Today I returned to the Woods through the NE gate, after several weeks of April & May away. The trails are almost hidden, full of green life they will hold until autumn.
Fifty meters up the trail, there was a noticeable mammal smell, like a deer, perhaps bedded down taking a siesta before I disturbed it. There was a square patch of the overgrown trail cleared, as if it had been marked as territory, although breeding season is months away.
Mosquitoes were abundant, but manageable, with some DEET applied.
From the NE Gate the under-story was rank and abundant, healthy. Some non-native Johnson grass, but more of the native coral-berry, elephant's foot and other annuals. With a mild spring and recent good rains, all the under-story herbs, plus the shrubs, and trees are healthy and sprinting, with their most rapid growth of the year. It will be a good year for early summer growth of the trees. With little or no human traffic, trail-side plants are extending their fine roots, rebuilding the soil, rapidly pushing up new stems and pushing out new leaves. Replenishing and renewing the forest (and capturing carbon returned to the soil.) The thick under-story below the Pipeline trail was flashing with iridescent Ebony jewelwing damselflies Calopteryx maculata. Frogs made swift, long leaps through the green grasses, leaving the overgrown trail. A new two meter tall streak of fruity-smelling flux extends down a medium diameter elm, attracting beetles, ants and flies.
Throughout the Woods, fluffy cottonwood seeds are floating, descending and drifting to new locations. The seeds may grow or fail. But who will use or eat the diaphanous resource of cotton that drifts and coats the ground? Collembola springtails? mites? fungi? bacteria? There is an ephemeral feast of the cotton available.
Spiders webs are back across the trails, but not many. I wonder when their webs will be abundant.
Along the Two Pecan trail just north of the hanging branch tree there was a mature box turtle upside down. It looked like it had inadvertently tipped over into a shallow, cup-sized depression of dried leaves and sticks and had not been able to turn back over. Who knows how long it had been trapped there? days? weeks? Thinking it might be alive, I smelled the shell and there was no whiff of decay so I was hopeful. I left it right side up and hoped it would not be there when I returned.
Along the levee I stopped to pull up more English ivy near and north of the big walnut #194. There was still quite a good bit, even after some dedicated efforts to pull it out in April. The same was true at the oriental bittersweet location. After scores of hours pulling and attempting to eradicate these two species, I think they may both outlive me in the Woods, and may dominate it. Could be a dystopian way of locking up carbon from the atmosphere. Interesting idea to unleash / encourage all the fastest growing invasives everywhere to lock up carbon in maximum growth (not serious). Interesting transition now happening with collapse and decay of the tallest invasive Ligustrum privet shrubs that were killed in the intense cold of February 2021. Watching to see if it fully returns, or if Ligustrum loses some ground to other species.
Southwest of Elm Bridge by the one white PVC marker, there was a carrion smell, perhaps a small dead armadillo, raccoon, or opossum, or part of a deer carcass. Very light winds wafting the smell. I tried using spider silk and then cottonwood cotton to get the direction of the faint breeze, but even then, could not find the source. Burying beetles and vultures would be better.
Returning north through the Big Tree grove, a large green ash has newly fallen, #502. The sunlight was bright and strong in the patch it cleared. Interesting to see which new herbs and regrowth will move in and be the first to take the sunlight.
Back at home a quarter of an hour later, I did a quick check for ticks. Found one adult and two tiny seed ticks. After a shower and a change of clothes I checked the car seat and found one more adult tick and five more tiny seed tick nymphs. Not surprising after grubbing around in the Woods pulling ivy and bittersweet. I remember this tick abundance in Oliver's Woods when I first began to explore there 20 years ago. I want to visit the Woods every day but the tick abundance keeps me largely away until frosty autumn days.
