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.