Green growth and destruction

At 3 I stopped in to see the Woods at the SW Chautauqua Gate. A strong 30-40 mph SW storm wind was tossing the tops of the big bur oaks, elms and Celtis sugarberries there. A short 50 feet north on the Main SW trail I stopped, as the trail was flooded into a large swamp extending all the way north to the NW Pond. With Saturday's 1.25 inch rain on top of the previous big rains from last week, the W and SW Woods is under a shallow flood. As I stood there, I heard the crash of a big tree coming down, maybe 200 feet north of me. I could not see it, but it sounded like one of the dead bur oaks falling and crashing on younger small diameter trees.
I drove around to the higher, dry NE Gate and walked in on a 1 mile loop. The ponds (East and West) are brim full and over full. A small heron, with bright orange legs, flew away as I walked toward the NW Pond. Across the middle of the woods I discovered two green tops of big trees blown out by the winds. A large green ash top, loaded with new, fully-flushed green leaves, had snapped out of a tall tree just south of Carpenter's big Cottonwood. West of the northern end of Hackberry Alley a big Celtis sugarberry top was ripped out of the crown and lay with its heavy branch partly stripped, exposing the fresh wet surface of the phloem. The elm of Damocles, with its broken top hanging for years directly over the East West Trail, surprised me. The long-healthy big tree is now fading in what looks like a rapid, massive, elm disease wilt. I expect the entire tree to be dead a year from now.
The Woods trail sides and understory are bursting with fresh new green life. The grove of 4-5 catalpas had scattered sweet white blossoms on the ground all around the trees. The small white flowers of some of the early-blooming privet lay on the ground like small white crosses or stars below the shrubs. I was thinking about the odd poignancy of massive focused destruction at a time of abundant rapid green growth.. when I noticed one more piece of destruction. The old blue trash transfer building is completely gone. Nothing left but the cement pad of the huge old ramshackle building where I had once set my bug lights and captured moths and insects near the Woods.

Wet soaking soggy sweet Woods

(From Sunday 23 April)

Wet soaking soggy Woods this morning. At the NE Gate a fresh, clean, sweet scent of new privet blossoms, opening fresh white and faintly lemon scented. At the SW Gate, a sweeter Japanese Honeysuckle smell with yellow and white tubular flowers all along the southwestern boundary.

A quick sharp half inch rain fell Friday morning, followed by another two thirds of an inch over the next ten hours. It was enough to flood the SW Woods and leave standing water in pools and across large areas, all through the south and southwest of the Woods. Cool fresh temps and bright sunshine and a zillion mosquitoes. Cool enough so that as I walk the paths, they rise up in clouds, but are not quick enough to come up to my head or face. Who eats mosquitoes? Dragonflies? Who else?

There are numerous spider webs freshly spun, just some silver strands in the sunlight across the trails. I think spiders don't like mosquitoes. I think they cut mosquitoes out of their silk.

The great big dead bur oak that has fallen and blocked the Main SW Trail at 100 m is surrounded on all sides by water. I will wait until the pools and forest dries.

Sweet Woods with Arthropods

Last 2-3 days I've enjoyed late afternoon and evening walks in the Woods. There is a sweet odor permeating much of the Woods and I am not sure if it is from the invasive Elaeagnus Autumn olive in bloom, or the invasive multiflora rose.

The Wash is still full of (non-flowing) water and the SW Woods' Main Trail and SW quarter is still under water from the 4 inch rain a couple of weeks ago. The water has been there long enough now that a few mosquitoes are showing up. If the water remains for another week, there may be a large population of mosquitoes. Ticks are becoming abundant again. I have seen 2-3 dozen in the past four days. Tiny young ticks, probably first instar < 1 mm in length are most abundant, but larger mature ticks are present and active.

On the positive side of the arthropod ledger, there have been surprising early arriving monarchs (2-3), tiger swallowtails and red admirals. And bright flashing green Cicindela sexguttata tiger beetle.

Turtles and Woods Waking Up

Walking along the main E-W Trail a small young box turtle was just emerging from its over-wintering den, one of those anonymous holes along the trail by the biggest old pecan tree.
Up above the Northern Loop Trail, four Ailanthus Tree of Heaven have sprouted new leaves. The very newest are still purple green. The smell of the leaves is different from the nearby young pecan. Tree of heaven leaves are more nutty. A multiflora rose is coming in to full bloom down by the previous Elm Bridge. Water is still full in the wash, although not moving. Walking down from the Tree Loop, a larger animal moved in the water leaving ripples - a garter snake? crayfish snake? turtle? I didn't see it.
Amur honeysuckle Lonicera maackii in bloom on the Dune Trail, and across the wash from the old mimosa stump. A few dozen spider webs are strung across the trail, young small spiders, probably young Micrathena. One good rattlesnake fern is up and growing by the trio of cottonwoods along the wash. Much of the SW levee there has been scoured and covered in blonde sand in the the flood last week. New pink paint has been applied to the trees along the former 'white' trail (Hackberry Alley down to Beaver Dam). I need to find out about this.

Big Flood Big Sweep

This evening I went to the NW entrance to the Woods at 8 PM to see what the heavy flood rains had done. On April 1st a crew of Big Event OU students and faculty hit the Woods to mark trails, label/tag trees on the Tree Loop and clean up debris washed into the Woods from north of Hwy 9. Two or three days earlier, the heaviest rains in a year began to fall. Four and a half inches of rain built a flood, washing out across the central and southern Woods. A week later, the water has largely receded. As the flood pushed across the Woods, it shoved tons of leaf litter ahead of it. Trails now are oddly clean as though they have been power-washed, down to the soil. Rafts of leaf litter, bits of branches and old decomposing logs are pushed into deposits here and there.
The early spring warm March and this spring rain have changed the Woods. They have gone from their late winter openness or bareness, to the mid spring flush with green leaves of box elder, sugar berry, elm and others filling the under story, cushioning, absorbing the sound of traffic from the highway and obscuring line of sight across the Woods. I like this time.
This evening there is water filling the Wash at Elm Bridge and at the Beaver Dam (barely moving). The East Pond and NW Pond are both well-filled.
I walked a mile and a half of looping trails that seemed in fairly good shape, no big trees down. In the western woods the water is slowly seeping down into the ground. The land serving as a sponge to slowly recharge the ground water table.