Late January Clear Morning

Met Gary and Ryan at NW Gate and entered via Ponds Trail. The West Pond was up to 2.20 ft and East Pond 2.75 ft after the 1.4 inch rain this week. Amazed and pleased to find the floating net turtle trap from ecology sitting in overgrown sedges. Near the ponds we heard a pair of barred owls in the southern Woods calling each other - at 10 in the morning! Wonder what was going on?
The strong winds before the rain brought down across the trail a couple of mid sized dead tops from hackberry, west and (old) east end of Ravine Trail. I cleared with saw. On the upper Ravine Trail the three clumped Lonicera fragrantissima were all blooming. Found a few fresh leaves of Japanese honeysuckle flushing out. At the West Pond new dead possum on the north side of the trail.

Spring rains or winter?

Brief end of the day out at the Woods. I wanted to see what last night's 1.4 inch rain had done. After the long dry January the land was growing winter-parched, cracks in the soil. Entering via the SW Gate I just passed the 100 m mark on the Main SW Trail when I saw the shallow flood of water in the sedges and forest. Maybe 2-3 inches deep, it pooled in an interesting pattern that should help explain the patterns of the vegetation, the death of trees like bur oak that cannot survive flooded roots, the thick stands of young green ash that can. I walked back south to the South Boundary Trail and then across the W. Dune trail following fresh deer tracks in the soft soil of the trail. I saw a few white-tailed deer running north across the water, into the Woods. Not many deer in there these past few weeks.
It will be interesting to see if this late January rain will spur spring growth with the run of 50 and 60 degree F days we've had.. or if the plants will hold back with the likelihood that we have more cold winter ahead.

Snails, Cattails and New Trees

Marvelous warm day in the Woods, mid 60’s. I went to the NW cattail swamp. While the two ponds are still well filled and holding their depth, the swamp is mostly dry with the lack of rain (4/100ths inch in the past 3.5 weeks). The swamp had no standing water, but the soil was still wet/ saturated. I walked out into the cattails and looked back to the NW and observed the striking sharp boundary between the old dry dead gray cattails and the greenish, yellowish brown sedges.. a sharp contour line. I was delighted to find one of the 1955 Carpenter heavy steel posts where I had searched the cattails this summer in vain. Recorded location. I lifted willow logs off the wet swamp soil and found 6 or 7 clusters of young isopods, 80-100 in a bunch with 2-3 older (adult?) isopods with each cluster. There were also lots of snails, mostly the flat, round Helisoma with a good many Physa, with their rising spirals. The sedge contour band width was about 80 ft., beginning about 5 ft. NW of Carpenter’s post. The cattails in the central zone were like an amoeboid superorganism with lobes like pseudopods. Interesting to trace the advance or retreat of the boundary with annual precip changes.

I checked 75 of student’s 132 tree I.D.s.; and corrected one third. Must check the remaining 50. I added another 8 trees mostly in the NW corner. Many trees larger than 40 cm DBH are not tagged and not in the database. Too many, to do more than a good sample. Example: there are another 15-20 green ash the same size as the ones I recorded, distributed around the NW section of the swamp extending onto dry land close to Chautauqua. Now ~ 300 trees with permanent tags identified. Getting enough to begin to make a partial tree map indicating where the different species are primarily located.

South of the big cottonwood next to the Carpenter post a herp trap bucket was open. I fished around in the muck and found the skeleton of an armadillo. I need to take down herp arrays and firmly close the buckets.

Trees

Tim and I added 29 trees to the database today and corrected five other spp. I.D. Added first sycamore in the Woods. We worked from the West Wash west and south using the Trans OWP trail as our south boundary. Many more to do; but we made great progress today. Tim spotted small group of deer in SE. Warm day (low 60's). Noticed walnuts bleeding watery sap by the tag nail wound. Tim commented that warming and rising sap in winter placed trees in danger of frost damage when sap freezes and damages tissue under the bark. Leaving the Woods, we found Claire and Hope by the E pond watching Claire's feeder in hopes of catching and banding titmice.

Another Dog

Out in the Woods at 3 p.m. today. (I met Joe at the SW Gate and discussed drainage and water in the Woods.)
Later I surprised a sleeping new dog at the top of the ravine trail. It came running at me, barking; and then ran and disappeared into the brush when I ran towards it. It was black with tan face markings; size of a lab, face like a mastiff. I saw no collar. With the demise of the old mangy dog, this new dog is not a welcome addition.
I saw no deer or other four-footed wildlife. Lots of robins foraging in the leaves with the coming chance of rain.
Found new Carpenter (?) post ~ > 200 ft. w. of the new post found yesterday. It looks like the sewer line excavation work 40 years ago probably displaced or eliminated many of the posts.

The ponds are holding up OK. West Pond was 1.98 feet and the East Pond was 2.06 feet. No rain for quite a while.
The Woods are very open now with all the leaves down. It is the best time for exploring.
The low green leaves of Geum are evident and the green of a henbit-like plant..maybe Glechoma gill, Creeping Charlie.

Cool, mid 50's F, overcast, dry.

Rerouting Northern Trail

This morning I entered the Woods NE Gate and worked on the new North Rim Trail. I rerouted a portion of the trail around the rabbit warren / animal den at the base of the oak snag and placed blue topped cedar posts at 50 m intervals. This area of the Woods appears to have a greater diversity of young trees. Walnut is fairly common in the junipers. Walnut is known for allelopathic poisoning of the soil. I wonder if Juniper are tolerant.
Decades past, an east west band of the Woods was cut and trenched to bury sewer line (same line as Pipeline Trail) .. manhole cover is north near fence.. rather anomalous. I discovered one more of Carpenter's 1955 posts up near the northern fence line NE of the ravine trail. I'll rename the entire ravine and north rim trails as one combined North Rim Trail and use red dots with the blue blazes. The trail is 350 m from the jct with the Trans OWP trail by the West Pond to the jct with the Northern Loop near the Western Wash.
I also flagged a tentative possible link north to the fence boundary where a new gate could be useful. Lots of poison ivy at the northern end and a small animal passage dug out beneath the fence. Good for camera.
It continues to be very dry The pool above island crossing is dry; but good chance of rain Monday.
I distributed the 66 twenty two inch heavy steel rods (for 50 m trail markers): 25 at NE Gate, 25 at Ponds Entrance and 16 at SW Gate. Another two or three dozen would be enough. Have not figured out the best way to tag/ label markers.

Ponds

Met Rich, Jessica and Thayer this afternoon around 3 to go to the Ponds in the Woods..marvelous day low 70's. Seine and pole net captured abundant populations of large Daphnia pulex in the sunny west pond. R, J and T took samples to see if Chaoborus were there (none found). Samples from the east pond yielded far fewer.. but there were abundant copepods, Acanthocyclops, plus diving beetles and misc other. No evidence of any Gambusia in either pond. May be good if they can remain fishless this spring. Rich and Thayer found dead Corbicula in the east pond.. and commented that they do not like anoxic water.. may have arrived on feet of waterfowl. Interesting to note that ponds were dry from summer heat/ drought until October 8 2011. Populations have had three months to grow from epiphia eggs.

New Year's Day trees

Beautiful clear cold New Year's day. I went to the Woods through the SW gate at 2:30 to find some more of the big trees.
Along the Dune, I discovered several large Bumelias, one 68 cm in diameter, maybe the largest Bumelia in the Woods. This species is commonly broken more than other trees of the same age and size. The wood is heavy and dense; but the main trunk is often broken off at 3-5 meters, then vigorously resprouts. This large Bumelia was home to some animal that gathered fresh green juniper leaves I could see inside the top of the hollow trunk. Bumelias still have some of their green elliptical-obovate leaves remaining.
The Woods are quite dry now. The soil west of the Beaver Dam is like dried peat moss. The leafy mould is crisp and dry. Skunks, armadillos or other foraging animals have turned over a large area of the forest floor northwest of the Dam, looking for food. This seems to be a favorite foraging spot for them.
Moving east on the South Boundary trail I measured a few more large old dead bur oaks.. probably all the same age cohort. I wonder what killed them- drought? In the western Woods it was probably flooding(?) Need some good stand reconstruction. At the Willow basin I measured the largest black willow, then quit and began to walk home when I met Joe and Laura. We shared our walk out together talking about the Woods and Joe's air quality work. No deer seen today.