Hottest 2013 Day in the Woods

Up to 100 F this afternoon. I drove the southern service road eastward from the transfer station and stopped at the end of the N-S trail by Heather's solar cell. The giant ragweed there is now 7-8 feet high. I pushed open a path from the hot grassy road to the shaded forest. The ragweed shed its loads of yellow pollen from each cupped flower as I pushed the tall stems aside and pressed them down. The air was minty with fragrant plant aromas until abruptly stepping into the dry open basin shaded by the willows. Large black carpenter ants were busy there along a dead stub of one prostrate big willow. North there were some small branches and debris across the trail; but mostly the trail was in good shape despite my absence. At the EW trail jct someone (squirrel?) had been eating green pecans and their bright white-yellow fragments were littering the trail. Lots of dried curled dead leaves are down.. shed during the heat of the past two weeks. But these represent surely less than 5 % of the leaves that will come down this year.
Up to Barney Jct and NW to Tall Stump and then to the East Pond. It was mostly dry but still held 0.86 ft of water by the gauge. From there south through the Big Tree grove to the Main SW Trail. Passing the big cottonwood (#200) and a little farther south a big leaning green ash and a sudden alcoholic sweet smell of a tree wound with flux. Twenty feet up the tree a foot long old wound and flux streak extending to the ground was attracting a busy group of nymphalids (mostly hackberry emperors).. some green bottle Lucilla calliphorids and a few others.
Leaving the Woods I took the W. Dune trail and was impressed again at the Cnidoscolus bull nettle flourishing there above the Opuntia.
I stopped to refresh several blue paint blazes on my way out.

Late August Hot Afternoon

Near the end of August and it is hot.. but so much better than the previous two summers. At 2 PM I took a brief walk in the Woods via the NE Gate down to the Wash and west to Fence Corner. The mosquitoes were there, but not overwhelming. They are less active in the heat of the day.. 91 F.
The Wash had dried down to a series of disconnected pools. Along the trail, the dark green leaves of Elephantopus are encroaching on the path. A few are beginning to show their light lavender flowers. The elliptical leaves and knee-high flowering stalk of Polygonum virginianum are more abundant. I imagine it has been a good season of growth for the trees - abundant summer rain and soil moisture with lots of warm sunny days to produce photosynthate. Even small trees (Gymnocladus) I had written off as dead along the Tree Loop have sprouted vigorous displays of stump-sprouted leaves.

Back to the Washed Woods

This Saturday morning I went for an early foray to the NE Gate. The morning was mild low 70's and humid after the intense one inch rain Friday morning in the hours between midnight and sunrise. The Woods have been washed again with flood water rushing across much of the area and sweeping away leaf litter, small twigs, branches, medium size logs and some topsoil.  Big change in ecology of soil development, decomposition & litter organisms. It had been hot and fairly dry for the previous few weeks and East Pond stood at 2.17 feet. NW Pond was at 2.2. There was a small run of water stretching upstream from the beaver dam.. maybe 50 m. and Island Crossing a 30 cm wide stream not moving.
At the NW Pond I searched for turtles but found none. I did see a beautiful view of a pileated woodpecker and listened to wren scolding, kingfisher calling, geese flying overhead and a variety of other bird calls.
Walnuts are beginning to drop a few of their green, full-sized nuts and few premature yellow leaves are coming down from elm, catalpa and cottonwood. (99.9% of canopy still full green.) Pecans are aborting(?) and dropping a few under-sized nuts. The Hibiscus by the NW pond has many full big white flowers in bloom on the several shrubs on the southeast and western sides. Rough-leaved dogwood and Viburnum both have large green berries almost full grown.
Cicadas are calling and I found one dead on  the NE trail by the Wash. The spiders are changing now with many more of the Gasteracantha thorn-back orbweb weavers. Mosquitoes are super abundant. Interesting to see where they gather.. which small patches of sunlight or shade attract them. Found five Nicrophorus burying beetles in Pipeline trail trap.
Commelinia dayflower blooming and Euonymus and common small white flowers up a 75 cm tall thin stalk (sp?)
I returned with the saw and cleared elm top in big blowdown plus several other vines etc. blocking trails... also two more mimosa - cut and treated with roundup.  One white-tailed buck snorted and ran west down from the Tree Loop.

100% Humidity

Went to the Woods, the SW Gate, at 6 pm with a saw to clear the tangle of the dead cedar and the greenbrier blocking the West Dune trail. 91F and maximum humidity. The smells in the woods were of rot.. and not the most pleasant. Just completed the second wettest July on record for Norman, about 10 inches of rainfall. The floods in the W and SW corner of the Woods had largely cleared, with the warmth of the past week; but there are still some standing pools in scattered low places through the Woods. Warmth and water.. more than tropical. It is such a contrast to summers of the past few years.
The Main SW trail was largely dried near the Grandfather cottonwood; but the soil was heavy damp and remnant small pools were there. Still very few insects.. a few more mosquitoes. Here the first week of August I find myself saying the diversity of insects will be back, won't they?