stand there, east across the braided streams and longer pools south of Elm Bridge. The next few weeks would be a good time to find and mark a trail or two in this SE quarter of the Woods. West from the Elm Bridge to Fence Corner, then SW to the Barney Jct trail, north past Tall Stump up Hackberry Alley. There I disturbed 3 whitetail deer. They ran away to the SW. The East Pond was refilling but still low. Round eastward along the Northern Loop to the levee. There was continuous water flowing slowly in the wash. South to the Trans OWP.. and by now I was getting pretty wet even through my raincoat; so I took the Two Elm Trail back to Fence Corner, out the cutoff trail back to the Main SW trail and out at the SW gate at 12:30.
The rain had brought down maybe 60% of the green ash leaves..now yellow..mixed on the forest floor with fallen yellow hackberry leaves. In several places there were nice fresh displays of Auricularia ear fungi.. often on dead elm. Interesting I don't see elm disease in the Woods. Along the SW Main trail from an old very decayed stump (willow?, elm?) there was a nice growth of fresh Polypore .. a broad band of cream colored new growth added to the older brown cinnamon lacquer conk of last year's growth. Here and there a few other other fresh large agaric clusters were pushing up through the leaves. The Coprinus shaggy mane of a few days ago are melted and gone. The light velvet red of Symphoriocarpos fruit were maturing. The green fruit of Ligustrum privet were full formed but not ripening to black yet.

Shaggy Mane and Dry Leaves Falling

Noon today, low 80's F, I went for a walk in through the SW Gate. The last of the white clematis flowers on the fence were still blooming - only a half dozen left now. The red full berries of Cocculus snail seed or coral berry were on the fence too. Inside the Woods the forest floor is covered with new dry fallen leaves <5% of the full canopy down.. but leaves are falling. It has been very dry this autumn. OKC departure from normal rainfall for Aug-October is about 5 inches below average. (Need data for SE Norman). Two tenths of an inch of rain Sunday 10/10/2010. Two hundred feet up the trail I disturbed 5 whitetailed deer - dashed away north.
Along the main SW Trail near the big green ash leaning to the north near CCarpenter marker, there is an approx 100 m. long gold line strung through red and white loop stakes. IanR. and botany class doing 2 m wide tree transect and soil. West of big hollow cottonwood a large dark dog in the Woods (size of a lab or golden retriever) barked a bit then retreated south towards the trash transfer station.
Wonderful populations of shaggy manes..mostly fresh.. some deliquescence 10 of them with another 8 tops eaten north of the grandfather cottonwood.. and scores of them (>100?) in a long arc 30-40 m east from cut in dam..under young elm canopy.
East pond had shrunk to deepest pool maybe 12 m by 4 m. Upper Island Crossing was dry but pool just above there. Elm Bridge crossing was dry but upstream a 30-50 m long pool had lots of dark stained water. Need George's help with bridge.
Few if any spider webs. Abundance of webs seems to be correlated with rainfall. Russet brown wool fungi (slime mold?) on broken walnut trunk hanging across levee trail. One lonely katydid singing in the tree tops, unanswered. Red berries ripe and full, of double trunked large shrub -Lonicera(?) near jct Trans OWP trail and Creekside Trail.
The Woods are ready for the storm rains of autumn.

Autumn morning botany walk

Nice cool morning low 70's at 9:30. I walked with Bruce, Jenna and Kayti from NE Gate to Elm Bridge, west to Fence Corner, north to Trans OWP, north and around the Northern Loop, south along Hackberry Alley to Tall Stump, south across Beaver Dam and across Dune to South Boundary, west to SW Gate, northeast and east to Cutoff Trail to EW fenceline to Creekside Trail to Northern Loop, across to Pipeline Trail and out again.

Several branches down across trail with lack of regular visits.

Blue common weedy flower = Elephantopsis together with large leaved single tall stem Polygonum on Escarpment trail, red and white Morus mulberry, Verbesina, Eupatorium boneset in white flower, 4 species of grapes etc.. Kayti took a list and Bruce will review.

Discussed establishing a one hectare plot; collecting samples for Bebb Herbarium and for a teaching herbarium (maybe laminated) for ecology students.

I found no ticks (so far) and there were far fewer spiders with cool weather. Tussock moths were skeletonizing leaves of some younger mulberries. No mosquitoes..too cool?

Last of summer: Cloud of butterflies

Been warm.. fairly unrelenting. Nice 2.2 inch rain 10 days ago on the 8th but dry and warm since then.. most days in the low 90's. Now 3-4 days before autumnal equinox I went for a stroll in the Woods one of the last days of summer.. 10:30 am 81 deg F no wind.

At the NE Gate, ranks of Lespedeza were in white bloom. The trail was clear and I stepped along quickly to enter the quiet shield of the Woods and leave behind the traffic noise of a game day along Highway 9.

Late summer blooms of purple common weed, Elephantopsis; and Polygonum very common with tight small white flowers along leafless tall stem above large elliptical leaves. My favorite, Commelina day flower in bloom here and there.

A hundred meters into the Woods at the Pipeline Trail junction the soft heavy humidity damped the sound of cars and I could hear the silvery sounds of tree crickets' constant background trilling... with the loud squawk of a pair of jays flying overhead. Bird life along this trail section is more diverse than elsewhere in the Woods. The woodland border with the open field to the east is good habitat.

Mosquitoes were out in good numbers but with DEET, they were not a serious problem.

At the Elm Bridge the crossing was dry but a long pool stretched from just upstream for a hundred feet or more up the wash. It was perking with life.

I walked west on the Fence Line Trail and then took the Streamside Trail north to the Trans OWP Trail and that to the junction with the Northern Loop. Fair number of small branches down. I cleared from the trail but the trail was in good shape, if a little overgrown out to the East Pond. Lots of webs and I kept my spider stick out in front of me.

Pecans have started to fall abundantly in the NE Woods and leaf fall of elms and some green ash is getting underway. I stood and watched for some minutes as leaves drifted down from the canopy with no wind.

Across the Dune Trail armadillos have been busy burrowing on the north side. Westward along the South Border Trail a pile of gray feathers from a slaughtered dove(?) with a pair of hawks crying overhead (the likely culprits)?

By the SW Gate the sweet smell of Clematis bloom mixed with the odor of old garbage.

North along the Main SW Trail a good sized female Catocala gray underwing moth flitted from one side of a hackberry bole to another to escape me.

There was bright whitewash (owl? heron? other?) north of tree (snag) # 47.

At the Sympetrum perch there was nobody home and the configuration of dragonfly perches looked different as if some had fallen.

East up the Cut Off Trail to Tall Stump. West of Fence Corner a clump of a half dozen 2 meter tall green ash are being skeletonized by a colony of lepidoptera larvae. Eastward on to the Elm Bridge.

North back up the NE Trail just north of the ditch by the old redbud I startled a small cloud of a dozen or more nymphallid(?) butterflies beneath the Eleagnus and looking around spotted the only turtle I saw today. Out through the fence by 12:30. Small tick count eight (so far) on me and clothing.

Rain, Relief and Autumn Arrives

Thursday night (2 Sept) we had a gusty powerful thunderstorm blow through Norman and bring > 1 inch of rain and strong 50 mph winds... temp dropped from 97 F at 6:45 to 66 an hour later. This followed on > 0.3 inch the previous day. Today Saturday early morning I went to the SW Gate. All along the fence north of the gate the Clematis was in peak white bloom producing a light sweet fragrance.
Up the Main SW Trail the Woods were fairly dry up to the Sympetrum dragonfly perch. No dragonflies there before the direct morning light. Just beyond to the east the earth along the trail was damp, heavy muddy..but no standing water along the trail. It was obvious where the flow of water had moved up from the dam along the Main SW Trail to the dragonfly perch. Rafts of sticks and leaves were pressed together indicating the direction of the flow.

I walked to the dam and then north along the blue white trail to Tall Stump and north along Hackberry Alley. East on the Trans OWP Trail the Woods did not show signs of flood wash over. At the Elm Bridge, water filled the wash but did not extend downstream from the bridge.

A few large branches had fallen across the trails.

The number of spider webs I encountered was greatly reduced. I wonder if this is just the temporary result of the rain.

One white-tailed deer. Mature full sized green walnuts are beginning to fall. A few large green persimmons had fallen.

Puddling Butterflies

Saturday morning 9 AM SW gate, a short 20 m into the Woods, there was a delightful cool from the night and dawn held in the understory. After the quick 0.5 inch rain four days ago I wanted to see if the Woods were wet. They were not. It has been a dry hot August. Peak hurricane season, mid August brought no hurricane westward to the Gulf Coast. The western wash has no standing water in the Woods.

One or two former pools above the Island Crossing are still lined with damp, almost muddy clay. Below the pipeline, where the cement underpass splashes floods into the wash, there were Limenitis 'puddling' red spotted purples and viceroys and other nymphalids, hackberry emperor et al., Ammophila sphecids. No water there; but through the underpass beneath the pipe there was still a large (1 foot?) deep square cement pool of chalky green open water leading to the underpass beneath Highway 9. One large frog splash as I approached.

The underpass beneath the pipe was home to 2 or 3 swallow nests and many fine mud-dauber pipe nests.

Along the Main SW Trail (much of the length) there are prominent broken polygons of clay or soil with perimeter fissures providing potential refugia (cooler, moister, hidden). Are these important as seed germination sites?

Through the green ash zone, the seed fall is well begun. The eastern pond is dried to an area of open water perhaps 10-15 feet long. At the eastern pond a dead, medium sized green ash has fallen across the trail and needs clearing with a saw. Some significant fall of small cottonwood leaves has begun with the heat and drought.

Saw no turtles and no deer, although I did hear a larger animal moving..likely a deer in the woods east of the SW gate.

Need to get Bruce here to look at veg before the annuals are gone for the year.

Back home removed 38 seed ticks from clothes, ankles, legs and arms.. then went for a swim!

Still Dry Tree Fall - Why?

102 F at noon.. one of the hottest days days of the year in a string of hottest days.
This morning at 10 I went to the NE Gate of the Woods. I mowed Escarpment and Pipeline Trail. Smell of carrion fairly strong.. not intense maybe 30 m in from gate. Has HK placed new carrion off the trail? or is this some other natural occurrence?

Below escarpment, beside trail descending to the wash and the Elm Bridge, a large 2.5-3 foot DBH hackberry fell. It took down a large 2 ft DBH oak, a couple mid sized and smaller elms and the whole tangle blocked the trail by the wash.

Why did this happen? There has been no wind and no rain for a month or more. Earlier (early July) we had lots of rainstorms. Why did the tree come down now when it was still? Odd.. the hackberry was rooted mid slope on the escarpment and I imagine was suffering from various root decaying fungi. The May 10 tornado would have shaken it pretty strongly most likely.. a few other large trees in the same southeast quarter of the Woods did come down in the May 10 storm.

I cleared the trail through the tangle of boles and branches.. and cleared some logs blocking the EW Fence line Trail and Northern Loop.

Pool near Elm Bridge was dry but pool above Island Crossing was still there.

Quit at 1:00 drenched in sweat and suffering from modest heat exhaustion.

Exiting NE Gate I noticed new aluminum tags on several (7-8?) small diameter trees (hackberry and green ash) labeled TGR CAMBISTAT 2010. Mystified, I looked on web and found discussion of tree growth regulator that interferes with gibberellic acid mediated tree growth. I wonder who is doing that? Probably folks that clear the right of way for power lines.

Need to talk to OU surveying class and see if they want to survey in Woods.

Summer Heat and the Woods

Parked by the SW gate this morning at 9:30. It has been hot and dry (even for this part of the year and this part of the world) and I wanted to see if there was any water remaining in the wash. Just about a month now 28-29 days maybe since we have had any rain. The average high temperature over the month has probably been 96-97. The first four days of this first week of August were 102,103,101 and 100.. and yes! the western wash still has water (near the road).
Entering the SW Gate the cicadas were thrumming loudly. One stridulated and flew as I walked by .. but crashed a few feet away. I picked it up.. likely an adult nearing the end of its life. I wonder if the flooding killed many/ most/ few/ or any cicada nymphs.. buried however deeply they burrow in the soil.
Passing by the dragonfly perch there were four of the Sympetrum sp. there at the regular location southeastern tip of the sedges.
Nearby big green ash to the west 100 feet had shed large numbers of its seeds recently.
Lots of Micrathena webs around in the Woods.. mostly around areas with sun and low green vegetation along stream bank etc.. not that many in the deep woods along the Main SW trail.
East on the trail to the Dam I encountered soil with more clay dried and broken into polygons with cracks providing refugia to soil arthropods and other small organisms.
About 50 m west of dam there was also fresh yellow white sand along the trail looked like it had been washed in during flood, dried and then blown by wind.
Principal green in lower 30 cm of understory were young persimmon plants.
Elm at the dam has 30 cm long slime flux streak on bole and as I observed a nymphalid landed opposite on trunk. Drawn by fermentation?
Up to Tall Stump and east to the Elm Bridge. Wash there was dry except for one small puddle 1/2 square meter.. shallow muddy water. A large, 80-90 cm long olive brown snake crawled quickly out of the puddle as I approached. There were dozens of Gambusia trapped there on which the snake had surely been dining.
I walked along the wash and in places there were large holes dug in the bank like crayfish castles.. one or two. There were lots of tracks in the bottom of the wash, deer, coon etc..
Near the top of the wash immediately upstream of the crossing from the end of the Pipeline Trail over to the Northern Loop there was a large pool with a steady flow of water coming in.. and above that, flowing water all the way to the culvert. pretty amazing. A second olive brown snake maybe 50-70 cm escaped upstream there.
No sight or sound of deer or turtles.
I painted fresh blue paint on older trail blazes and blazed new marks for the Pipeline Trail.
A few large diameter branches broken and fallen across or hanging above trail were puzzling. No real wind for the past 4 weeks but these branches (hackberry, oak and elm) had green leaves and so must have broken recently. Reminded me of the phenomenon of "branch drop" when seemingly healthy green branches would crash down from trees on still nights. Bit mysterious.

Afternoon Light Gaps

Returned to the Woods through the SW Gate this afternoon. I am thinking we may get some rain from Bonnie and I wanted to see if the Woods have dried up. They have.

The first 200 feet of the main SW Trail is now covered with a layered processed leaf pack washed there by floods a fortnight ago. It has been baked dry by the heat.. The soil beneath it is still quite moist but it has the smell of good aerobic decomposition..not a flooded anoxic odor. Further along the trail, the soil is wetter.. or moister.. there is no standing water remaining along the entire trail.


I marked the deepest pool location (now dry) with a red wire flag. A meter west of it there is the most heavily used, game highway. Quite pronounced and well defined only a meter or less wide running south to cross the dune and north to enter the dense young green ash stand. I flagged it. It may be interesting to observe game trails and see how constant they are, season to season and year to year.

The Sympetrum dragonflies had returned to their regular perch.. five adults this time. I watched as one dropped down to forage on flies in a light patch a couple meters to the southeast.

Light gaps were attractive for other showy insects too.. red spotted purples and orange brushfooted nymphalids were flying in other light gaps. A nice day-flying patchy gray Catocola underwing moth landed on a dying big green ash while I sat and scribbled. Significant mosquitoes around me even with DEET.. not too bad.

The SW Cut-off Trail to Tall Stump needs replenishment of orange and light blue paint.

Around many of the snags there is now an abundance of frass or boring dust from beetles and carpenter ants. Some of the frass from down bur oak branches I imagine may be cerambycids or Dynastes Hercules beetles.

The flooding of the forest from the Lloyd Noble run-off has more or less simultaneously begun the death or degradation of many of the large mature trees in the southern half of the forest. Dendrochronology and stand analysis should document this.

In the canopy, cicadas and katydids. The cicadas start in the mid range and then increase their pitch and accelerate like a bicycle tire accelerating with a card stuck in the spokes. One cicada will produce this call and then be answered by another some distance away in a duet.

On the ground there is relatively fresh (< 2 week old) "cotton" from the big cottonwood. I think these trees must shed their seeds over several pulses throughout the summer. There is also a widespread white efflorescence common on the ground like patches of white mycelia.. or drying crusts of soluble minerals.

Small flocks (3-5) of robins in the understory.. there are more closer to the southern cattails.

I walked back towards the Chautauqua side and north around the sedge beds toward the 2 meter plus tall cattails. The forest and sedges were all dry until near the cattails where there was standing water.. (smelled like feces). I found the hibiscus (in flower) I had seen in the ice and snow of winter.

I must go and really explore the cattails now in the full summer. There are growing Argiope garden spiders there.

Hibiscus and box turtle

On the west side of the west pond there were three 1.3 meter tall hibiscus with large showy white flowers each with crimson throat and stigma. They were standing in waterlogged mud surrounded by tall sedges. I recognized the dried brown seed pods from the plant I puzzled over this past winter a few hundred meters south, at the southern end of the cattail marsh.

I took my saw early this morning to clear the hanging bumelia snag blocking the dune trail. Across the dune I cleared several logs blocking drainage below the dam.. then walked north and cleared other branches and boles accumulated across the trails since May. North toward Tall Stump; east toward the Wash, clearing old broken hackberry and branches on big live cedar leaning across the trail at Fence Corner. At Elm Bridge water was no longer flowing. A large pool of tea-stained water remained, perking with life north of the bridge but the trail crossing was dry. The southern end of the two trail connector had been nicely cleared by floodwater coursing along it parallel and west of the Wash. Westward I cleared a pecan bole (heavy wood) blocking the Trans OWP west of Hackberry Alley. The Northern Loop was in good shape. The lower southeast end had become a course for floodwater flowing from a low point in the western levee.

There are now thousands of undersized pecans on the forest floor and full sized green persimmons. Defoliating bagworms feed on young persimmon saplings in the understory.

West of tree #151 encountered a young box turtle on the trail. No other turtles, deer, rabbits, squirrels skinks etc. The herp bucket trap arrays seem to be all gone except three on the west side closest to Rudy's. The ecology multi-hoop turtle trap is still by the west pond.

After 12 dry days, with highs in the mid to upper 90's each day, the eastern and northern Woods are dry. The shaded Woods along lower Chautauqua are still wet looking. I need to check the main southwest trail.

The Woods have the feel of the start of late summer. The leaves are older and rougher.. damaged by nibbling and galls. Bag worms and their silken defoliated branches are developing in the mulberries.

Along the southern service road the big yellow grasshoppers are abundant.

Dank and Sodden

It has been a week since the recent flooding rains ended on the 12th; and it has been hot 95-100 F most days. At 10:30 I checked in the SW entrance to see if everything was wet or drying up.

The main trail was sodden but clear of water up to the big green ash (#46). The Woods on either side were dank with humidity and rot.

Beyond the big green ash there were shallow pools and some continuous ankle deep lakes. I walked / waded the trail to the dam. The water stopped about 50 feet west of the dam.

With some DEET there were few or no mosquitoes bothering me. I saw one middle aged dobson fly larvae swimming along undulating through sunlit water. I hope there are many more reducing the population of mosquito wrigglers.

The traditional Sympetrum dragonfly perch at the SE end of the sedges was occupied by a solitary Erythemis instead.

The deepest water, mid calf, was by the small elm northwest of the old hollow grandfather cottonwood.

I saw no deer or other tetrapods although there were tracks a-plenty, likely coons, possums, skunks, armadillos and similar.

Birds in the understory were robins and a pair of nuthatches (?).

I drove around to check other access points. The south service road was passable although a little more eroded and there is a new deposit of soft sand at the base of the hill where one could spin tires. The road should should firm up OK in the next few days. A lake of water was still ponded up at the trap by the culvert.

The northeast entrance drive was OK too although it felt a little soft. I walked in to the big walnut and the trail seemed fine although not as clear as this spring. I need to walk out there with Bruce and learn more of the plants that are growing in.

Where is the flood?

This morning from 10 am to 1 pm we had an additional 0.8 inch of rain for a total of 4 and a half inches this two weeks. At 2 pm I checked the north side of the main wash coming into Oliver's Woods along the north shoulder of highway 9. There was a large lake ponded up below the ropes course and the Aquatic Research Facility.. no current or whirl detectable of flow into the culvert. On the south side of the highway the flow in the eastern wash was moderate. I stepped across it a couple meters above its junction with the western wash. The western wash was deep and flowing fast. It passed by the northern most bur oak fallen across and into the wash without a problem. I crossed there on the tree. At the second bur oak suspended high across the wash (not the Bur Oak Bridge) the western levee wall was 2-3 feet lower across a 5-6 meter gap and this was where a river of water had spilled out to flow across the Woods cutting a channel by the junction of the North Loop and the Trans OWP Trail.

Down by the Elm Bridge the main channel flattened out to become a braided, wide flowing delta with no levee walls. Water was flowing everywhere westward across the SE quarter of the Woods. I imagine water was flowing upstream over the dam. Need another culvert under the southern service road or better, faster drainage from the southern central drainage point of the Woods.

Fallen Giant

After a week of warm rainy days the skies cleared to partly cloudy today and at noon I ventured in to the NW entrance to the Woods along the Ponds Trail. The forest was full of warmth and thick humidity.. fungus heaven. There were also new spider webs (Micrantha and others) across the trail everywhere. (Interesting to see several webs were rebuilt from my first passing, just past noon, to my exit up the same trail at 4:30 pm.)

Measured big cottonwood in the Big Trees down in ice storm (?) three (?) years ago. At 4.5 feet above the base the circumference was 12 feet 6 inches..150 inches; 47.75 inches diameter. The height of the first three way fork was 34 feet 6 inches. Main straightest top was 80 feet to a broken top 13 inches in circumference. Tallest (left) main canopy branch was 94 feet from base to unbroken top. This is (was) the largest tree in the Woods.

Walked a good circuit: Ponds trail & Trans OWP trail to Bur Oak Bridge then south on the Two Bridge Connector; across Elm Bridge and up the east side of the stream then back across the Elm Bridge and west on E-W Fence Line Trail to Fence Corner, north on Two Pecan Trail and north again on the North Loop back to the East Pond and out via the Ponds Trail.

I cleared a fallen snag and tangle of branches across the path by the ponds, rebuilt the Elm Bridge and cleared vines and branches down across the trail.

No deer, two bright Cicindela sexguttata, two skinks? (not good observations). Surprised to see no turtles. It was perfect for box turtles today.. wet and warm everywhere. Gambusia in East Pond and by Elm Bridge (40+ there). Lots and lots of isopods everywhere.

All through the Woods there was evidence of washing or flooding mostly just flows of water from rain in the Woods.. deposits of sand, trail swept clear of natural litter. Will have had significant impact on forest microarthropod community. Interesting to watch it swing back into equilibrium.

Trailside needs clearing of small regrowth all along length with mower & loppers in fall.

Nine (small seed) ticks on me. Few adult mosquitoes after DEET.

Evening wade

After a day or two of on-again, off-again rain, I went to the SW Gate of the Woods at 8 pm to see what the Woods looked like. The SW quarter is one large shallow lake with the higher dune, an island surrounded. Water was flowing rapidly out through the dam; but water from the northwest ponds and cattails should continue to flow into the southern Woods and keep a large area of 20 acres or more inundated for a substantial time.

Along the southern boundary north of the northeast corner of the old trash station, one or more of the breaks in the construction erosion fence has allowed a coating of red clay muck to be deposited in the Woods making the footing in the Woods slippery in places.

Leaving the Woods along the Main SW trail a large owl flew silently ahead of me. As I emerged through the gate, there was a lovely end of day sunset sky of blue with white clouds lined with gold - the clearest skies today.

I wonder if floating rafts of pecan nuts later produce crescent shaped clusters of young pecan seedlings where the nuts are deposited by retreating water.

A few dozen early but full-sized green persimmon fruit, pecans and walnuts are beginning to show up on the ground.. likely dropped by squirrels(?)

Zillions of mosquito wrigglers

Brief return to the SW Woods today to collect some drowned earthworms..mostly gone now. I will have to remember to collect them soon as I see them after the next flood. In the shallow pools I checked, there were dense clusters of hundreds of mosquito wrigglers. They look near ready for pupation and emergence. Interesting that they cluster together in a group the size of an orange. What is the benefit of grouping together - escape from predators? I saw no dragonflies or other predators and I am afraid these mosquitoes are just about on the home stretch of their development to become adults. Just a few adults around now.. too few to be a bother.

Snapping turtle, hawk and Megastigmus after the flood

I returned to the Woods this afternoon to see what the flood had done. I disturbed a red shouldered hawk perched low in the forest understory and it flew west.
Entering via the SW Gate I saw water had come up the trail within 25 feet of the entrance and deposited a drift of sticks and floating pecan nuts. The clay and silt had settled out; and the water was a clear honey color. The depth now was mostly just over ankle deep. I walked the Main SW trail to the dam.

East of the grandfather cottonwood I found a young snapping turtle with shell about 30 cm long excluding head and neck. I moved it around with a stick gently for a minute or two until it powered away swimming into the murky water there.
At the dam, water was flowing rapidly eastward, draining from the Woods. There was enough water from the flood so the flow rate should continue for a few days.

No deer today on the south side. I watched a large green dragonfly (Basiaeschna? Anax junius?) ovipositing eggs on a small rotten log at the edge of the water. At the regular dragonfly trio hangout (southeastern most corner of the contiguous sedge stand) there was today just one dragonfly (same 'patriotic' species, Sympetrum ambiguum?). It came and perched on the tip of the stick I was carrying in front of me to clear webs. Along the southern boundary there was a male Libellula lydia whitetail with chalky white abdomen; and a green Erythemis simplicicollis pond hawk.

Emerging from the Woods by the 'blower building' there were hundreds of young brightly colored yellow and black large Schistocerca(?)grasshoppers along the grassy service road. The weather and vegetation there are supporting a bumper crop this year.

I cut and cleared a section of the dead hackberry blocking the main trail.. and noticed there new drowned earthworms in the clear pools of water. I should collect a good many and check if they are native or European.

In the past several weeks there has been some power line right-of-way clearing along the southern boundary trail with many 10-20 cm diameter elms, green ash, burr oak and others cut or trimmed extending 15-20 feet across the fence line into the Woods. There has been much more complete removal of the trees growing in the 20 foot gap between the southern fence line of the Woods and the northern fence line of the existing trash station. One result is a significant increase in sunlight along the southern boundary trail changing its character somewhat. It will now support growth of more vines honey suckle, poison ivy etc.. inside the Woods.

As I was looking at some of the cut trees a large jet black Megastigmus wasp with yellow head and forelegs and 12 cm ovipositor flew in and perched on the underside of a dogwood leaf near some fresh frass caught in spider webs below a boring beetle. I caught the wasp in my hand and admired its beauty and long ovipositor before letting it fly away.

Fast Flood

June has been hot and dry except for some brief heavy rains. Today gentle soaking rain was followed by fairly heavy rain with total 1.5 inches rainfall by noon. I have been three weeks away out of the Woods (and there would be few or no ticks), so I decided to go for a walk. Entering via the SW Gate and walking up the Main SW trail I encountered a fast moving snout of flooding water heading along the trail, filling the southern Woods. I walked into the flood and found the water deeper than I had seen before. I quickly over topped my boot. Everywhere the water was flowing, rippling SW. The southern Woods will be drowned for a couple weeks. One moderate sized hackberry tree that had been dead and leaning heavily has fallen across the SW trail and will need to be cleared.

The water was the color of mocha coffee, carrying silt, run-off from across the Woods; from the Lloyd Noble Center and campus parking. This may be the cause of the death of the old oaks and other mature hardwoods in the southern and western sections of Oliver's Woods. [Lloyd Noble Ctr opened in 1975 with significant expansion on the south side in 2001. Estimated built & paved size: 60-70 acres. This pavement will produce the run-off that floods under Highway 9 and into the Woods.]

Wading east there was an abrupt change of water to the color of bright clay red. The color of tomato soup with milk stirred in.. a large spill over from the erosion fences on the north side of the construction/ bulldozers for the new trash station. I walked to the South Boundary Trail thinking it would be better; but it was deeper there. The water by the metal sign bill board was over my boot (max depth about 27 inches or 68 cm.. mid thigh depth). By the G0 post the water was 1.5 units below the bottom of the painted zero. North across the dune to the dam, the water was rippling upstream over the low dam.

At the Tall Stump junction I saw ants, millipedes and one firefly larva climbing the stump, heading for high ground. The ants carried their brood.

East on the E-W Fence Line trail to the Elm Bridge. I could barely get across the full flowing wash balanced on the bare top log.

Crossing west on the Burr Oak Bridge and north on the Northern Loop I found a tide of water had flattened the grasses along the southeastern end of the Northern Loop.

Backed up by the massive burr oak washed into the stream at the junction of the East and West Wash, water had overflowed the top of the western levee.
Above the wash junction, by the cluster of cottonwoods, water had flowed over the lower eastern shoulder of the levee but had had not crossed the top of the levee wall.

Walking along Hackberry Alley, and heading out via the Ponds Trail the rain started to fall moderately heavily again and I listened to the sound as it filled the green Woods.

The dragonflies return!

Amazed to see the same number (and same species? Sympetrum ambiguum?) of libellulid dragonflies, four of them, same as last year, perching in the same square meter and catching flies over the southern point of the sedges. That needs to be investigated!

Last few weeks since mid May have been dry and warmer than usual.. 5-6 degrees warmer on average than the normal temperatures for these calendar days. The flooded south west quarter has lost all standing water, although the soil in places has a soft feeling from the now dry previous flood. The water in the wash is not flowing. The stream bed by the Elm Bridge is completely dry.. although "upstream" there remain some pools still a foot or more deep.

With Lindsay Lacroix I walked the main SW Trail and all through the Woods.. Encountered two pairs of white-tailed deer. Lots of disturbed soil where armadillos were foraging.

Trail were in OK shape. After Lindsay left to check traps, I cut the big leaning bur oak blocking the main trail, blown over at Christmas. It had lived long enough to sprout spring leaves but they had died and shriveled.

I reinforced the yellow paint blazes on the Main SW trail.

Lindsay and I checked the light trap set up at the south center. The city had recently mowed the service road leading there. Power cords and light trap looks fine.

Returned home, showered, changed clothes and removed 20-25 ticks.

New bug traps

Today with Lindsay set ten new Lindgren funnel traps; five along northern perimeter fence of OWP from NW corner entering from Chautauqua; three along southern perimeter service road entering through old compost facility to Blower building; one on Pipeline Trail; one on South Boundary Trail. Bait for traps = six pack of cheap beer & one pound of brown sugar mixed with a cup of decomposing mulberries allowed to steep twelve hours.
Power now available from Blower Building at south end of N-S Trail. Should set up light and sheet tonight if overcast.
Ralph Arnett super at Water Pollution Control Facility provided power and James Jones at new compost facility provided key for old facility gate. South service road not bush-hogged yet.
Last night Lindsay Lacroix and parents ran two banana trails for carabids along Escarpment Trail and South Boundary Trail. Bananas set out between 7-8 and checked between 9-10. Results averaged about 2-3 beetles per slice.. mostly mid sized Carabus, Agonum etc.. one or two large Carabus.
Some goals & questions:
1) what is the diversity of carabids and moths in the Woods
2) how does diversity change through the season
3) what is the seasonality of abundance patterns for different species
4) how do species abundances change year to year
5) how do wood boring insect populations change with forest ice storm damage / breakage
6) what exotic invasive insect species (scolytids, others) are in Woods
7) how does species activity/ abundance change with weather
8) construct species accumulation curve

Evening 8:30-9 PM set up mercury vapor light and black light. Checked at 11. Couple of Megaloptera females, one luna moth, one woolly bear moth, not too many moths.. maybe 30? Several hundreds (>1,000) of beetles big and little..mostly little. I scooped up a few hundred like scooping up sand and froze. They mostly are small grain of rice sized harpaline(?) carabids (associated with grass?).. also many small paederine(?) staphylinids, some Trox trogids, a few Carabus and Clivinia(?). Few to no cerambycids, curculionoids.. a few chrysomelids, notonectids, tenebrionids(?) I need to mow 30-40 square feet of operation space, work on my sheet hanging.. and think how different this might be if I go 100-200 feet into the Woods away from the grassy service road. Best to set bucket trap? Heavy abundance small beetles tonight. Moon soft yellow orange.. light overcast, warm 78F still.

Sweet Woods

The Woods today were suffused with pockets of sweet odors from honeysuckle, Ligustrum and Eleagnus. Ticks seemed as plentiful as ever; although now there are fewer of the tiny seed ticks, and more of the larger adult size. Recent powerful near tornadic thunderstorm Wednesday the 19th had brought down a few more trees - dead elms and dead branches suspended since the winter ice storms. The trails are in pretty good shape after the inch of sudden rain. The Elm Bridge was thrown down stream two feet and jumbled. Needs to be reset. The SW quarter, predictably has flooded again within about 50 feet of the big burr oak tilted across the trail. Poison ivy despite my best efforts still crops up here and there close to the trail..although there is now not much.
We now have power available along the south boundary, courtesy of helpful Mr Ralph Arnett, Superintendent of the City of Norman Wastewater Treatment Plant, from the blower building via extension cord. This will allow black lighting for moths, beetles and the rest. It will be interesting to see what is there.. a la Jerry Powell.. a mini ATBI all taxa biotic inventory. The south boundary of the Woods opens up to lands extending down to the much larger Canadian River corridor.
Lindsay may begin an intensive collection of carabids via banana slices on trails in different sections of the Woods.. ultimately it would be good to run an insect survey there for a few years and try to get a fairly comprehensive survey of the moths, beetles and miscellaneous other groups by black light. Spotted 2-3 of the bright green Cicindela tiger beetles in sun flecks along the North South Fence Line trail. The ragweed wetland ellipse is now a meter high in new growth. Everything is growing at a terrific rate with the water and warmth. Red clay wash flowed over from the earthmoving / construction along most of the eastern half of the South boundary Trail.

Islands

Morning of Wednesday 12 May, I returned to the Woods to check on the status of the main SW trail. It was delightful, dry and green. The water was gone. Where the forest had been flooded or soggy there was now a light sparse mantle of inch high verdure from the rounded cotyledons.. now in the hundred's of thousands, if not more. The slightly raised areas of forest floor were noticeably more green with a greater density of the new sprouts. Along the trail where water had been an inch or two deeper, there was a contrasting darker brown with less growth.

Scattered through the Woods here and there were small islands of white on the ground; shed catalpa flowers lighting the understory, like graceful skirts around their trees. A great time to walk through the woods and locate every mature catalpa, maybe a dozen trees in 70 acres.. if that many.

At the crest of the Dune Trail there was a broken bumelia blocking the trail. I cleared enough with just the loppers but the hanging broken snag will fall and need a saw to clear.

The next day rain began..a half inch followed by another full inch over night.
I returned to the Woods Saturday afternoon and the water had fully retaken the southwest quarter. There were standing pools 20 feet beyond the tilted burr oak along the SW trail. There was water flowing through the dam in the lower Woods at a pretty good pace. I entered the NE gate and walked down to the Pipeline Trail stopping to clear a patch of poison ivy there. Then across the wash over to the Northern Loop.
All the leaves of trees and shrubs along the path were wet with the previous rain and bending low over the path. I cleared more snags and branches and new green shoots where they narrowed or blocked the trail.
In the south Woods below the dam I followed the main flow of the current and pulled aside the logs that blocked the flow. The water sped up briefly but likely returned to the same initial flow rate thirty minutes after .. a new equilibrium. If the level of the remaining water west of the dam drops a quarter inch, I will have had a useful effect.

Tornado trees

Yesterday, Monday 10 May a tornado hit east Norman. Quick look at Olivers Woods driving down south Chautauqua and east on Bratcher Mine Rd revealed nothing dramatic. A couple of medium size cottonwoods were pushed over in a northeastward direction but had not come down. I parked at the NE gate and walked the Escarpment trail to the Elm bridge. One small dead elm had blown eastward across the trail. Along the EW Fence Line trail all was clear. Through the Woods there were dead snags that had blown down. The Trans OWP trail was blocked by the leafy canopy of a largish broken green ash. Next to it, a tall straight pecan had blown over eastward, snapping at the base. A box turtle was enjoying the wet leaves at the base.

Honeysuckle and roses, emerald tigers

Out to the Woods at 1:00 today; in via the SW Gate.. a soft suffused sweet early summer smell of the Japanese honeysuckle and white multiflora rose there. Up the main SW trail, the previous standing water was completely gone and the trail underfoot dry or drying. I stepped over the big bur oak tilted across the trail. The tops of the branches of the big tree are producing small green leaves. I hope the tree survives..although it looks unlikely.
North and east is now one large sunny light gap where the oak's canopy once blocked the sun. Beyond the oak, the forest floor was littered with ten thousand young pairs of green rounded cotyledons, just beginning growth. Profligate reproduction.. all the same species..but what? Not the green ash cotyledons abundant last year with elongate green leaves. The green ash this week dropped here and there clusters of green seeds..or they were torn from the trees by winds.
A hundred meters in, I disturbed a herd of five or more deer as they made their way briskly eastward along the south border of the sedges.I followed slowly behind them and saw them again before they moved off north. Along the shaded path one red-spotted purple flew a short distance away. South and east, the green "bath tub ring" of young woody stems, and leafy shrubs still defined a sharp border between where the previous flood had stood and the higher ground with surviving green understory.
The small deepest pool by the young elm was completely dry. The aquatic life there had either returned north to permanent water or had died and likely been consumed by foraging raccoons whose tracks were along the edge.
Returning, I took the southward path past the big hollow log. Lying on the forest floor a beautiful white catalpa flower caught my eye. The white ruffled lip of the flower tube decorated with maroon and yellow dots of color. I looked up to find the good sized catalpa standing near the hollow log.
Along the south boundary trail out to the G zero post exit the Woods were filled with the roaring of bulldozers, trucks and the big earth mover; moving clay from one location to another; preparing for the new trash station.
I left the Woods and drove to the NE Gate off Jenkins. I stepped through the gate and walked along the newly cleared path in the dappled shade. All the way down to the Elm Bridge and across to Fence Corner on the E-W Fence Line trail. There, inhabiting a small patch of sunlight was a bright living emerald. A brilliant green tiger beetle Cicindela sexgutata? It moved a short few inches, not leaving the light but checking potential prey, small gray brown flies touching down for a second in light. The beetle likely could have taken one of several. What was it waiting for..just the right choice species? Did it recognize the flies it did not pursue and know they would not be tasty? For a brief interlude that sun patch was the tiger beetle's world and it did not stray beyond the border out to the shadow.
Returning eastward along the E-W trail at the big pecan blow down there was a larger active light gap with another bright green tiger and four widow skimmer Libellua lydia dragonflies.. one with the chalky white male pruinosus on the abdomen and three with the females' extra brown patches on the wings. Two last gems on my outing, two more emerald tiger beetles on the open path through the cedars where the poison ivy was cleared away in a patch of sun.
Now at 5 PM remembering with the first tornado clouds of summer moving across the campus and rain flying in driven diagonal streaks from the southwest.

Yesterday Russell and Sesough found box turtle up by the old pipe south of the big walnut. They fed it a Duchesnea indian strawberry west of the oak bridge. Most of the Woods paths are mowed. There was knee to thigh high thick green grass by the fallen pecan at the north end of the two pecan trail.

Woods Projects

Sunday evening I went to the NE entrance gate to the Woods and walked the trail down to the Elm Bridge. The trail is still open and easy to follow but it could use some clearing with a weed whip to keep a meter wide swath clear of the taller grasses and honeysuckle. The path that time of the evening would be good to use for a banana slice trail to sample carabid ground beetles. Maybe interesting contrast of beetle populations along each of the different principal segments of the Woods' trails. Maybe mark with paint and look at recapture rate. Down by the stream there was a large swirl of water about right for a water snake taking a frog.. not a splash. Elm bridge could use some engineering intelligence.
I also drove the route along the north fence line of the Woods from Chautauqua heading east. I need to get the Lindgren traps set up with fermenting bait and see what cerambycids are flying. Maybe this weekend or next.

Turtles on the move

(Very) light rain falling this morning 2/100ths inch. I decided to go finish some projects in the Woods when the ticks might be not as active. I entered via the NW entrance by Rudy's and took a saw. I hiked into Hackberry Alley and cut through a broken tree top partly blocking the trail there. The previous three days we had had strong winds and some old dead tree tops had fallen. The cottonwood cluster along the dry wash levee had the largest. I walked most of the trails to see what new things there were to see. I found two three-toed box turtles moving around.. one in the drainage below the dam; one along the northward extension of the Dune trail.

The acres of water spread across the southwest Woods had abruptly dried up except for the deepest part now a small pool a few inches deep and maybe a meter or two in diameter. All the life in the previous broad wetland was either concentrated in that small pool or stranded dormant or dead in the soft drying muddy forest.
I cleared three logs/ trees blocking the drainage out of the Woods.
Walking the trails, the paint blazes were good because the understory herbaceous layer had grown so abundantly it had almost re-covered the trail. Still it was never difficult to follow the trail.
Time to work with a student and measure all the trails off in marked 50 meter increments with yellow heavy duty tent stakes, or some other numbered markers at each interval. Then start a more detailed trail guide with information about interesting features of particular trees, unusual vines, plants, game trails etc.

I cleared some more of the new connector trail along the west side of the wash between the E-W Fence Line trail and the Trans OWP trail.

No deer, no deer tracks. Armadillos had been digging in the soft wet soil along the trails. There were bright scarlet small gasteromycete earth cups out in several places. Some tall straight trees along the Northern Loop puzzled me: compound leaves with rounded leaflets..like locust but bark wasn't right(?) like coffee tree but compound leaves were too small(?) nearby was tall catalpa (unusual for OWP). Have to get Wayne to walk around with me again or Bruce.

Saw no insects, dragonflies, mosquitoes, crane flies, butterflies etc..

Silent Night at Olivers Woods

I returned to the SW corner of the Woods at 8 PM Friday and walked in via the trash station gate along the south border and entered the Woods at the southern end of the N-S Fence Line trail by the red brick building. The regeneration of trees along and south of the south fence line of the Woods are mostly willow and cottonwood. It will be interesting to see how they do through the construction and if any become mature, fast growing trees.

From the N-S fence line entry, I walked WNW to the dam..no water there or beyond..past the grandfather hollow cottonwood. The drainage was damp with some mud near the big cottonwood; but overall, the area had dried rapidly, supporting the idea that drying may have more to do with winds than with infiltration and overall warmth. We've had a great deal of wind over the past two nights and days with accompanying moderate warmth.

I saw no deer and heard no other animals. I imagine the huge earthmovers operating and the new fence along the south boundary has driven many animals away.

Bulldozers and the Woods

Monday evening 26 April I went for a walk in the flooded Woods entering via the SW gate. After recent rains this month (1.5 inches on the 17th and 18th and 0.5 inches on the 23rd) the water had returned to flood the southwestern quarter.. then retreated somewhat, returned again and now seemed to be rapidly retreating (although it was still covering large areas from 150 meters northeast up the trail to where the first patches of sedge grow, and on east of there along the main trail and drainage. It seemed like the most recent rapid retreat of the water was more related to strong all day winds, than to days without rain. Monday evening the water had retreated again to 50-70 feet west of the dam..nothing flowing through.

Exiting the Woods at G zero post, I walked along the service road westward towards the old trash station. Heavy equipment had recently flattened or cleared a swath along the south side of the Woods plowing over willows and brush. (For some unknown reason the machine operator had also gone south along the drainage from the Woods clearing a swath of the willows for 100 feet south of the culvert.)

Along the northern edge of the east west service road, workers had dug into place the standard black nylon (?) ca. 0.7 m tall erosion fence in preparation for active earth moving, to stop rains from washing clay into the Woods. I walked west along this and thought about how the new erosion fence would stop movement of snakes, turtles, frogs, salamanders, lizards, small mammals, opossums, mice, rabbits, voles etc. It might even put off deer and larger animals.

Parked just east of the northeast corner of the old trash station there were two of the largest dump trucks I have seen this year - colossal, and a similar scale earth mover, equally enormous.. and an assortment of smaller bulldozers and earth movers. The work there is set to begin. I will watch the impact on the Woods. Deer will not cross that area any more. The animal highways and corridors across the south central boundary of the Woods are closed by the new fence.

Wet and Green Woods

My goodness what a change in the Woods.. It has been striking to see the greening of the Woods; but today I decided to go for a walk in the rain.. wonderful!
By 2 PM we had had 0.4 inches with more slow gentle spring rain falling. I entered via the SW gate. The Woods looked verdant.. more shaded by new leaf-out from trees.. the leaves were all their bright early spring green.

I decided to take the main SW trail which has been inundated for much of the past four months and was happy to see it was emerging from its sodden state. The forest floor was soft and still wet; but the upper organic layer had drained. Last autumn's fallen leaves were covered with an odd looking dried scum of algae.. a dry greenish brown.

All along the south side of the trail, fifty feet distant, there was a bright blanket of fresh green annuals and other understory..like a bath tub ring.. at the base of the slight sandy rise to the foot of the dune along its western end. Abruptly down "slope", a matter of an inch or two; the forest floor was still entirely brown, devoid of herbaceous vegetation. Any growing there would have been drowned. On the north side of the trail slightly raised areas with better light were islands of bright green new bottlebrush sedge.

There were still pools remaining along the trail; but the deepest locations were just over ankle deep and ninety percent of the trail was drained. There was no water near the dam.

On the north side of the trail by the big grandfather cottonwood I disturbed a herd of six deer who trotted off a short hundred feet and then stopped and peered through the vegetation at me and my bright yellow rain coat.

I headed north into the central Woods and was happy to see that the trail we had cleared in the winter was still moderately clear. I found several patches of poison ivy along the trail with freshly emerged leaves and was able to clear all of that. I am sure that I will need to clear resprouts from some of these plants again..but for now it looks pretty well absent from the trailside.

Arriving at Fence Corner and the big cedar that blew down in the Christmas blizzard, I noticed that all the Gymnosporangium cedar apple gall rust on the branches were full hydrated, with gelatinous telial masses like a rich burnt orange marmelade. I was surprised how much there was on all the junipers.. particularly the large juniper at the junction of the pipeline trail and the NE Escarpment trail.

Crossing the Elm Bridge the creek was in good full flow and I was happy for boots. Westward on the E-W Fence Line trail past the first big old pecan (looks like a snag but still alive) on the north side of the trail there was a large grapevine with what looked like a large 10 inch orange paint blaze..but it wasn't paint. I will have to return and study it to see if it is a fungus, slime mold or whatever. From that grapevine, I found and partially roughed out a useful new trail up the west side of the stream connecting to the Trans OWP trail. This will need some work to establish. The new trail follows some old orange flagging for the northern ~ 100 feet to the Trans OWP.

Along the Trans OWP I walked to the East Pond and took the spur to the Biggest Cottonwood now tagged #200 and then eastward again to the triple split mulberry and cotton rat nest. A couple of feet from the nest in the open center where the split tree left a sheltered hollow there was an odd piece of litter that ended up being the remnants of a red party balloon. I wondered if the cotton rat had brought it there to decorate like a bowerbird.

From the split mulberry thence east to Hackberry Alley, south back to the dam, across the dune and west along the South Border trail back to the gate and an exit. The walk was so wonderful.. no ticks, no mosquitoes.. beautiful colors, fresh leaf out.. I want to do most of my summer walks there actually during the rain. Great time to be there.

Craneflies, Violets and Hawthorn

This past week we've had three days above 80 F and a good half inch of thunderstorm rain Friday morning. The Woods is really responding. All the understory ground cover has burst out. The Symphoricarpos deer brush has leafed out. The poison ivy is just beginning to extend new reddish green miniature leaves. Elms have produced new flowers and bur oaks have new small green leaves thirty percent full size with catkins.

The understory is now largely Lonicera honeysuckle. I wonder what the understory of the forest was 75 years ago. How has Lonicera changed the soil, pH, invertebrates, mites, site productivity, carbon storage etc?

Today I went to clear the mid Ravine Trail. A big hackberry top had broken out in a recent storm and blocked the trail. There were other recent broken trees: a largish diameter green ash down by the southern big hollow cottonwood.. snapped about 15-20 feet up, dead elm blown down by the Main SW trail. Strong (65mph gusts) thunderstorm winds Friday morning were likely the cause. The Woods seems to have much more down woody debris than I would normally expect in such a forest. I wonder what is the cause.

If climate change is producing more atmospheric energy will we see more strong wind gusts per month in the data -- either higher average highest daily wind gust, or more frequent days with strong gusts over 45 mph? Can we then see a greater degree of tree breakage and windfall or blow down?

After clearing the Ravine Trail I drove to the NE gate and returned to the Pipeline Trail. I cleared the last half of the trail all the way to the stream crossover at the island.. and flagged with blue tape. It will be a good trail connecting to the Northern Loop.

The warmth has brought on an abundant hatch of crane flies. There silver wings glint and flash in the sun patches in the forest.

Stormy Greening of the Woods

The Woods are becoming a bright spring green all over. The native hawthorn Crataegus viridis scattered here and there in the Woods are in full white bloom and light up the understory canopy. Good time to find them all and mark their locations. The forest floor has been transformed. The past two weeks of wet and cool alternating with spring sunshine and mild warm days has been pulling life upward from the roots in the winter soil, up to the buds and new leaves. The elms have broken their flower buds and the green scales are beginning to fall on the forest floor.
The honeysuckle is well out. The Eleagnus is fully out. Most of the Ligustrum privet has open leaf buds although new leaves are unexpanded.

Tim Chorley set turtle trap in the larger eastern pond of the west two. He observed two snapping turtles there yesterday.

The ravine trail is partially closed by a big hackberry break and drop down from up slope by the rusty old truck seat remains. A tree top looks to have been damaged in the past with some decay following and weakening the junction which then snapped with the fairly strong north winds of the past two days.

Returning from OJAS in Ada and judging papers I was wanting peace and went to the Woods with my axe to clear the larger stump stubs from Hackberry Alley and elsewhere.

I walked all the trails and was struck at how green everything was. The Woods are changing rapidly. Fortunately the foot trails are holding up nicely and remaining fairly clear.

At the Beaver Dam, water was a few inches deep in the channel but not flowing. From the SW Gate the trail was dry (well, soggy/ mushy but no standing water) until about 50 feet before the jct with the Two Friends Trail.

I saw no deer again this afternoon.

March Woods Warm to Rain to Snow

Woods have had quite a change. After a mild cool week of spring like weather, Friday was the warmest day of the year, 72F. Light rain, a few hundredths of an inch, swept through at 5 PM, a harbinger of an arriving winter storm. I walked in from the entrance by Rudy's at 6 and was delighted by the fresh smell of a warm spring garden freshly wet by rain. First time to encounter that this year. The honeysuckle leaves have really popped out and everywhere the Woods was a fresh spring yellow green. Birds had largely finished feeding for the day and were quiet.. only a male cardinal and one or two others. Three adult white-tailed deer ran from the Big Trees off to the north.

The ground was soft and moist with microbial fertility. The trail we had walked all winter had blended in with the surrounding duff of the forest floor. Now it stood out boldly a narrow, well-defined ribbon of soil winding through a bright new carpet of green.. a subtle change that had happened mostly on that day. We'll see how long it remains open and clear of new brambles and spring regrowth.

By the beaver dam a few inches of water stood in the channel but there was no flow. The lower 200 feet of the drainage, close to the service road, had suddenly gone dry two days previously.. seemingly overnight.

Overhead in the branches of the taller elms, the wind had shifted to the north and was bringing in the oncoming storm with rapidly cooling air as I left.

Overnight more rain and then snow in the early morning with wind gusts to 40-45 mph. By midday there was a hiatus. With little snow evident on the roads I returned for another walk in the Woods.

I was surprised to see the Woods a good bit snowier than the surrounding grassy areas; but the well established trail was mostly clear of snow.. now a distinct trail of brown soil through a white surround. The Woods were lovely with green leaves of honeysuckle and juniper all peaking out from under their fresh new white snowy coverings. The NNW face of the tree trunks were lightly filagreed with snow revealing the prevailing direction of the storm winds. On top of logs crossing the trail, tracks of squirrel and bird were fresh in the fluffy snow.

Two white-tailed adult deer ran away from me as I walked north to the northeast corner of the Northern Loop. The regular trails of the deer were clearly visible up and across the escarpment and crossing the Woods.

With over half an inch of precipitation, water was flowing again through the Beaver Dam. I should set a flow and depth gauge there. By the Elm Bridge water had submerged the lower logs. A solitary dark bird like a phoebe flycatcher flitted from one low perch to another near the stream. Up in the sky a flock of a dozen Canada geese flew over.

The snow began to pick up again by 5 and I left the Woods for the evening.

The Woods are Waking Up.

Lovely spring days this last week.. cool (50's F) pleasant, light overcast.
The Woods are waking up. First two small (nickel-sized) brown frogs leaping into the stream in the west wash a week ago. Southern leopard frogs "chuckling" (Tim's description) four nights ago in the west pond half an hour after sunset. Tim says ditch/pond SW of Woods was alive and loud with calls last week.

Ticks are returning too..few in number but yesterday after a walk I found three on me.

Saturday week ago out with Liz found a cascade of large feathers tangled in vines below a leaning elm tree. Up in the tree was the carcass of a red-tailed hawk .. maybe killed by bobcat(?) and taken up on tree for consumption.

Tim says he saw a turtle in west pond (first one) a few days ago.. and also says deer herd has increased from 3 or 4 to 7-10 with young spotted fawns in the herd.

Eleagnus Russian Olive just began opening fine slender short scimitars of early leaves last week. Multiflora rose unfurling new leaves now for two weeks. Honeysuckle some purplish green new leaves unrolling. South and east end of the northern ridge by the west wash is suddenly turning a soft green with growing Stellaria chickweed, Galium bedstraw, Lamium deadnettle, Cardamine mustard and new grass. I need to start an herbarium for the Woods. Green leaves with no flowers for recognition of spring herbs.. and overwintering green perennials Ligustrum privet, Liriope monkeygrass, Euonymus vine, Lonicera japonica honeysuckle, Lonicera fragrantissima bush honeysuckle, Hedera helix ivy, Ilex americana holly. Flowering spring ephemerals.. Stellaria, Lamium amplexicaule henbit, Veronica speedwell, Lamium purpureum deadnettle, Cardamine spring mustard.

Water fills the SW Trail drainage barely flowing through the beaver dam although it is 3-5 inches deep through the channel there.

No mosquitoes yet but they will not be long with the acres of water. No predator larvae or adult dragonflies or gerrid water striders etc. In the central, dry Woods along the E-W Fence line trail, cut grape vines are oozing sugary yeasty sap and various flies including calliphorids, mycetophilids(?), other nematocera like flies are there. Tim is finding beetles in his bucket traps.. (and a couple mice and a shrew).

Birds are active.. mostly robins as usual but also chickadees, cardinals, titmice, a couple mallards in the west pond. One great blue heron Tim observed in west pond. Chris observed hawk with decapitated pigeon on the S Boundary Trail.

The west and southwest woods are mostly all wet along lower Chautauqua. The South Border trail is dry. The trail to the Two Friends is submerged.

Bob N. says this meets legal requirements of wetland (soil development with manganese and iron nodules down in the profile; swollen tree buttresses on the green ash.

Marvelous February day in the Woods

Saturday morning fog at 9 AM was raining from the trees.. odd to see the ground mostly dry and then below each tree rain falling from the condensation on the bare twigs. Reminded me of autumn fog on Grizzly Peak in the Berkeley hills.
I took a saw and finished clearing the low limbs from the cedar blocking the Fence Corner junction; cleared a few smaller elm branches that had come down in the recent ice storm; and cleared the down tree top and a few smaller saplings from the NE end of the Pipeline Trail.

I went looking for Jason's class at 10 and after walking across the Woods and back covering each trail we met up south of the Elm Bridge as Jason's group was moving on from finishing their soil cores in the SE corner. We walked to the Dune where they pounded a core down 1.5 m(?), measured infiltration rate etc. Good group of 15 students seemed to be actively engaged. From there the group walked to the West Pond (encountered four white-tailed deer along the way). Jason and three others waded out waist deep in the West Pond and took a core of organic muck from the pond bottom. I left as they were extracting the core. They had plans to take one more core on top of the escarpment..maybe along the Ravine Trail on their way back to the NE Gate.

Later in the afternoon I returned with Sarah and we walked from the NW Ponds Trail across the Northern Loop and and back along the E-W Fence Line Trail; Hackberry Alley and back out via the NW Ponds. Sarah tested the best vine swings along the way.

New Woods Forays with new Students

Out to the Woods (NE Gate) Monday with Randy and Pascal and 21 of the new Ecology students. Randy and Pascal introduced Woods and use of scientific method to make observations, ask questions, construct hypotheses and collect data to test. Students took diameter tapes, or pH meters to test hypotheses they generated. All made it across the Elm Bridge and back without mishap. Beautiful afternoon into the low 50's clear and sunny. Great to be out there.
Today, Tuesday, Priscilla and I returned to the NE Gate and walked to the Elm Bridge. We thought about Ligustrum and other exotics and a trial removal of some large individuals. Priscilla mentioned some exotics mapping or tracking software the Nature Conservancy uses on small reserves.. might be useful for OWP.
We walked the Northern Loop to the East Pond then south to the Beaver Dam and back to the Elm Bridge via the EW Fence Line trail. Priscilla spotted a cottontail rabbit. Lots of woodpeckers hairy and flickers, lots of robins. Bird activity was pretty substantial with mild low 50's temperature and ice storm coming Thursday.

We briefly discussed an All Taxa Biotic Inventory (ATBI) in Olivers Woods as a possible long term research/ survey/ monitoring project. Idea of running a light in the Woods with power possibly from the Wastewater treatment plant for a continuously running insect survey. Discussed tree tutorial trail set up from the NE Gate and the rodent lab exercise.

Unusual Trees in the Woods

I saw a 2 meter tall native holly, just north of the SW Cutoff Trail, only the second of this species I have seen in the Woods. I also saw again a young sycamore maybe 10-20 years old in the wash-out small stream channels south east of the Elm Bridge.
And I pondered the triple split trees (still living and with cotton rat nest at base) west of Hackberry Alley. Mulberry.. red hearted xylem, small vertical lenticels.
The water in the East Wash had cleared up substantially today. There is a thin new solid coating of red clay all along the Wash.

Water World Woods

Out in the Woods Friday (22nd Jan) twice. I walked out with Victoria to tour the Woods where we met Ramin, Will and two friends. We entered via the SW Gate and headed up the main trail but the water had crept southwestward beyond the cut-off to the Two Friends trail so we stayed south along the South Boundary Trail to the Dune Trail across to the Beaver Dam and north into the drier central and northeastern Woods. We found several nice discrete patches of invasive Liriope monkey grass and discussed how they could be mapped and measured. We also found exotics Eleagnus Russian olive, Ligustrum Privet, Lonicera honeysuckle - some discrete patches some general cover, Hedera ivy and Rosa multiflora.

It was a wonderful warm afternoon (>60F) - a beautiful time to be out in the Woods before the next cold front. It felt like spring would be arriving any day. On the way to the Woods from Sutton Hall we encountered Charles Carpenter in the parking lot who commented that Pseudacris streckeri chorus frogs would be calling soon in the Woods maybe a week or two and Ambystoma texanum salamanders would be active there shortly after.

On the EW Fenceline trail looking south we could see all the water flowing down the East Wash was spilling over a large area of the south central Woods where the willows, Polygonum smartweed and tall ragweed grow. The water in the East Wash was bright clay red and carrying a heavy load of suspended clay..likely from the OU campus north on Jenkins where the old motor pool building has been removed and a large patch of red ground leveled. The water from the West Wash (between the Aquatic Research Facility and the model plane air strip) was still clear.
Water was also flowing fairly abundantly through the cut in the beaver dam and all along the broad drainage of the main southwest trail, now under water along almost its entire length.

Over the past month including the Christmas Eve blizzard we've had about 2 inches of water.. first 14 inches of snow (= ~ 1 inch water) followed last week by one inch of overnight rain. It had been a fairly dry late winter prior to that.
Now the Water World of the Woods is fully charged.. ponds are full and stump holes and small pools at the base of blown down trees are all full - ready as breeding grounds for frogs, salamanders and the rest.

Up by the NW ponds we met Will and Ramin gathering fungi and doing reconnaissance for their project.. and without knowing, we were following an hour or two behind Matt and Doug who had been in the Woods scoping out their project and thinking about large trees. Great day to be there.

We saw moderate sized flocks of robins 20-30.. but we saw little or no other wildlife. Maybe we were too loud.

I brought Russell and Sarah back an hour before sunset and we entered via the Ponds Trail. Russell trekked across the Ravine Trail while Sarah and I headed east along the Trans OWP to the East Pond.. Sarah found a watch on the Northern Loop and we went south to the EW Fenceline trail. Across the Elm Bridge Russell climbed the debris slope exploring and Sarah found a swing vine..perfect for her but not strong enough for me.

With the sun setting we headed out back west towards the car. Along the way walking north in the dark along Hackberry Alley Russell and Sarah saw the sudden startling white flags of two white-tailed deer running north ahead of us towards the Northern Loop and the Escarpment.

No more adventures; we made our way out by the light of the half moon. The light blue blazes work well at night. They are a visible light patch on the darker tree trunks.

Wednesday in the Woods

Nice walk today with Ian Ramjohn and Mike Delong instructors from Botany.. along with Leslyn and Adam and Atticus. Leslyn looked at fungi; we found a daedaeloid (?) fungus on moribund Juniperus, Loculoascomycetes' black crust everywhere... lots of shelf fungi polypores. Ian and Mike had good suggestions about posting student capstone work that had been done at the Woods and looking up floristics work students (Jessica) may have already done.
Mild cloudy day. The western Woods was wet/ inundated about 320 ft from SW gate and water was flowing through the beaver dam area (slowly). The broad drainage west of and leading to the beaver dam was filled with interesting flotsam (algae?)
Ian says his BOT 2404 Ecology & Environmental Quality class has done water quality analysis in the past.. and it might make sense to compare water quality of the Eastern Wash draining Lloyd Noble Parking Lot vs the West ponds produced from spilling ground water table.
Large owl disturbed and flying away from trees on the escarpment above the Elm bridge.

Brainstorming projects in the Woods

Great way to enjoy the holiday. Chris, Jaklyn, Pascal, Ramin, Will and I met on Chautauqua and took a ramble in the Woods. All sorts of ideas for projects.