Coldest Woods

I enjoyed a couple of hours in the Woods this afternoon before the arctic storm arrives later tonight. At 3:30 it was over 40. Tomorrow high should be 14 with a strong north wind blowing.. and it should dip to low single digits the next two nights and stay below 17 during the day.

Good look at a coyote today in the Woods at the northern end of the Dune trail where it joins the Barney Jct Trail. Tawny brown and black. It moved off to the east.

All five of the local herd of white-tail deer were foraging south of the East Pond together.

Essentially no birds in two hours of walking. I think many of them have moved south knowing that a storm is coming. I'd like to know how animals know about impending weather, barometric pressure?

The inundation from the cattails and western pond is holding its position or receding slightly to 350 ft. from the SW gate, about 50 beyond the diagonal connector down to the South Trail. On the other end water has gradually moved towards the Beaver Dam and is now about 20 ft away.

Last few days the afternoon temp has been high 30's or low 40's. Ice covering of both the East and West Ponds has melted out across the northern half of the ponds (with its stronger exposure to the southern sun). Next few days both should freeze over solidly.
The ice in the East Wash by the Elm Bridge is very thin and covers a small percentage of the water. I fixed up the western approach to the bridge with a couple of elm logs so that crossing is possible when the water is as high as last week.

Yesterday I roughed out (and temporarily marked with blue masking tape) a new trail from bits of game trails running up slope from the east end of the west pond up a ravine to cross over a low ridge extending south from the escarpment, down across a second ravine and back up on the escarpment, around the head of another ravine, slabbing along a brushy hillside and descending back to the floodplain in a broad ravine along what looks like an old road bed to near the east end of the East Pond. This trail will take a lot of work to establish well.

Different vegetation up on the slope; bush honeysuckle (swelling flower buds almost..not quite ready to open), thorny locust? thorny cherry?. The brushy slope will be worth exploring as it represents a distinct habitat unlike the floodplain forest below or the flat top of the escarpment.
A small Ilex holly about 50 feet west of the orange survey stake below the new trail.

East of where the new trail descends there is a nice oak bench seat. I pulled off a piece of bark and found a assemblage of 20-30 collembola in an area slightly larger than a tea cup. A few inches away there was a group of a half dozen cucujoid small bronze beetles..like flat bark beetles.. a little larger than aradids.