Water Boots and Trails

   This year I have not cleared sections of trails in the southwest corner of the Woods. Too much water backed up on most of the trails, then I was away when trails dried in late summer. This morning, with more rain expected before evening, I put on my water boots and went to see the SW trails.
  There were many, many large elm branches down, blocking trails from the continuing decline of elms with Ophiostoma ulmi Dutch elm disease, and the flooding from Lloyd Noble parking lot run-off.
   From the SW Gate I walked and lightly cleared the Main SW trail to the Beaver Dam; and up the West Trail adjacent to Chautauqua up to the NW Trail; the Two Friends Trail; and the Cutoff Trail up to East Pond.
   Woody debris in this section of the Woods is unusually abundant. I wonder if the periodic flooding may be suppressing decay, rather than facilitating it. It will be interesting to see what species of trees takes over in this section: cottonwoods? willows? sycamore? Each of these would tolerate the flooding that is gradually removing the big bur oaks, green ash and elms.
  I also continue to see odd new patches of green leaves just flushed in the past month on elms and other species scattered through the Woods. I'd like to know more about what is going on there, the physiology. Is it a 'mistake' for the tree, or a potential benefit, a means of getting a little more photosynthesis at the end of the growing season?

Clearing blocked trails before the rain

I returned to the Woods late in the afternoon. Under gray cold skies, I walked to the big pecan watch tree, on the Levee Trail, and cut and cleared a heavy trunk and dead branches fallen across the trail. I noticed that some of the English ivy is beginning to return near the big cottonwoods. I need to continue to eradicate. On the northeast side of Island Crossing there are still Helianthus sunflowers with a few bright yellow petals brightening the dark green under story. Almost all the other flowers are gone for the season.
I circled back to the SW entrance and drove into the city transfer station. After help from James, I walked in via the small waterway draining the Woods and began clearing the broken canopy of a large green ash that was blocking the South Boundary trail.
I finished carving a tunnel in the branches and walked east along the south border to the southern end of the North South trail where the slow collapse of a large dead elm was partly blocking the flow from the Woods. With significant rain forecast for Tuesday I dragged away some of the larger branches and woody debris. I will revisit the Woods trail when the weather clears.
As I was leaving, heading up Chautauqua I found Sawyer injecting TGR into large elms along the west fence line. Working as a contractor for OGE he showed me the three trees he had treated. He thought that as they grew, they might threaten the lines. He mentioned he also planned to clear and treat more trees along the south border. I asked him to walk the line with me and show me what he planned. Recent previous clearing along the south border and the north border has not shown any awareness that the Woods was a special protected reserve with various research projects underway.

Bittersweet battle and potential new invasive.

  Returned to the Woods this chilly Sunday morning to remove a couple of Amur honeysuckle on the Dune Trail and to clean up some more of the remaining bittersweet stems. Both projects were more extensive than I anticipated. I had spotted two invasive Amur honeysuckle Lonicera maackii, one filled with bright red berries. Cutting and treating the stumps was straightforward, but then I noticed more of the Amur honeysuckle in lower folilage. I had cut four or five there last year, and almost all had started to regrow. I cut and treated them again and then found another large Amur honeysuckle I had not noticed before, again loaded with berries. I cut and treated it and resolved to check this area again next year.
  I hopped across the water at beaver dam and walked north to the patch of bittersweet. It appears things are improving. It is harder to find the bittersweet leaves now.. but then I crawled under a couple of old dead half-fallen junipers and there were dozens of sprouts. Many of these were from stems and roots I had broken off last year and they had grown back. Many of them. Not easy to get to in the tangle of vines and tough branches under the juniper. I dug and pulled to get up as much of the roots as possible.. but I am not sure if it is better to leave those in place so that, when treating, the treatment is carried through the root. Worked a few hours on this and was pretty tired, but thought I had done well. Then looked up in the tall pecan leaning over the dead juniper. There, and in an adjacent live juniper, there were large bittersweet vines ascending to the canopy. I dug, pulled, cut and treated as best I could. These were the two largest bittersweet vines alive in the patch this summer. I know I will need to return to his spot - maybe in a couple of weeks and certainly next year.
  In the afternoon I decided to go with the warm 72 F weather while it was here and do some re-marking of trails with blue tree paint. Got much of this done. Found one white-tail deer in the SW section and one armadillo in the central east near the big old pecans and near the wash.. both in the morning.
  The water on the Main SW trail was receding well.. probably because it had been dry for so long. But strong cold front is due to arrive tonight with more rain on Tuesday. Sure enough, at 4:20 there was a sudden shift in the light southerly breeze. It became a cooler northwest wind and began a rain of falling leaves. Busy full day. I headed out back across the beaver dam and saw a half dozen roseate skimmer dragonflies Orthemis ferruginea, beautiful red libelluid skimmers. Active patrolling territories. Hope they and their next generation stick around to keep the mosquitoes down.
  Spotted one more invasive I'm afraid.. Berberis.. one on the Tree Loop (near Pipeline Trl jct) and one elsewhere. I need to confirm identity and then go after it.

   The long warm/ hot late summer drought of the past 9 weeks, August into late October, was decisively ended by the last three days of near continuous rain, four and a half inches, a gentle, long soaking. Forecast has moved from highs skirting low 80's to near freezing lows in a matter of days. Good time to return to the Woods with no fear of ticks.  Saturday morning at 10:30 I entered via the NW entrance and the NW Pond. I brought a saw to clear a dozen or more trees fallen across trails during the summer and autumn months. The Woods felt and looked like they had been abandoned for the summer, left to the wildlife and the trees. Good. Lots of things to see. This morning the place was full of life. At the NW Pond the water was up to 2.55 ft, almost, but not quite to the highest stepping stone. In the sedges along the sunny northern edge, the water roiled with basking Gambusia mosquito fish. Good to have them reducing chance of mosquito survival.. but it also means they are eating all the larvae of the 'good' species, dragonflies and such. The East Pond was up to 2.12 feet in depth and continues to look very different now with full sun. The big cottonwood that fell across the pond is not giving up. From its roots there were three or four patches of vigorous growth, green sprouts and new leaves, a few inches tall and grazed by deer. Maybe the roots will survive to build a new main stem.
  The northern entrance to the Tree Loop is beginning to recover from the over-zealous line crew clearing the 'right of way' too far into the Woods, cutting tagged, numbered trees, data from previous class studies. The walnut cut down to 1 m height has regenerated 5 or 6 stems and will survive. The same for a nearby honey locust. The stem-wounded Mexican hickory had a good crown this summer and will survive, although the healing wound may be the entry point of fungal stem rot pathogens that cause its demise, years from now. The slope down to the big, decapitated cottonwood is now a riot of chest-high, weeds that will help hold and heal the soil until shrubs and trees can regrow. Standing in the tall weeds, a loud buzzing heavy insect flew to my field cap and orange Stihl ear protectors for an instant, then landed 10 feet away on the bank. I picked up the handsome cordovan Cebrionid Scaptolenus rain beetle. Admired it for being out conducting its affairs (looking for mates?) on the cool wet morning after the days of rain and set it back on the ground, where it landed. A moment later a 'sleepy orange' Abaeis small butterfly landed near the beetle, its wings were a deep rich orange.
  Down by the Elm Bridge crossing, the water was too deep to cross, so I walked a bit downstream and jumped across some islands of gravel and accumulated woody debris. Upstream, Island Crossing was possible to jump too.
  On the south side of the Woods there was a pretty, 2 foot long garter snake, basking in warm sunlight near the Two Friends. I rarely ever see snakes in the Woods, average < once per year. The old cottonwood of the Two Friends is disintegrating progressively. Much of the bole is decaying back to soil. All through the Woods, elms that have succumbed to the elm disease, with the rain, have sprouted abundant big floppy growths of brownish-blonde flaccid fungi.
  On the Tree Loop, there are still tasty Mexican plums on the forest floor, north of the old persimmon trees. There is also a bumper crop of new walnuts on the ground by the oldest Albizia mimosa tree I cut 3 or 4 years ago. Green pecan nuts are falling too. Many have been harvested and dropped by squirrels.
  I was glad to see a couple of frogs hopping about in the Woods far from the ponds. There are small pools of rain water, bathtub-sized that would be good for them to colonize, scattered through the Woods.
  No deer, no flocks of robins, and no sign of other large quadrupeds, apart from one pile of scat on fallen log, filled with the 'berries' of Celtis sugarberry.
  I was happy to be able to walk up the Main SW trail a couple hundred yards, up just past the fallen, hanging elm. The flood water filled the trail from that point north and eastward.
   The old, weathered leafy crowns of the green ash stand and the big cottonwoods, sugarberries and elms have lost maybe 70% of their leaves.  The nut trees, oaks and pecans, still hold almost all of their leaves. The Parthenocissus Virginia creeper vine leaves are beautiful wine-red up the trees. The few poison ivy vine leaves are golden yellow. Along the western fence line small-flowered purple asters still bloom.
   I re-visited the patch of invasive Bittersweet and was not surprised to find a few more green leafy stems, surviving my eradication effort. More work for tomorrow.

Bittersweet attack

Monday morning quick follow up to my Sept 18 attack, three weeks hence, on patch of invasive oriental bittersweet in the Woods.  I walked from the NW entrance past the two ponds.. both still with reasonable water levels for autumn. Its been dry. Several robins on the south side of the NW Pond.
There are now two different blockages of trail that will require chain saw to open, one by invasive Nandina corner, one by big cottonwood in Big Tree Grove (also NE corner by west end of Pipeline).
Fair number of spider webs but no spiders observed on webs. Flowers have almost all gone to seed except white Verbesina virginica Frostweed.
Small group of four white-tail deer moving south from Big Tree Grove; maybe two yearlings. Soon there will be more deer in the Woods, when hunting season begins.
The bittersweet patch has lost most of its big vines climbing up to the canopy and I was glad to see the area nearest the trail seemed to now be clear of them where I had cut and treated. But back in the thicker thicket under branches of leaning dead juniper there were many small resprouts I had cut, but not treated earlier in the year. Today I cut and treated for another hour. Hope in a few weeks it will be mostly gone, although I know some will remain. Eradication takes persistence.