Changes

 It is the golden time in the Woods again. Yesterday afternoon I went to the Woods' NE Gate to see how the Woods have changed. We have now had some good 1-2 inch rains. The ground is no longer parched. Daytime temps have fallen to pleasant 50's-70's - a favorite time of the year. Fifty feet inside the NE Gate there stands a young black hickory with beautiful rich, butter yellow leaves. There are a half dozen of these in the Woods. They light up the under story in late October.

 Along the trails a diverse carpet of yellow leaves light the way. Yellow from the green ash, and elm, and sugarberry. Red from persimmon and haw and Virginia creeper. Beautiful sight and fresh autumn smell of fallen leaves. Later leaf drop species like bur, pin and blackjack oak, most of the cottonwoods, and willows still hold green leaves.

 To my surprise, the light rains have resuscitated some wilted shrubs like the Callicarpa beautyberry. In August, all of these had leaves that were dry as paper, wilted or shriveled. They looked beyond the point of survival. But rains saved the leaves of half or more of the beautyberry. They will get in one more shot of photosynthesis to feed the roots, stem and new buds for next year before increasing cold induces leaf drop.

Other species did not do as well. There were three of the Euonymus spindle trees in the Woods (that I knew of). I enjoyed one nearest the second largest cottonwood tree in the Woods. It held its green leaves later than others, but it did not survive. A larger spindle tree on the SW side of the East Pond is better and producing its distinctive decorative seeds.

Some trees and shrubs are maturing their fruit: the soft red berries of Symphoricarpos buckbrush, the red rose hips of multiflora rose, the large incongruous grapefruit-sized bright green fruit of the one Osage orange, or bois d'arc in the Woods. Squirrels have chiseled down some of the nuts from the large pecans, but most of the pecans are still holding on.

There is work needed with some large pecan tree tops down, massively blocking trails and requiring a saw to clear. I will wait until after first frosts put the ticks and chiggers to bed for the year.

I stopped to investigate under the bark of a large log and found a gathering of beetles that I did not recognize. Flat, the size of two grains of rice, cordovan color with black eyes, antennae that looked like darkling beetles. A half dozen were feeding with some smaller saw-tooth grain beetles on fungi beneath the bark. Exciting to find new species in the Woods.

And the greatest new change in the Woods is a new bridge across Island Crossing. Looks well designed and well built, with a set of log steps down the steep bank. This is a great addition and will be helpful for wet days and winter.

Drought, Apical dominance and Invasive shrubs

Mesonet this morning reports that this 30 day period just finished, is the driest period across these dates in the past 100 years. However one views the data, it is clear the Woods are in an unusually dry period. I entered the SW Gate at 10 AM to walk through the southern Woods and to see what may have changed. The canopy of the Woods is still green. Few leaves have fallen or begun to change color. Many box elder along the trail had stump sprouts or growth of green shoots and leaves from axillary buds along the stem. I wondered if this could be a response to inadequate auxin from poor growth at the top of the tree, resulting from the heat and summer drought. Need to check with tree physiologists.

As I was contemplating this, another form of 'dominance' erupted - mobbing. Five crows, sounding like 50, began raucous calling and harassment, likely of some hapless predator they'd found. A sleepy barred owl or young hawk. The uproar continued for several minutes until the whole flock of noise flew west.

I walked the South Boundary Trail of the SW loop. West of the Beaver dam, small lines and patches of light fine sand were accumulating on the bare dry cracked earth along the Main SW trail. I've seen this before in other dry, hot La Nina years. This looks like the result of the process OU professor Asa Weese described as the potential source of the sand dune in Oliver's Woods. Prevailing SW dry winds carrying sand from the South Canadian River and depositing it in Oliver's Woods. An extensive dry period five thousand years ago may have been the time of the growth of the dune. [Weese was a distinguished academic, President of the Ecological Society 1931, Ecologist of the Oklahoma Biological Survey, President of the Oklahoma Academy of Science 1931-1933. ]

https://www.esa.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/94/2022/02/Weese_AO.pdf

Walking along the NW side of the dune, I enjoyed seeing a monarch butterfly out in the sunshine. Their migration south is continuing. The sunny patch was an opening produced by die back of several large invasive Ligustrum privet shrubs. Privet all through the Woods was killed by extreme February cold 2021. Now dead stems of privet carry small patches of a white decay fungus, likely turkey tails, Trametes versicolor. 

Crossing the dune on the West Dune trail there are several invasive Amur honeysuckle Lonicera maackii that should be removed before they can start to take over the Woods as they have in other local preserves (e.g Riley Park Noble OK).