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?
Friday, November 26, 2010
Sunday, November 21, 2010
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.
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.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
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.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
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.
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.
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