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!
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Saturday, August 14, 2010
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.
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.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
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.
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.
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