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.