I worked along the quarter mile Tree Tutorial loop in the NE Woods, renewing the numbered tags on the 120 trees of 28 species identified there. Pecan, oak, walnut, hickory, ash, redbud, elm, cottonwood, juniper, wild plum, sugarberry, mulberry, haw, chittamwood, black locust, dogwood, soapberry, box elder, more. The familiar names are a comfort to pronounce and remember.
Elm flowers were opening. Bradford pear flower buds were
swelling almost open. The Woods are on the cusp of waking up.
On the forest floor, Allium wild onions are rampant in the SE quarter, lots of young Stellaria chickweed leaves everywhere, some (not as much) green Galium bedstraw and a few small Veronica flowers in the cottonwoods. Rabbits will be happy and well fed after the dry rough food of winter. A few Cardamine toothwort flowers by the beaver dam with one lone whirligig beetle circling in the small pool there. I looked for invasive oriental bittersweet leaves at the one location where I've been fighting it but did not find yet (glad). I enjoyed the 4 beat of woodpecker there chiseling bark for a snack and drumming trees for territory. There were even a few insects flying, a bright red admiral butterfly suddenly landing at my feet, a dark Polistes wasp exploring cottonwood bark looking for lunch, and one old coreid leaf-footed bug basking in warm sun on a dead sycamore leaf. I wondered if it was attracted to the soft tanned smell of the dried old leaf remembering earlier days, or attracted to the remnant sycamore chemicals and dreamed of the fresh leaves coming in the spring.
The lower Woods water table is full and high. Good because I think the small beginnings of a La Nina are whispering the chance of a drier spring. Standing water there at the start of the growing season should power good growth at an important time for the trees. The ponds were up near full, 2.56 ft for the NW Pond and 2.42 for the East.
On the forest floor, Allium wild onions are rampant in the SE quarter, lots of young Stellaria chickweed leaves everywhere, some (not as much) green Galium bedstraw and a few small Veronica flowers in the cottonwoods. Rabbits will be happy and well fed after the dry rough food of winter. A few Cardamine toothwort flowers by the beaver dam with one lone whirligig beetle circling in the small pool there. I looked for invasive oriental bittersweet leaves at the one location where I've been fighting it but did not find yet (glad). I enjoyed the 4 beat of woodpecker there chiseling bark for a snack and drumming trees for territory. There were even a few insects flying, a bright red admiral butterfly suddenly landing at my feet, a dark Polistes wasp exploring cottonwood bark looking for lunch, and one old coreid leaf-footed bug basking in warm sun on a dead sycamore leaf. I wondered if it was attracted to the soft tanned smell of the dried old leaf remembering earlier days, or attracted to the remnant sycamore chemicals and dreamed of the fresh leaves coming in the spring.
The lower Woods water table is full and high. Good because I think the small beginnings of a La Nina are whispering the chance of a drier spring. Standing water there at the start of the growing season should power good growth at an important time for the trees. The ponds were up near full, 2.56 ft for the NW Pond and 2.42 for the East.
Through binoculars I watched a young red-tail hawk circling over me as he watched me from his height. There were also a pair of turkey vultures soaring over me, a big flock of robins enjoying the area around the E. pond. Cardinals exploring the multiflora rose and leopard frogs chuckling at the end of the day around the NW pond.
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