Light Rain and Lots of Robins

It has been a dry dry fall, but Friday night the 14th (OU Graduation) we had a little rain (0.16 inches). That shower was enough to freshen the Woods. The soil there had become very dry.  I checked the NW pond and it continues to 'fill' from the water table, now 50% of regular full surface is submerged.. to a depth of about 0.3 feet. The East pond has several gallons of water gathered around the post but not up to the zero point yet. The Wash is ponded up above the Elm Bridge to 16 inches depth. Lots of flotsam and jetsam the usual styrofoam cups etc.  Soft mud along the wash is filled with tracks of deer and other animals.

I carried another 13 heavy stones to the Woods.. now up to 80 .. need another 70 approx. to provide a path when the floods submerge the West Trail 150 m between posts WT#2 and WT#5.

Saturday the 15th, robins were flocking up around the ponds and through the Woods. I took the swing blade to clear some of the overgrowth along the Ravine Trail. Largish snag fall the 14th with accompanying tangle of briars, vines etc. blocking trail will need saw to clear. More to do there on the east end but good progress. Just a little trail side clearing in winter will probably help keep trails from becoming overgrown with honeysuckle and coralberry in summer.. and it is a lot easier in the winter.

I've decided to bypass/ eliminate the short steep downslope dip on the Ravine Trail and bust through a short level distance across the top to connect east to west. It is pretty dense with vegetation and blow down. I've also decided to give a go to creating the path to the north central fence line from the western portion of the N Rim trail. I will start resetting my beetle traps along the north fence line and that will be a good entry to the Woods.

Today I was thinking about the Woods as a canary in the coal mine peri-urban natural forest. By watching Oliver's Woods closely and being familiar with it, we can see changes and detect invasions as they occur. The tiger salamander populations that were once abundant there are now missing..  either the result of roads closing off the migratory paths out of the Woods, or change in habitat from more open grazed pasture to dense green ash growth. The understory in the Woods in places is now dominated by Lonicera honeysuckle with substantial stands of Ligustrum privet and increasing multiflora rose. Eleagnus Russian olive is more scarce. The new invader amur honeysuckle, Lonicera mackii I think I will start to eliminate this spring when it shows up in flower.. probably forty or so of these in the Woods now.. and perhaps the greatest threat to the Woods' current open understory.