Green up and chill down

After days (M-Th) in the low 70's (F) and mild spring winds, I went to the Woods through the SW Gate to see what spring had brought.
Elms in the Woods in the past few weeks have produced millions of green winged samara seeds, each ready and capable of producing a full new tree with a lucky landing. Boxelder are flushing green winged samara seeds along with early green leaves, just beginning to unfold. When box elder fully flush their leaves, it will close the under story. That is not near to happening yet.. just a few of the larger trees. Mexican plum Prunus mexicana are in bloom all over the Woods and this is that short ten days when it is easy to see every wild plum in the Woods. They are flowering white blazes in the sparse deciduous forest before leaves emerge.
Across the floor of the Woods, all the green is beginning, but just beginning. The Symphoricarpos buck brush is just opening leaves. The Gallium bedstraw and Lonicera honeysuckle are growing fast and will be much more dominant before the upper canopy flushes its high leaves and takes the light. ( Interesting contrasting strategies plants select, either grow early and fast before canopy leaves put you in the shade, and benefit from a thermally sheltered near-ground environment, or wait and begin growing much later from high, on exposed branches, where cold winds could kill early growth, but sunshine will be abundant for all the main growing season. )
Spring onion patches are here and there. The rabbits and deer love them. Standing back from all, and looking, one can see the green is growing. It is now ubiquitous.. not universal.. there is still more bare brown winter forest floor than green growing spring verdure.. but it is changing rapidly.
Then came Friday with its cold N wind and overnight hailstorm. Saturday night we will have 29 F frost; but spring has started and will not be stopped. All the flowering trees will now survive. It will be a good year for their flowers and seeds. Water, moist soil, mild days. The local biota will grow well this spring.

Loud Frogs and Cut Soils

Spring phenology is growing stronger each day in the Woods.
Saturday St Patrick's Day March 17, I went with Sarah to hunt for steep slopes exposing a soil profile. A twelve foot high wall from the bottom of one of the northern ravines provided a good vertical cut through the Pleistocene parent material deposited by water and wind. The upper 10-12 inches, right beneath the litter of oak leaves, was a dry light brown, developing a more reddish hue a foot below the surface. A similar arrangement was also visible on a steep-cut bank of the Main Wash. Sarah collected samples to do an analysis of percent clay and sand. Interesting to think about the winds and floods that deposited the deep sand and clay soil, that was subsequently cut by the Canadian River, leaving the highest terrace of its floodplain, as the floor of Oliver's Woods.
The next evening, I walked into the Woods via the 'toe-slope' NW Pond at the base of the slope up to the top of the Pleistocene sediments. One loud frog was chuckling on the far side of the pond, almost like a woodpecker, a leopard frog? On the eastern side of the Woods spring peepers were lightly beginning their chorus as the day was getting late. Top branches of many of the exposed elms are beginning to swell leaf buds; but just as many smaller elms have no sign of spring coming yet. The water is still flowing at a good rate, out through the old beaver dam. I slowly chased a herd of five white-tailed deer as I walked the trails. I cut and cleared away two medium sized cedars blocking the trail east of Tall Stump. A greater diversity of birds, chickadees, junco, cardinals and other passerines were busy in the Woods.

Roaring Wind Dancing Trees

5 o'clock this afternoon with strong gusting 30-40 mph SSW winds I went to the NW entrance of the Woods to see what the past 24 hours had brought. Before dawn there had been some good thunderstorm rain with just over an inch of rain, followed by gusting winds that increased in the afternoon. I walked past the NW pond - well filled at 2.62 ft depth and then on to East pond, even more well-filled at 2.82 ft depth. The East Pond was up over the trail junction and I needed to step out well away to avoid soggy shoes. There were small branches down all around, and two small cedars blocking the trail where I will need a saw, just east of Tall Stump.
I stopped west of Fence Corner to watch the trees tossing in the strong wind. The bouncing crowns were moving chaotically back and forth, all out of synch. It struck me as I watched that the different crown shapes, compass orientation and height created this chaotic bouncing around and provided an extra measure of protection to the forest. If a stand of trees were all planted at the same time, all the same species, they would likely move together and would be subject to more torque and greater likelihood of blow down or breakage. The tossing chaos of the different height stems and different shaped crowns provided more turbulence and broke up the force of the wind.
Good that none of the trees had leaves out yet. That would have increased the force on the branches.
After a fairly long late cold spell, the Woods are now ready to pop their buds. Along the trail, the Liriope monkey grass was showing fresh green. The Multiflora rose was beginning to show 10% new fresh leaves. The Elaeagnus autumn olive had leaves 20-30 % open in the under story and of course the Ligustrum privet had its green leaves from over the winter.
Such enormous strength in the roots and trunk to hold up the largest trees, pecan, walnut, bur oak, cottonwood, even tilted over at an angle, in this roaring wind.

Who is going to eat all of that algae?

After a month or two of relatively dry weather, last night the Woods received three quarters inch of rain, with twice that on its way tomorrow. At 5 I went to the SW Gate to see the Woods after the rain.
The southwest Woods has been a swamp all winter with standing water all around the roots of the green ash, elm, sugar berries, persimmons, black willow and others. As I walked northeast, I encountered the new-flooded swamp water 20 feet earlier along the trail. I wonder when the soil eventually dries, as it must this late spring/ summer, how long will it take for earth worms and other soil invertebrates to recolonize the previously-drowned soil? Who will come first? Will the pioneers have rapid population growth with few competitors, or gradually, slowly increase into still challenging too-wet environments? Is the pattern the same each year - or set by random, stochastic factors?

Through the main portion of the Main SW trail where water has been standing the longest, there are great streams and mats of green algae attached to submerged fallen branches, twigs, exposed roots and partly submerged logs. The algae got a fast start more than a month ago during some mild winter weather.. then was exposed to prolonged, harsh, deep cold last fortnight. Looks like the cold killed some of the algae, changing the luminous bright green of new growth into yellow floating mats of damaged algae intermixed with healthy green.

Now all through the algae there are thousands and thousands of small Physa snails..living the dream.. like living in a bowl of ice cream. They should grow quickly. With the additional flooding from rain tonight and Tuesday, their algal feast should be well hydrated and available.

With my knee boots on, I walked the trail and observed the water flow. I moved small logs to open the flow from backed-up areas. The Woods are draining at a good rate now; but the water will be higher tomorrow and there are weeks/ months of water left to drain.

I wonder what native crayfish would do to the mix  in the Woods?

Cold winter day and fast sudden spring coming?

At 9 AM I went for a (short) walk from the southwestern gate of the Woods. The Woods were quiet and I did not stay long. I saw 4-6 white-tail deer up walking or trotting north over the dune into the Woods and wondered, 'How do they do it?' I was outfitted with warm wool hat, thick wool gloves and warm scarf, my best winter down coat, thick socks and solid shoes and was conscious of my vulnerability to cold. How do they stay out here, sleep out here, find enough to eat, find places to escape the wind etc. ? The same for a flock of 70 starlings in the rough grass lawn outside the SW corner of the Woods. How do the birds survive days/ times like these?

I walked over the southern dune to the old beaver dam and observed that water was still flowing at a reasonable rate. Despite little precip in the past month (0.63 inches) the SW Woods remain flooded. The 3-5 inch deep pools and shallower channels mostly have a layer of weak ice with a little open water.
 Although it feels like the world has been locked down by bitter cold arctic air, it is not really that cold, 22F;  but a north wind makes this a wind chill of 7 F,  pretty cold for March here. Often first week of March there are daffodils in Norman. This year they have all emerged and have their green leaves fully extended, even have their flowers partly formed and ready; but still closed protected in the bud. This cold wave will last a few more days, then it should jump 30+ degrees to mid 50's and stay that way for a week or more. That should lead to a sudden burst of spring flowers.. starting later than usual and going faster than usual. Should be interesting to watch how the trees in the Woods respond.