Oliver's Woods Notes

2012-02-05T20:23:00.000-08:00

I began the day early at the Woods and wound it up at sunset there too. I placed about 35 more of the short steel 50 m trail posts. Now only about five still remain. Then I can start to tag the posts with sequential location information. Seventy plus 50 m segments are marked now, 3.5 km.
The morning at 7:30 was cold (38F) and windy. From the NW entrance I encountered three deer near the big cottonwood with post.. doe and her two yearlings. She did not run fast or far. I think she may have become acclimated to people. Her two yearlings, are more flighty and go bounding away white tails flashing. There was a smell of skunk I must have startled by the West Pond - may belong to the burrows just up the hill. Dead possum on the trail pretty well decimated now.. fur on the trail.

Before sunset I returned to finish another segment and encountered seven or eight deer NE of the East Pond. Cottontail dashing in the eastern woods. Both morning and evening I watched flocks of robins foraging in the dried leaves on the forest floor. I thought how the new conditions of peri-urban ecology would affect the life and experience of an individual robin. Bugs and beetles are there as they have been for centuries..but now in winter, invasive green plants Lonicera honeysuckle and Ligustrum privet provide a different foraging environment. Individuals still experience the prior ecological relationships; but now have layered on top of that, new ecological effects, changed vegetation phenology/ species; flooding from run-off, the din of traffic on busy Highway 9 closeby.

Soft Soil, Steel Posts, Chilly Day

2012-02-04T13:32:00.000-08:00

After Thursday night's 0.2 inch rain, the Main SW Trail had drained clear. It looked as if water had washed up to the lodged leaning ash. I set nine new 22 inch steel stakes at 50 m intervals from the SW Gate to 85 ft. west of the Dam; and seven along the South Boundary Trail to just beyond the G10 post; and one more on the Dune Trail just south of the dune crest.

I rolled up the vinyl rolls for the three eastern-most herp arrays and stored them with the minnow traps on top of the closed buckets.. ready to be deployed.

Three or four white-tailed deer were south of the East Pond. The water level of the East Pond was 2.7 ft and the West Pond was 2.22 ft. Fresh dog tracks along the main SW trail.

Water at Elm Bridge covered the top of the steel stake there; and was flowing gently.

I walked a game trail from the Ponds Entrance through the willows and sedge along Chautauqua.

Cold 45F and windy 18 mph NW day.

Late January Clear Morning

2012-01-28T13:14:00.000-08:00

Met Gary and Ryan at NW Gate and entered via Ponds Trail. The West Pond was up to 2.20 ft and East Pond 2.75 ft after the 1.4 inch rain this week. Amazed and pleased to find the floating net turtle trap from ecology sitting in overgrown sedges. Near the ponds we heard a pair of barred owls in the southern Woods calling each other - at 10 in the morning! Wonder what was going on?
The strong winds before the rain brought down across the trail a couple of mid sized dead tops from hackberry, west and (old) east end of Ravine Trail. I cleared with saw. On the upper Ravine Trail the three clumped Lonicera fragrantissima were all blooming. Found a few fresh leaves of Japanese honeysuckle flushing out. At the West Pond new dead possum on the north side of the trail.

Spring rains or winter?

2012-01-25T17:06:00.000-08:00

Brief end of the day out at the Woods. I wanted to see what last night's 1.4 inch rain had done. After the long dry January the land was growing winter-parched, cracks in the soil. Entering via the SW Gate I just passed the 100 m mark on the Main SW Trail when I saw the shallow flood of water in the sedges and forest. Maybe 2-3 inches deep, it pooled in an interesting pattern that should help explain the patterns of the vegetation, the death of trees like bur oak that cannot survive flooded roots, the thick stands of young green ash that can. I walked back south to the South Boundary Trail and then across the W. Dune trail following fresh deer tracks in the soft soil of the trail. I saw a few white-tailed deer running north across the water, into the Woods. Not many deer in there these past few weeks.
It will be interesting to see if this late January rain will spur spring growth with the run of 50 and 60 degree F days we've had.. or if the plants will hold back with the likelihood that we have more cold winter ahead.

Snails, Cattails and New Trees

2012-01-15T17:57:00.000-08:00

Marvelous warm day in the Woods, mid 60’s. I went to the NW cattail swamp. While the two ponds are still well filled and holding their depth, the swamp is mostly dry with the lack of rain (4/100ths inch in the past 3.5 weeks). The swamp had no standing water, but the soil was still wet/ saturated. I walked out into the cattails and looked back to the NW and observed the striking sharp boundary between the old dry dead gray cattails and the greenish, yellowish brown sedges.. a sharp contour line. I was delighted to find one of the 1955 Carpenter heavy steel posts where I had searched the cattails this summer in vain. Recorded location. I lifted willow logs off the wet swamp soil and found 6 or 7 clusters of young isopods, 80-100 in a bunch with 2-3 older (adult?) isopods with each cluster. There were also lots of snails, mostly the flat, round Helisoma with a good many Physa, with their rising spirals. The sedge contour band width was about 80 ft., beginning about 5 ft. NW of Carpenter’s post. The cattails in the central zone were like an amoeboid superorganism with lobes like pseudopods. Interesting to trace the advance or retreat of the boundary with annual precip changes.

I checked 75 of student’s 132 tree I.D.s.; and corrected one third. Must check the remaining 50. I added another 8 trees mostly in the NW corner. Many trees larger than 40 cm DBH are not tagged and not in the database. Too many, to do more than a good sample. Example: there are another 15-20 green ash the same size as the ones I recorded, distributed around the NW section of the swamp extending onto dry land close to Chautauqua. Now ~ 300 trees with permanent tags identified. Getting enough to begin to make a partial tree map indicating where the different species are primarily located.

South of the big cottonwood next to the Carpenter post a herp trap bucket was open. I fished around in the muck and found the skeleton of an armadillo. I need to take down herp arrays and firmly close the buckets.

Trees

2012-01-14T21:24:00.000-08:00

Tim and I added 29 trees to the database today and corrected five other spp. I.D. Added first sycamore in the Woods. We worked from the West Wash west and south using the Trans OWP trail as our south boundary. Many more to do; but we made great progress today. Tim spotted small group of deer in SE. Warm day (low 60's). Noticed walnuts bleeding watery sap by the tag nail wound. Tim commented that warming and rising sap in winter placed trees in danger of frost damage when sap freezes and damages tissue under the bark. Leaving the Woods, we found Claire and Hope by the E pond watching Claire's feeder in hopes of catching and banding titmice.

Another Dog

2012-01-08T15:52:00.000-08:00

Out in the Woods at 3 p.m. today. (I met Joe at the SW Gate and discussed drainage and water in the Woods.)
Later I surprised a sleeping new dog at the top of the ravine trail. It came running at me, barking; and then ran and disappeared into the brush when I ran towards it. It was black with tan face markings; size of a lab, face like a mastiff. I saw no collar. With the demise of the old mangy dog, this new dog is not a welcome addition.
I saw no deer or other four-footed wildlife. Lots of robins foraging in the leaves with the coming chance of rain.
Found new Carpenter (?) post ~ > 200 ft. w. of the new post found yesterday. It looks like the sewer line excavation work 40 years ago probably displaced or eliminated many of the posts.

The ponds are holding up OK. West Pond was 1.98 feet and the East Pond was 2.06 feet. No rain for quite a while.
The Woods are very open now with all the leaves down. It is the best time for exploring.
The low green leaves of Geum are evident and the green of a henbit-like plant..maybe Glechoma gill, Creeping Charlie.

Cool, mid 50's F, overcast, dry.

Rerouting Northern Trail

2012-01-07T21:05:00.000-08:00

This morning I entered the Woods NE Gate and worked on the new North Rim Trail. I rerouted a portion of the trail around the rabbit warren / animal den at the base of the oak snag and placed blue topped cedar posts at 50 m intervals. This area of the Woods appears to have a greater diversity of young trees. Walnut is fairly common in the junipers. Walnut is known for allelopathic poisoning of the soil. I wonder if Juniper are tolerant.
Decades past, an east west band of the Woods was cut and trenched to bury sewer line (same line as Pipeline Trail) .. manhole cover is north near fence.. rather anomalous. I discovered one more of Carpenter's 1955 posts up near the northern fence line NE of the ravine trail. I'll rename the entire ravine and north rim trails as one combined North Rim Trail and use red dots with the blue blazes. The trail is 350 m from the jct with the Trans OWP trail by the West Pond to the jct with the Northern Loop near the Western Wash.
I also flagged a tentative possible link north to the fence boundary where a new gate could be useful. Lots of poison ivy at the northern end and a small animal passage dug out beneath the fence. Good for camera.
It continues to be very dry The pool above island crossing is dry; but good chance of rain Monday.
I distributed the 66 twenty two inch heavy steel rods (for 50 m trail markers): 25 at NE Gate, 25 at Ponds Entrance and 16 at SW Gate. Another two or three dozen would be enough. Have not figured out the best way to tag/ label markers.

Ponds

2012-01-05T14:44:00.000-08:00

Met Rich, Jessica and Thayer this afternoon around 3 to go to the Ponds in the Woods..marvelous day low 70's. Seine and pole net captured abundant populations of large Daphnia pulex in the sunny west pond. R, J and T took samples to see if Chaoborus were there (none found). Samples from the east pond yielded far fewer.. but there were abundant copepods, Acanthocyclops, plus diving beetles and misc other. No evidence of any Gambusia in either pond. May be good if they can remain fishless this spring. Rich and Thayer found dead Corbicula in the east pond.. and commented that they do not like anoxic water.. may have arrived on feet of waterfowl. Interesting to note that ponds were dry from summer heat/ drought until October 8 2011. Populations have had three months to grow from epiphia eggs.

New Year's Day trees

2012-01-02T07:46:00.000-08:00

Beautiful clear cold New Year's day. I went to the Woods through the SW gate at 2:30 to find some more of the big trees.
Along the Dune, I discovered several large Bumelias, one 68 cm in diameter, maybe the largest Bumelia in the Woods. This species is commonly broken more than other trees of the same age and size. The wood is heavy and dense; but the main trunk is often broken off at 3-5 meters, then vigorously resprouts. This large Bumelia was home to some animal that gathered fresh green juniper leaves I could see inside the top of the hollow trunk. Bumelias still have some of their green elliptical-obovate leaves remaining.
The Woods are quite dry now. The soil west of the Beaver Dam is like dried peat moss. The leafy mould is crisp and dry. Skunks, armadillos or other foraging animals have turned over a large area of the forest floor northwest of the Dam, looking for food. This seems to be a favorite foraging spot for them.
Moving east on the South Boundary trail I measured a few more large old dead bur oaks.. probably all the same age cohort. I wonder what killed them- drought? In the western Woods it was probably flooding(?) Need some good stand reconstruction. At the Willow basin I measured the largest black willow, then quit and began to walk home when I met Joe and Laura. We shared our walk out together talking about the Woods and Joe's air quality work. No deer seen today.

New North Rim Trail on the Last Day of 2011

2011-12-31T16:56:00.000-08:00

Marvelous day today.. 73F balmy; but this is going to swell the buds of new leaves before the deep cold of January and February arrives. At 10 I went to the Woods and began work on a new North Rim Trail. From near the east end of the Northern Loop, the route follows the deer trail north, ascending to the upper northwestern forest of juniper, walnut and mixed deciduous species. It then runs west along the southern edge of the upper terrace to connect with the highest eastern section of the Ravine Trail before that trail descends to the East Pond.
The route was thick with Smilax briars, juniper branches and vigorous growth of Symphoricarpos coralberry.
By 3 o'clock I was beaten bruised and scratched up; but the trail was through and flagged with dull orange. It will take weeks of additional trimming and many more traverses before it is in good shape; but it is now possible to follow the route all the way. The North Rim Trail will provide a view over the eastern Woods, particularly in the winter and access to the upper terrace with its very different habitat. The forest and shrub layer there is thicker than on the floodplain. It provides more shelter and food for wildlife. This trail is going to be a favorite for students interested in wildlife. There are several places where a motion camera would be kept busy recording the traffic of animals from their dens excavated in the earth along the south-facing upper slope and along their paths. This trail is also the one most exposed to the sound of traffic along Highway 9. It will be best at times when traffic is light.

A sad footnote to the day came early when I found the recently deceased old mangy dog that I had observed in the Woods several times in November. The carcass is decomposing near the junction of the Northern Loop and the new Northern Rim trails.

No deer today, although yesterday just past 5 PM I watched a trio of yearlings in the SW Woods.. not terribly concerned about me. The West Pond appeared to be covered in a light scum (of pollen?). It should be too early for Juniper (?) but the scum had the yellowish-golden tint of juniper pollen. The cold is coming.. strong north winds will bring in the New Year!

A new place and new trees

2011-12-30T20:33:00.000-08:00

Scores of visits to the Woods and I had never seen this place before.. From the top of the Dune Trail, the way west along the crest of the Dune is fiercely guarded by dense curtains of briars. Today I ventured past the curtain, moving very slowly, disentangling each length of brier before it could rip clothing, shin, ankle, arm, neck. West along the crest there is an open area, an active wildlife highway, well used deer beds and unusual large trees, not common elsewhere in the Woods. I measured/ recorded several large Bumelia or Sideroxylon there. In the past week I've added 45 new large trees. The Dune crest and the swale to the south and west is a well protected, all but inaccessible sanctuary, where wildlife can rest undisturbed by passing biologists .. and new discoveries can remain hidden from most explorers. I must return and explore.

More Trees

2011-12-26T21:11:00.000-08:00

Last two days I've added 22 trees to database, beginning with the series at #301. Approximate minimum size of 40 cm DBH.. noting GPS coordinates, species, diameter and morphology or unusual features. Working east along the South boundary south of the Dune. Continue east of the OWP recycled Coca-Cola sign board.
On walk-around encountered the barred owl again on the north side of the west pond. Cool to mid high 40's, low 50's.

Today had some inspired thoughts about Oliver's Woods as an example of peri-urban ecology.

Tuesday 27 Dec good 3 hour excursion with Michael and Becky discussing phenomena in the Woods. Water flow, plants, animals.

Solstice, Wind Symphony and Owl Surprise

2011-12-22T15:30:00.000-08:00

Good, slow 45/100ths inch of rain fell on Monday the 19th. I visited the Woods through the SW Gate in the afternoon on a warmish (55F) Wed the 21st, Winter Solstice. I was greeted by a calm whitetailed doe near the NW corner of the dune. She declined to run; but her two yearlings, a 100 meters east, ran off to the west, white tails flashing.
The ponds had risen in an asymmetrical fashion - the E Pond was up to 2.30 ft and the W Pond was up to 2.10. Both began at 2.0 before the rain. There were a dozen busy aquatic insects (small chironomids?) flying over a small SW corner of the Western pond.. couldn't make out from a distance what they were. Otherwise, the ponds were quiet. A downy woodpecker was working hard to extract the small peanuts from Claire's titmouse feeder by the E Pond.

I returned to the Woods on a much colder afternoon, today, the 22nd via the trash station. Approaching the south entrance by the H10 post, I disturbed a large barred owl that flew 100 feet west and then looked at me until I moved on. I wandered east across the recently washed-over ragweed delta. The patches of big-leaved Polygonum that had remained green along the service road were now dead and brown. Along the delta stream channels, I found a curious hole in the soft wet sand, 1.5-2 inch diam. and a foot deep, straight down. I wonder what could have made that. I dipped in a stick and the bottom 3 in. came up wet with ground water.. a good test location for shallow water table depth.

W of the Elm Bridge I heard a loud, high-pitched sound like the call of a hawk ringing through the Woods. After a moment. I discovered it was from the large branches of a broken elm lodged against the upper bole of a stout young green ash. In the 12-17 mph N wind the two trees played a unique wind symphony together. I wondered how the sounds of other trees rubbing and rattling against each other would change as the wind shifted strength and direction.. and if animals living in the Woods took any notice.
West of the Bur Oak Bridge, the white barked trunks of a small group of sycamores stood out. There are not many of these in the Woods ( fewer than 20?). I expect they will grow well and their numbers should increase.
I need to find the diameter tape and begin documenting more of the large trees in the south Woods.
Leaving the Woods I took the Dune Trail south and stopped at the big leaning Bur Oak snag, to push aside a jutting broken branch.. and to my surprise flushed the barred owl from its perch on the bur oak snag just 10 feet from me. It left a dead vole or large mouse, still intact, belly up on the bur oak. I moved along without delay so that the owl could return to its dinner before the storm arrived.

Eight Deer, Santa Missing

2011-12-19T09:31:00.000-08:00

Out in the NE Woods Friday 16 Dec on the new Tree Trail I spotted eight white-tail deer together (yearlings and does) moving north along the border of the field and then dashing away west into the Woods.. no jolly rotund man in red suit.
After 33/100 inch of rain Tues-Wed Dec 13-14 the E and W ponds both register 2.0 feet depth. The W. Wash is filled with water but dry just before the Elm Bridge. No signs of turtles or other large creatures in the ponds. Lots of tracks of deer and raccoons in soft sand at the Elm Bridge.
With all the leaves down, the Woods are LOUD with the sounds of traffic on Hwy 9.. nothing to buffer and damp the sound.

Russell and I out Sunday 18 Dec 4 PM blue painting tops of steel posts in Woods to facilitate spotting. Spot another couple deer and hear a dog barking (at us) in the dense brier patch between the two dune trails. On the Tree Loop, Russell spotted a big Meloe oil or blister beetle.. just the posterior wiggling, sticking straight up out of a pencil-width vertical hole in a mound of soft soil. Remarkable that a large beetle like that is out exploring in mid December.

We also met two folks (non-university?) inside the NE Gate collecting natural items in a zip lock bag for decorations.
On the Main SW Trail someone (mouse?) is chewing on small (1/4" diam) surface roots from an elm by the dry deepest pool along the trail. Maybe they've found some attractive fungi growing there? Nearby blue-taped 50 meter cedar post marker has become a fecal marking focus for a larger animal .. coyote? coon? Need Nick to I.D.
In the center of the Woods, scores of robins were busily foraging in the leaves on the forest floor before the arrival of Monday's predicted storm. It was warm enough (58 F) that a few muscoid/calliphorid flies and noctuid moths were flying.

The soil surface along the Main SW Trail is remarkable now. Where flowing water has pushed away the thicker deposits of new fallen leaves, the light rains this week have beaten the underlaying organic duff and left a soft airy blanket on the forest soil.

Wintry Woods

2011-12-11T17:13:00.000-08:00

5 PM as the sun was setting in a wintry western cloud bank I entered the SW Gate to see the Woods. There was a light sleet falling after the very light few hundredths inch of rain this afternoon. The Woods by the gate, had a delicious smell, two parts decaying leaves, one part wine under the big bur oaks. I wandered up to the lodged green ash and thought how it had done well, despite having fallen partially over. Its upper branches were still supported 30 feet up, hung in another good sized ash.. and its roots, partly tilted out of the soil in the beginnings of a mound, were raised a critical few inches above the flood level. When the surrounding forest had all of its roots drowned, some of the roots of this tree would still be able to breathe.
i walked down to the Grandfather cottonwood following the dark soft soil swept clear of leaves along the main channel of the floodwater; then south on the W Dune trail to the odd grave-like pit by the redbud. There I decided to try forging north in search of Carpenter's steel stake 200 feet north. The briars were a thick curtain; but I had clippers and slowly made progress through.

I was struck by the way in which the Smilax greenbriar were densest beneath the branches of the junipers. Birds, waxwings and others recruit to the branches of the cedar to feed on the ripe cone/ berries in winter. They poop out the seeds of Smilax they have also consumed. They shelter for the cold night in the evergreen where the boundary layer effect of the foliage buffers a space against the wind and cold. The greenbriar, growing thick as a wall beneath and up into the branches of the Juniper provides a thorny fence against herbivores that might otherwise chew the bark or rub antlers there. All parties benefit in a mutualism built on several functions, food and shelter for birds, dispersal of seed and support for vine growth for the greenbriar, dispersal of Juniper seed and protection of tree from large vertebrates capable of damaging it.

I clipped my way westward to the end of the dune and escaped northwest to the Main SW Trail. It may be tough to find that particular steel post. The whole area is densely covered in briars growing over standing and fallen junipers.

I walked east along the E-W trail to the Wash. There was plenty of water, but the Elm Bridge area was dry. Up around the Tree Loop and by now it was quite dark. A full moon lit the sky but its light was obscured by solid clouds. I walked the trail down to Island Crossing testing my ability to pick out enough features in the dark to keep on the trail. Some of the light blue blazes were faintly visible as slightly lighter shades on the bark of the trees.

Heading west I heard large animals (deer, I assumed.. or racoons, skunks etc.) moving in the dark but could not see well enough to see any. I imagine they were surprised to discover a human wandering along the Woods' trails at night. This is their normal visual world.. dark or twilight. They must be able to navigate, find food and run fast to escape danger in the darkened woods.
The west walk back across the Woods was quite dark and gave me a tingle of adrenaline struggling to discern the trail. I reached the SW Gate and paused there reflecting that here was a new way to know the Woods.

Central Mystery in the Woods

2011-12-08T20:15:00.000-08:00

Sunday Dec. 4 after a good 85/100ths inch of rain I went to the Woods via the SW Gate. Along the main SW Trail there was a peculiar medium diameter elm near the lodged Green Ash. The bark of the elm stood out from a distance as almost orange. A little closer approach and I could see the outer bark all up and down the tree had been chiseled off by woodpeckers foraging for bark beetles. In places, they had removed the bark down to the xylem sapwood and left revealed the pretty engravings of the Scolytus multistriatus bark beetle oviposition galleries. The beetles had attacked and killed the tree with the elm disease Ophiostoma ulmi.
East, west and south of that tree there were a half dozen elms with fresh new leaves flushing out along the stem.. likely with the death of the upper branches and the loss of apical dominance. It will be interesting to see if any of these trees are alive in the spring or die over the winter.
Turning north from there off any trails the Woods are now open enough that you can wander and see new things. I encountered two deer beds.. 2 foot long crumpled ovals, like large fortune cookies, where deer had spent the previous rainy night and left the leaves flattened.
There are mysteries here. Large 4 foot x 2 foot shallow divots in the soil, 1 foot deep. Were they excavated by people or the result of some natural process? Like a rectangular crater created by the overturned root mound of a fallen tree.. but where is the tree?
There are the two old hollow steel posts standing a meter tall or more in line like the markers of a decades old botany plot. I would like to work out what they once marked. There are old faded rows of trees, cedars, lined up as if along the edge of two different early farm roads or old boundary fences.. east of Hackberry Alley. Maybe some will match Carpenter's 1950's hand drawn map of fence lines and trees (and pits) in the Woods 55 years ago.
Continuing north I wandered in to the southern end of the group of the biggest trees. There were on the ground the largest bur oak leaves I can recall.. but I could not locate the tree.. must be close by somewhere.
Walking off trail you encounter the small county roads of the small vertebrates in the woods. Narrow 4-5 inch wide paths shared by coons, mice, possums, skunks, armadillos and others as they travel from point A to point B in their nightly commutes.
The rain makes the trails visible enough to walk along and mark with tooth picks. Thinking of the animals that use these same trails week in and week out like we use the roads near our homes.. I thought again of the likelihood that most small vertebrates in the Woods don't often see the Woods the way I do.. its colors, light and shadow and patterns.. because these animals are rarely out during the day. Their world is Oliver's Woods at night. Their view is the Woods at twilight and in evening darkness.
There seems to be a small family group of 3-4 white tailed deer that are using the Woods for their winter shelter.
Now in the Woods the last of the canopy leaves are down. The green that stands out now are Euonymous strawberry vines, Eleagnus Russian olive and Ligustrum Privet (latter two both exotic).

Warm Day in Early Winter Robins for Tea

2011-12-01T20:35:00.000-08:00

Mid 60's this afternoon. I had to quit my desk and go walk in through the SW Gate at 3:30. I carried the blue paint and sprayed the tops of a half dozen steel posts in the Woods. Marvelous time to be out. Cold storm winds coming in a few hours. The Grandfather cottonwood has lost all but 10% of its leaves, one of the last trees to drop leaves. Its large trunk has rising clockwise twist. Do other trees in Oliver's Woods twist clockwise?
At the Elm Bridge the sand was dry but upstream there were 30 plus robins drinking and sipping along the edge of the pool. I wonder what the male female ratio of the flock might be. The East Pond is stable at 1.54 feet and developing a little more oily sheen of organic decomposition. One white-tailed doe and two yearlings along Hackberry Alley. The doe did not seem overly concerned and did not run away until I walked closer to her. There are several to many twig girdled meter-long thin branches dropping now. They have been cut by cerambycid girdlers. I collected two lengths to look for egg niches. In the forest the rose brown leaves of Viburnum rufidulum shrubs are some of last remaining. At the edge of rubbish cliff above the Elm Bridge a massive dead elm trunk has broken south in the wind. The golden color of the fallen pecan, hackberry and cottonwood leaves has now faded entirely to different light shades of brown. The color went quickly.

Welcome Winter

2011-11-27T14:20:00.000-08:00

The storm of the past few days passed over and left a cold clear day. It feels like the first day of winter. From the NW corner up the Ravine Trail a rabbit dashed away north. The West Pond was looking full at 2.18 feet and the East Pond was stable at 1.50 feet. The flooding west of the Beaver Dam was gone.. dried down into the spongy gray black organic soil. The Western Wash was full at the Elm Bridge but barely moving. Four deer bounded away from the Woods east of the West Pond. The Woods were quiet and the clear sky was cold.

Blustery Day

2011-11-26T09:15:00.000-08:00

Overnight we had a slow gentle rain followed by a sharp freshet at 6 a.m., with a total of 75/100ths.
I was curious to see if that would produce flooding in the Woods, so drove down through the trash station to the South Central trail.
The Ragweed Delta and the Willow basin on the south were both flooded and water was moving slowly upstream west through the Beaver Dam; but had only gone less than 50 m west of the Dam. The area south of the dune along the Dune Trail was flooded but west of there was clear. At the upper Northeast corner of the Ragweed Delta there were rapids. But there was no break over across the levee and the water was just below the top log of the Elm Bridge and just below covering the island of Island Crossing.
The East Pond was at 1.37 feet and the West Pond was 2.16 feet.

There were 30-40 mph North winds gusting and tossing the tree tops. In the dense thickets of young 40 yr old green ash the trees rattled against each other like a percussion instrument across the stand. Light yellow leaves were still raining down and most trees are now bare.. but a few large cottonwoods still hold their yellow crowns. One white-tailed doe on the hill slope above the East Pond stopped, then ran away east.

November Cedars

2011-11-24T20:03:00.000-08:00

In through the NE Gate today. No purpose, no urgency, just a Thanksgiving time to relax and absorb the Woods. Down along the Wash and below the Elm Bridge there were moderate swathes of green ground starting.. Stellaria chickweed, Duchesnea mock strawberry, Allium spring onions, Viola violets, Euonymus strawberry or burning bush.
Things to eat in the Woods: Symphoricarpos coralberry, Rosa multiflora red fruits, Allium spring onions, Lycoperdon fresh puffballs. Lonicera honeysuckle berries are probably mildly poisonous.

Two large brownish orange Araneus on their webs across the trail.. interesting to note when the last are seen this season and the first are seen next summer.

I found again the two parallel rows of limby cedars - each with 3-4 trees. The east end runs to just west of the junction of the N Loop to the E. Trans OWP. The west end intersects the alternate trail running north from Fence Corner. I need to scan between the trees for barbed wire fence with metal detector. These trees look like the vestigial markers of an old farm road. Birds perching along fence lines and depositing juniper seed. Coming and going through the NE entrance cedars there is a flock of robins maybe 20 birds foraging there.

Twenty more individual trees flagged and numbered with blue tape along the Tree Loop - including Sapindus?
Plus at the east end of the bur Oak Bridge, one single Nandina with bright green leaves.

Shallow pooled water still across the southern boundary of the SE quarter of the Woods, although the Main SW trail is mostly drained.

Trees with Tim V

2011-11-23T20:07:00.000-08:00

Out to the Woods with Tim and R and G this afternoon via the NW Entrance on the Ponds Trail. We walked down to the still flooded Main SW Trail and Tim noticed elms with epicormic sprouting. New green leaves flushing all along the stem in late November with the loss of apical dominance. A sure sign of stress perhaps the last burst before death.. It would be interesting to look for as many trees as possible in the Woods with new flushing November leaves and watch their fate.. How many will be alive in the spring or early summer of 2012? Were these the trees that were attracting scores of hackberry butterflies this late summer/ early fall 2011?

Need to brainstorm with Tim about best ways to mark trails, junctions, distances, directions. How best to map? Need to map many more of the largest trees by GPS.

Maybe ask Heather M how to think about the trees with the epicormic leaf flush. For a given species (slippery elm) is there a characteristic signature of phloem sugars, plant moisture stress, stem volatiles? Maybe something butterflies can detect.. we can test or use to attract.. maybe attract beetles as well as butterflies.. an alteration of 'green leaf volatiles' aldehydes, ketones etc..?

Much of the Main SW Trail has drained and is now just sticky. Some large pools remain along the trail. Remarkably three mosquitoes found Tim.

Rain and floods return

2011-11-22T18:22:00.000-08:00

Monday night we received 141/100 inches of abrupt rain before midnight. Today, Tuesday 4:30 PM I went to the SW Gate to see the Woods. Water was pooled on the Main SW trail at 150 m from the SW Gate.. narrow inch deep pools that broadened to wide ponded areas past Dragonfly corner around the leaning ash tree.
The E Pond had risen to 1.2 feet and the W. Pond to 2.03 feet. Water was flowing, draining slowly through the Beaver Dam. A White-tailed deer sprinted west from the dam. 7 or 8 new Shaggy mane Coprinus were emerging NW of the dam. Earlier population/ clone of these was NE of the dam.
The rain has brought down many more leaves and sounds carry more clearly/ starkly of traffic.. or other sounds. It would be interesting to record sound (noise) level in the Woods 365 days of the year at 5 PM rush hour and note the change with the season.

Best Time In the Woods

2011-11-20T09:46:00.000-08:00

Early this mid November morning I went to the Woods. Overnight the weather had changed from near 80 yesterday to low 30's.. grey white sky. The past couple of days most of the leaves have come down. Some of the last are the cottonwoods. Now on the forest floor they turn the Woods to gold. The Grandfather cottonwood on the SW Trail still has near a full canopy of green leaves. I wonder if this is because it has roots down to better water.. or if it is a stress symptom.. or is genetic.
With a 20 mph wind, hour after hour last few days, I thought the ponds would lose a lot of water; but they both looked good. The East Pond has 0.74 feet and is maybe about one third its normal size. The West Pond has 1.88 feet and looks about 85% normal size.
Standing at the West Pond I heard a pileated woodpecker and then watched it fly in and begin to forage on a tree up on the plateau. The East pond has a sheen of organic oil from decomposition (maybe oil from new cottonwood leaves?).

This is the best time to be in the Woods. Full of light and color.. cool/ cold enough so no ticks or mosquitoes.. the understory open enough to see trees and features in the Woods hidden in summer. It is a good time to leave the familiar trails, go and explore new hidden things.. find new big trees, new tree species, new places. I began to see again the line of old sentinel cedars along the once upon a time fence rows; full of limbs from open field growth, overtopped now standing dead or tilted over, giving way to hackberry, walnut, elm, pecan. I puzzled again over several small trees (Viburnum?) with opposite small thorns and rounded reddish-yellow leaves with apical indented tip.. bark light mocha.. pebbly texture like miniature version of persimmon bark.. with smaller pebbles and much lighter color. The same white flower as the shrub at the east side of the West Pond?

Walking down in the dry Western Wash.. an amazing find, a new blooming light purple/ lavender violet.. one blossom.. on this early winter/ late fall day.. just above the junction of the East and West Wash.

Back in the sheltered ravines a 'bottle trail' branching west through the junk of a half century ago.. old bottles with unique miniature ecosystems.. healthy green moss cushions, protected catch basins for the rain.
There are three old car frames stripped to nothing but the heaviest metal parts, suspension, transmission, gear box and frame.
Up to the plateau and a potential route along the edge to the northwest corner of the top of the Ravine trail.

On the plateau 4-5 deer ran away northeast. I brought a saw and cleared some of the tangle of the broken ash top on the West Dune trail. Paraphrasing Robert Frost.. "something there is that doesn't love a trail.. that sends the crashing tree top and drops the tangling brier".
The old slow moving mangy bitch was south of the Grandfather cottonwood on the south side of the Dune. I think a trail can be made from the post by the Grandfather south. I need to blue blaze the tops of the old orange posts out in the western sedges.

Good time to think about why the smaller separate beds of sedge are distributed where they are.. and to see the zones of Lonicera Japanese honeysuckle (putting out new green leaves). The well defined contours/ elevation limits ( a few vertical centimeters) of flood inundation vs survival and growth.

Norma the Leucistic Red-Tailed Hawk

2011-11-13T09:09:00.000-08:00

Down by the SW Gate I watched Norma, the leucistic Red-Tailed Hawk circling and hunting over the Woods and Pott's Dairy Farm.
South of the SW gate there are bright red translucent berries of a small Cocculus vine.

In the Woods, new green leaves of Lonicera japonica, Japanese Honeysuckle are sprouting from stems. Many of the tallest trees have lost 90% of their leaves. Along the South Service Road tall white daisies are still blooming. Some yellow small sulphurs and small acridid spur-throated grasshoppers are flying low over the ground.

On the new Tree Loop I numbered 49 trees with blue plumber's tape.. sixteen spp. (I think). I need some help with a couple of the Carya and Quercus. Need a few more spp. sycamore, red and white mulberry, catalpa, soapberry, etc.

Golden Leaves Raining Down

2011-11-12T20:35:00.000-08:00

First time back to the Woods after Monday night's great 2 inch rain. At 10 AM I entered the Woods through the SW Gate. Clear blue sky, high 50's; 15 MPH wind; beautiful day.
The yellow gold leaves were streaming down from the trees. This week is likely going to be the week with the greatest leaf drop. Some hackberry maintain full green crowns. Most trees, green ash, elm, hackberry, are dropping leaves. Wonder if the now-green trees are genetically always late leaf droppers.. or if their roots had more moisture this summer.. or something else. Areas of the Woods are blanketed with beautiful yellow.. the deepest and richest yellow are the pecan leaves.
Ponds have more water: the West Pond looked full size again for the first time since this summer. Depth was 2.26 feet. Southern leopard frog was calling there at 4:00. The East Pond was good too but not full size yet. Depth was 0.48 feet.
Out on the new Tree Loop (north eastern leg) I saw again a large black Meloid oil beetle. Wonder why they are out this time of the year?
The rain Monday had pushed rafts of leaves and small woody plant parts westward in drifts. The floods had gone nearly all the way to the SW Gate from the Beaver Dam. The standing water was all gone from the forest floor. The western wash had full pools but no water flowing past the Isld Crossing.
Later in the day 2 PM I returned to the Woods with Jackson H, Claire C, Emily K and Heather M.
Jackson commented book by David Wardle, Communities and Ecosystems discusses variation in decomposition communities below various trees. Emily and Claire found a nice Anax junius green darner hanging on to a young green ash east of the Elm Bridge. It was likely very near death by old age as it did not attempt to fly away as Emily picked it up by hand. Beautiful colors and odd looking bubbles of fluid (water) visible through the cuticle in the anterior thorax.

Juniper berries are down in profusion by large juniper at junction of Pipeline Trail and Escarpment Trail.
Three deer in the central Woods W. of the white trail in the morning and one buck W. end of dune. Three deer in the afternoon in the SW Woods along the Main SW Trail.
I blue blazed the new Tree Trail and now need to tag all the trees with numbers and prepare an identification guide.

Large green ash top broken across and blocking N end of W. Dune Trail.. need saw. There is still a lot of tree breakage in these woods. I wonder which tree spp. and diameter classes are breaking most commonly. What is the principal cause.. wind, ice, rot?

Update on Rain Totals

2011-11-08T12:38:00.000-08:00

Mark A at Weather Service helped me update rainfall totals for past several rains with totals recorded there at junction Jenkins and Hwy 9 ( a few hundred meters from Oliver's Woods).
09/16 .09 inch
09/17 .52
09/18 .39

10/09 1.91
10/10 1.61

10/27 .34
10/28 .33

11/03 .03

11/7
11/8 2.02 inch

Earthquake Autumn

2011-11-06T11:49:00.000-08:00

Last night the 5th Nov at 10:55 central OK had a 5.6 earthquake - strongest in state history. I went to the Woods this Sunday morning the 6th to see if any trees had toppled. (The house had shaken strongly). By the Ponds entrance the Woods had an autumn smell of new fallen leaves. The West pond had 0.4 feet of water and a few adult dragonflies flying.
I walked the Ravine Trail eastward and saw no significant blowdown from the strong north wind gusts earlier this week. West of the East Pond there was a large area of fresh catalpa leaves down. They look to have all fallen in a brief 1-2 day period.. crackling underfoot. West of Island Crossing 50 m there is a larger area of fresh yellow ash leaves recently down. I wonder how long the leaves hold their color after falling. The East Pond center was wet but no open water.
I measured the new Tree Loop and it is 400 m, or a quarter mile (blue-topped cedar stakes at 50 m intervals). 200 m from the beginning at the white survey stone to the junction with the Escarpment Trail and 200 m back to the NE Gate. The route is clear but needs a pass with a mower or lots of lopper work or both to clear a 1 m wide swathe.
At the southern end of the South Central trail a green ash in poor health is flushing fresh new green leaves. An out of whack stress crop.. that may either be the last hurrah.. or a chance to create a little more photosynthate for the winter ahead.
By Elm Bridge a raucous half dozen crows were actively mobbing a young hawk.. set up quite a din and flew right after the hawk, close on its tail as it flew northwest. West of East Pond a nice 3-4 foot long black snake was stretched out 3 m up in some small trees by a taller green ash. It didn't move and I enjoyed watching it for a while. I saw two young deer that dashed away.

Tree Tutorial Loop Path Set

2011-11-05T15:57:00.000-07:00

Saturday afternoon.. pleasant windy day (62F); went to the Woods, the NE Gate, with saw and loppers to work on routing the tree tutorial loop trail. The route is now established. A few larger logs needed cutting, and there is substantial lopper work remaining; but the route is set. Starting from the NE Gate, left by the white survey stone, the route travels up into the more diverse young forest and heads south southeast to a point just west of the old barbed wire fence at the edge of the mowed hay field. Then the loop curves back west to join the main Escarpment Trail at the top of the hill just south of the largest walnut.

This should be a good loop with diversity. It will be fun to identify and number young trees as species examples along the route.

Friday Clearing Trail

2011-11-04T18:29:00.000-07:00

I took saw to the NE Gate this Friday afternoon. Cool, clear, still, pleasant afternoon (58F). I cleared the ash snag log broken across southwest end of EW Fence Line trail and half a dozen other logs sinking lower and blocking the trail. I repainted the pink blazes on the SE trails down to the Service Rd. and back to Barney Jct.
At Fence Corner, I met Clay and Faith from Rybz's class out working on their project. Two deer down by the SW corner of the Woods. Wednesday the 2nd was a very windy day with gusts over 40 mph. I expected to see more debris.. but the strong winds were from the north and the Woods are sheltered by the escarpment. I saw a few small oak branches with green leaves torn from the big bur oak #100 (one of the two friends). Everything else that was down, seemed like old small branches that had died previously and only now were being knocked down. I should check the exposed upper Ravine Trail.
Lots of pretty, light butter-yellow ash leaves coming down now. The Woods' floor is alive with color and light. I had the tune "The Ash Grove" in my head. I stopped and listened to the still-green, full canopy of leaves on the grandfather cottonwood, rustling in the wind.
Pile of fresh dove? feathers on the ground beneath Buzzard Roost looked like a predator had caught a bird. Crossing over the Dune 50 feet south there was a single dove flying south with me and I wondered if this was the mate of the bird that had been killed and eaten. I wonder if Ligustrum privet will act like exotic gorse in NZ - as a nurse plant allowing other spp. (green ash etc..) to grow up under it; or if it will exclude others and take over area exclusively via competition for light water etc or allelopathy. Some water in the Western Wash but none flowing. The Elm Bridge area is dry. The red pit-fall dish by the base of the big pecan snag SW of Tall Stump had been dug up by animal and left. Curious who owns this? No sign or sound or track of dogs - good.

Gentle rain, Coprinus and leaves starting to fall

2011-10-28T18:58:00.000-07:00

Gentle 0.68 in rain yesterday and last night. The West Pond is up to 0.45 foot and was quiet.. no dragonflies this evening. It was cool, high 50's. The East Pond is 0.05 foot. I thought I heard a frog call by the East Pond. No turtles visible.
One whitetail heading east near the Bur Oak bridge. Water flowing slowly past the Elm Bridge.
Near whitewash location on TransOWP .. and closer to second largest cottonwood a squawk from a great blue heron I disturbed roosting in the tree tops. A young mid size (red-shouldered?) hawk fluttered a short distance.. mottled breast, short juvenile(?)
tail same location.. just west of the second largest cottonwood.
Bright rich red Virginia Creeper Parthenosiscus leaves are starting to fall.. as are light butter yellow green ash leaves. Odd phenology this autumn with some trees reflushing new leaves early autumn after heat of summer.

30 + Coprinus comatus -like shaggy manes all over woods northeast of Beaver Dam. Great cluster of them around dead elm with bark starting to shuff off.

I refreshed white paint trail blazes. Cleared a fair amount of new fallen small branches/ small trees across trail from storm. Check NWS Mesonet and see what precip they recorded for the storm on Jenkins.

Earlier in week, Monday 24 Oct Liz and Jobin and I walked Ravine Trail to Northern Loop to Creekside Trail to Elm Bridge.. west to Fence Corner, Two Pecan Trail, Trans OWP and back out via Ponds Trail looking at big trees with potential as distinctly different snail habitats.. under different spp. of trees. Along the foot of the escarpment east and west of big tree #148 Liz commented abundant grass Chasmanthium 'fish on a line' on the slope indicated the area of a seep.

Day after Autumn Rain

2011-10-23T17:55:00.000-07:00

Brief walk in from SW Gate to see effects of rain yesterday - not much. The soil was thoroughly wetted and the bare soil roughened but no sign of washing or flooding west of Beaver Dam. Now a few gallons of open water in the East Pond (5 deer fifty feet SE of the pond). The NW Pond had risen from 0.36 feet to 0.41 feet. No sign of the snapping turtle. I am sure I heard a frog jump into the water as I approached. The Eastern Wash was running barely past the Elm Bridge. Through the Woods along the EW Fence Trail white Eupatorium boneset was blooming. On the western edge along Chautauqua white asters were in bloom. Some Clematis had bloomed again by the SW Gate. Poison ivy berries were golden and leaves of some P. ivy were turning golden red. The trumpet vine pods were full mature and green.

Woods waiting for rain and it comes.

2011-10-22T20:22:00.000-07:00

Mid afternoon Saturday Matt W. and I enter NE Gate. Walked around the proposed Tree Tutorial loop. Need to set path so we can begin temp labels of species for every tree along path.. later select down to 2-3 individuals per species.. Start next Sunday?
Woods are dry-ish. West Pond down to 0.36 feet. Snapping turtle there not moving. White tailed doe and Great Blue Heron (in trees above) there at 6 PM. Strong North winds on the 18th brought down many small twigs and branches.. some of the crown dieback from summer heat and drought..no major blow down.
I re-painted yellow dots on the Main SW trail. Some improvement in debris along South Boundary trail after Steve Womack supervisor, sent in man to help pick up.. much more to go. I told Dan Hofstedter(?) I would bring class to do moths but rain washed us out.
Armadillo or skunk disturbed litter and soil in substantial patch near the west fence line. Recurring whitewash 15-20 feet west of tree #118 on Trans OWP trail (just west of small metal debris).
Washing of Main SW trail from flood after 3 inch rain on the 9th is evident in sandy soil stripped clean of leaf litter along trail.
Should set motion detection camera on West Dune Trail at south end of dune top where small animal trail moves northeast into brush.
Need saw to clear snag log broken across southwest end of EW Fence Line trail.

At 7 PM sharp fast 48/100ths rain arrives.

Turtles Alive.. and Dragonfly Party

2011-10-10T14:37:00.000-07:00

After the past 36 hours of good soaking rains (385/100ths inches) I went to the NW entrance to the Woods to see the ponds. They are back! The West Pond now shows 1.2 feet depth. Lolling around in the shallow warm new water was an obviously delighted big snapper turtle.. if they can ever be delighted. I imagined it breaking a four month long summer estivation.. probably hungry!

There was also a veritable swarm of dragonflies..mostly in pairs.. males holding onto females that were busy laying eggs in the water. There were several pairs of Anax junius Aeshnids and several pairs of smaller red Sympetrum.. and there were a dozen or more smaller single dragonflies chasing each other ..merry mayhem.

At the eastern pond.. all was quiet.. less water there 0.4 on the gauge.. but to my surprise there was a snapper turtle there too!

Walking back I saw a 3 toed box turtle out 20 feet west of the big pecan #122 at the south turning of the trail.

Down at the Beaver Dam water was slowly draining out of the Woods.. but the Main SW Trail was not as broadly flooded as I expected.. the water was mostly 2 meters or less wide and ankle deep. It was clear the flood had been wider but most of the inundated ground was drying out now. An excellent good drink for the trees and the soil.

Marvelous Rain

2011-10-09T20:41:00.000-07:00

Great Rain overnight.. all night long.. mostly all been gentle.. and almost all has soaked deep into the dry ground.

I went to the Woods 8 AM to see what had happened. It was marvelous. Everything had changed overnight, the color of everything, the smells. There was actually a small amount of water in the West Pond maybe 20-30 gallons pooled up maybe an inch deep ..an area the size of 8 or 9 bathtubs. The East pond had the same amount but deeper.. actually registering 0.09 feet of water on the new staff gauge there.

The water in the Western wash was flowing well enough that some of it had begun to back up above the Beaver Dam, into the SW woods. There, near the old grandfather hollow cottonwood, I heard a puzzling and amusing thing, There was an approx. 40 cm DBH, middle age green ash tree near the moving front of the water, as water was slowly moving west across the floor of the woods. From the base of the tree there was a very audible gurgling sound.. like a soda straw sucking away at the last bit of a drink from a cup. I scooped away the leaves at the base of the tree and listened. It continued. I walked around the moving front of water. None of the other trees were making the sound. I listened for five minutes..then went on west across the west dune trail. I came back 15 minutes later and the tree was still gurgling just as audibly. Quite remarkable and puzzling.

A white-tail deer I encountered seemed interested I was there at that hour but not alarmed. She sat 50 feet away from me chewing her cud.. and didn't bother to stand and sprint away.

Two younger yearlings in the eastern woods dashed and sprinted along the steep slope of the escarpment and some squirrels scolded the disturbance.

The jelly ear fungi are rehydrated and looking full and fresh on the old ash snag east of the east pond.

Rain off and on most the afternoon. Now with the rain clearing off to the east tonight we've had a total of 385 hundredths.

TGFR the rain is here

2011-10-08T18:03:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning early I took the saw via the SW gate along the Two Friends Trail to the small pit. There I cleared away the redbud trunk and vines that had broken and blocked the trail. South I cut away a dead cedar that blocked the trail to the Boundary fence. I saw one deer. The Woods were very dry.

Between 4 and 5 PM the rain began - a gentle 1/10 inch.. perfect to wet the soil and soak in. An hour later the rain strengthened. By 8 o'clock we had more than an inch. It looks like it may continue for most of 24 hours if we're lucky. We need 16 inches to end the drought, according to the NOAA Palmer Drought Index data. Norman, normal total annual precip = 37 inches.

Stressed Elms and Hackberry Emperors

2011-10-04T11:31:00.000-07:00

Monday 3 October went to the Woods at 6 PM to measure the distance to the new (old thin) rebar Ana found in line with Rice's mid 1960's plots' south line. The rebar she found and flagged appears to be directly in line with the other rebar of the south line.. and is 250 feet east of the previous eastern most rebar on the south line. If the western end of the line is where we were guessing, the southern line now would be about 427' feet in length. The student papers in Rice's class describe a one acre plot 441 ft by 99 ft. This looks like it is the right length and likely is the lost SE corner. Need to look north now 99 feet for the lost NE corner.

Leaving the Woods on the SW Trail at dragonfly corner an elm there had hundreds of hackberry emperor butterflies clustered on the stem. I assume the elm is stressed and producing flux..sugary sap attracting the butterflies to feed. It looks kind of amazing. No deer, dogs or turtles sighted in this brief hour.

Armadillo deer and the Woods

2011-09-25T19:34:00.000-07:00

Good gentle rain this past several days.. 82/100 inch. I checked the Woods this Sunday afternoon at 430.. no water in the Ponds..but there is water in the Wash. It is dry before the Elm bridge but there are long pools 'upstream'. Interesting phenology now..after the hot dry summer, with the return of rains, some plants are flushing new leaves.. last week of September. Ana reports seeing several turtles in the Woods recently. It is as if life in the Woods was put on hold.. while it was being seriously tested with drought and heat.. killing many trees.. and now with rain, plants are producing new leaves.. getting whatever photosynthate may be possible before autumn/ winter.
I ran into Botany lab group in class with Rybz: Nate, Cassie, Katie and Hilary measuring diameters in tree plots along the Main SW trail near Jct with East West Trail. Good to know classes are using the Woods.
Elephant's foot Elephantopus purple flowers beginning to be produced. White flowered Polygonum also blooming on dry sites.
Need chainsaw to clear overhead broken redbud mess by pit SW along West Dune Trail.
I encountered tree or four deer between the East and West ponds (basin).
I found an armadillo working its way busily.. but without concern, up slope above west pond. A second sighting or second armadillo along the eastern end of the Northern Loop moved off, then continued to forage through the leaf pack a few feet away. Looks like armadillos have dug up a large area near the west end of the Northern Loop.

Autumn Rains and New Life

2011-09-16T20:49:00.000-07:00

Out to the Woods (NW Gate by Ponds) this evening at 7 after 83/100 inch life-giving rain today.. very gentle and slow for hours then more and heavier; so, little run-off.. the Woods and the surrounding land need so much more; but this is the start. Many trees did not survive the heat and drought of this summer. Now it is over.
Walking across the Woods the rich smells are of freshly fallen and wet leaves beginning to decay. At the Elm Bridge the Wash is flowing slowly but full.. no spillage across the levee. The curled drooping leaves of Symphoricarpos, Lonicera and green ash are extending themselves again. The leaf tissue is old but now has vital water it has lacked. Three deer leap and stop along the Northern Loop heading eastward. No water in the ponds but they are damp and will soon begin to refill. Thursday evening before the rains I took a second 4x4 cedar post to the Woods.. this one to the center of the East Pond. On posts in both the East and West Pond we now have staff water gauges (donation from Bob Nairn) attached so that changes in water depth can be measured. Each gauge has a range of 3 feet demarcated in tenths of a foot from zero at the pond bottom. As I departed the Woods Friday, Heather Ketchum's special forensic class was gathered at the NW Gate conducting a mock 'crime scene' investigation with dead bloated pigs and 6 crime scenes. She introduced me to Kent Buehler, forensic archaeologist at OU. I mentioned the grave like depression at the south end of the W Dune Trail in the SW corner of the Woods. He said he would have a look.

Walnuts and Dry Woods

2011-09-13T21:41:00.000-07:00

Friday Sept 9, out to the Woods with Barbara F, OK State Survey coordinator and USDA to look for walnut thousand canker Geosmithia and walk the Woods. Found largish walnut tree at top of pipeline trail dead looking .. won't know for sure until spring. Barbara sampled other walnut green branches along the Trans OWP trail. We talked about setting some other monitoring traps and using the Lindgren traps. Found Ana T working on tree plots by SW quarter. Trees in the SW quarter (NW end of dune) are showing significant mortality and leaf drop. Hard time for many of the trees in the Woods. The natural world here is holding its breath, waiting for rain.

Marvelous Wonderful Day

2011-09-05T16:39:00.000-07:00

Sunday the super hot weather of this long summer broke and today has been a delightful day..high temp 79F. I went to the Woods in the afternoon from the NE Gate. There was one deer in the upper NE forest area; two more deer west of the East Pond. Lot of work to do to clear a tree tutorial trail route.. maybe with Elizabeth N.
I refreshed orange, green and blue blazes across the Woods and marked 3 of Carpenter's steel rods with blue paint at top.

I drove around to the SW Gate and painted fresh blazes on the Main SW trail. I measured north from Carpenter's C10 stake 200 feet and did not find another rod. Another 200 feet north is the new-found, previously buried post C8. North 200 feet more in sedges is C7. West 200 feet is the fence line between trees #66 & #67. No Carpenter post visible in jumbled fallen junipers. Old Gate Carpenter post will be B7.

The End is Near

2011-09-03T12:40:00.000-07:00

Forecast predicts an abrupt end of super hot days tonight with passage of a northern front. Early 7:30 I met Elizabeth N and we entered the NE Gate; walked down to the Elm Bridge; across to Fence corner; south to H10; west to Dune Trail; up to Main South trail; west to SW Gate; back east to C10 and north to hit the Trans OWP; west to Ponds and east along Northern Loop to exit up Pipeline.
We saw one box turtle north of the West Pond. There were 4-5 older whitetail deer.. one doe 20 feet away watched us unconcernedly and then scratched its ear. There were 2-3 yearlings dashing away up in the NE Woods.
Pecans starting to come down. We passed a small pit fall trap at the base of big pecan snag west of Tall Stump.. and saw Anna's tree plot on the South Boundary trail with yellow flagging on each tree.
We saw understory hackberry and green ash dying at Barney Jct.
Elizabeth is interested in creating a tree tutorial trail in the Woods and we talked about how to identify each tree in a NE section of the Woods.
One yellow lab stray dog up with young yearling deer in NE Woods.

Hotter than !%$&#&^%$* (continued)

2011-08-27T15:14:00.000-07:00

Today continued hot 105F.. 55 days over 100F this summer.. new (or near?) record.. plus 7 more days at 99. More 100+ coming. Trees in OWP are dying. Green ash, some elm, some hackberry.. young 20-30 yr old trees in the understory and along NW end of dune.
Out to the Woods this Saturday morning in the NW entrance. I dug a two foot hole in the center of the dry west pond and planted an 8 foot 4x4 inch cedar post for a staff gauge (donation from Bob Nairn). Goal is to get gauge set to monitor changes in water depth (when water returns). Dry caramel brown-colored organic mud in west pond bottom, above wet black muck/ mud about 6 inches down. Took aluminum pole to east pond for same purpose. I marked it off in half foot lengths. Top of each orange paint band at bottom of blue tape interface equals half foot marks. Pole has 10 increments for 5 feet from bottom of dry pond to top of pole. Borrowed bolt cutters from George and cut away fence wire across trails. A week ago discovered another Carpenter post laying flat and partly buried along the Main Southwest Trail at the blue arrow tree. Should be about location of B9 on Carpenter's original grid.. approx 200' east of Chautauqua fence (paced). I took sledge hammer and drove post back in place.

Returned late at 7 PM to finish. One seed tick, one mosquito by East Pond, no deer. Dogs have returned to Woods. Chris S. at Treatment Plant says he saw pack two days ago in the Woods. I heard dog(s) howling in southeast Woods. Tibicen dog day cicadas are singing. Still several Catocala moths on pecan by Tall Stump and several Hackberry emperors on tree boles.

Mapping Mornings

2011-08-18T05:21:00.000-07:00

August 14 Sunday morning I met Delong Zhao at the SW Gate 7:30 AM to map the Woods by GPS. Over the next 3 hours we crisscrossed the Woods walking every trail. Delong recorded latitude and longitude for 117 waypoints. Most of these were the blue topped cedar stakes I recently placed at 50 m intervals along the trails and 19 steel posts placed on a 200 foot grid by Carpenter mid 1950's (we missed two I know of). There are likely another 10-20 that can be found.
We encountered 4 Terrapene carolina three-toed box turtles and 3-4 white-tailed deer. The turtles have been mostly missing since the rains and mulberries of late May.
Small ticks are starting to come back; but not too badly. No mosquitoes at all. Small cloud of a dozen hackberry emperor butterflies on trees 10 m west of Island Crossing.. maybe on drought stressed trees(?)

August 16 Tuesday morning Ana and I went to find the lines of Elroy Rice's mid 1960's tree plots. The northern plot's western border is parallel and adjacent to Chautauqua according to unpublished papers of Olmstead and Jenssen, students in Rice's botany 1966 class.. and the 1970 published map of Abdul-Wahab. There are thin steel rebar posts placed in two east west running lines 100 feet apart that look like they could be the north and south boundaries..but the east end of the plot is not clear. Abdul-Wahab's map, if drawn to scale, suggests plot may be about 330 feet long. Olmstead and Jenssen both describe a one acre rectangle 147 m or 441 feet long. There was a complete census of trees in this plot conducted then. The stand has changed a great deal over the past 40-45 years. Dense young green ash regeneration is perhaps 20-30 years old. Much of that is dead standing now.. likely from run-off and flooding associated with the 2000 paving of the Lloyd Noble parking area (doubled size of lot). Grazing of 14 head of livestock was terminated in 1960. The southern plot with it's long axis running along Chautauqua has not been found yet; but the vegetation there currently (many dead toppled Juniperus under Ulmus, Celtis, Diospyros and some Quercus) matches expectation.

Marvelous Morning

2011-08-13T13:33:00.000-07:00

This morning after consecutive nights with 0.9 and 0.7 inches of rain I went to the Woods early. I entered the SW Gate and took the South Boundary Trail. I placed cedar stakes topped with blue tape at 50 m intervals from the start to the end of the trail at the H 10 post; then north with stakes along the NS Fence Line trail to Fence Corner.. all done. Then I started at the top of Hackberry Alley on the Trans OWP green trail and placed cedar stakes east to Burr Oak Bridge and west to the Ponds Trail entrance.

The West Pond is still dry, although now the cracks in the mud are filled with water. The East Pond is dry except for a fist-sized pocket of open water in the center. Now is the time to get the water depth measuring stick placed in the pond.

There are many understory trees, elms and green ash mostly, up to 20 or 30 feet tall that may have died with the heat and drought of the past 8 weeks - the 'Heat Dome'. Their leaves are all dead and are hanging on the tree. It looks as though the tree could not form an abscission layer. It will be interesting to see if any of these recover and flush new leaves next spring. It looks like the larger canopy dominants are all OK.. roots probably went deeper. There are a lot of leaves down.. maybe 25 % of the canopy. There is a pleasant smell of fall and early leaf decomposition.

The rains have sprouted many quick small mushrooms and ascomycetes: Auricularia pig's ears etc. It should be good watching for fungi the next 2-3 days.

The Western Wash was flowing. Water was flowing slowly past the Elm Bridge 4-5 inches deep. Water was flowing along the South Boundary west from posts H10 to G10 and then south. Water extended 50 meters in a shallow ditch up the Ragweed Delta.

I saw two deer up by the north central area and around the west side of the Dune. The trees along the west side of the dune are nearer complete defoliation. The sunlight brightly lights the forest floor on the dune's west end like it was early spring.

On the NS Fence Line I encountered a young armadillo 6 feet away. He jumped to the side but then re-commenced foraging 3-4 feet away from where I stood. Amazing to watch.

Dry and Heat, Woods Wilting

2011-07-30T12:38:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning out in the Woods before 8 AM to beat the heat.. already mid 80's. This July is the hottest in Norman in 100 years. Since June 13 we have been over 100 F all but 10 of last 45 days.. 26/ 30 days over 100 F in July. Along the west fence facing Chautauqua the orange trumpet vine are in full flower, with some green crescent-moon seed pods forming. I drove in past the new trash station to enter the Woods at the South center entrance trail.

Woods had the pleasant smell of new fallen leaves. Across the Woods, trees are shedding leaves.. maybe 5-10 % of the canopy. Elms, redbuds, maples (particularly), hackberries, a few oak leaves were beginning to cover the Woods floor. Most understory herbaceous vegetation is drooped and wilting. Interesting to contemplate the change from the flooded Woods of late May.

I carried a saw and cleared out eight or nine fallen trees and associated grapevines, that had settled or broken across the trails. I walked almost all the trails except the southeast corner.

One cottontail rabbit southwest of the West Dune trail. No turtles. One deer snorting east of the East Pond. One stray female dog, no collar, small blond brown lab/mutt, sleeping in the big box culvert under the northern sewage line. North of there, between the two big culverts, there was a large rectangular pool full of water.. Odonata zooming around..lots of life. No water in the wash below or elsewhere in Woods. Accipiter (?) ~ 50 m west of two or three trees with ivy. Observed adult flying in and heard young bird calling for an hour or more as I walked.

The East and West Ponds were both dry. First time I have seen that. The bed of the East Pond is much tracked and dug up near the center where animals have been looking for water or food. The bed of the West Pond was divided into thick, irregular, quarter-square-meter polygons.. soft, sort of spongy, wet soil on the underside. Small fist-sized pocket of open water in the shade where an animal had excavated a shallow hole.

Snapper turtles and others likely estivating dug under shelf of roots on south side of pond.

The microarthropod fauna and microbial communities in the moist cool deep crevices between the soil polygons would be interesting to investigate. The same earth polygons but thinner, are in many places through the Woods.. diurnal refugia.

Big white Dynastes Hercules beetle(?) larva under rotting ash cut on North South trail. Lots of big feathers, smaller down and poop whitewash at south end of beaver dam from vulture roost in snag there. No mosquitoes observed..no ticks. Many Tibicen Dog-day cicadas singing. One landed on my walking stick. Spider webs across trails not too abundant.. more of the Aurantia (?). I saw no Micrathena. Fairly abundant silken ground nests of spiders in SW corner.

On West Dune trail Opuntia are yellowing..looking poor and Cnidoscolus are still growing and blooming despite my attempts to cut away. Little or nothing in bloom. Symphoricarpos buckbrush and even young Privet are wilting.

Now just over 100 F at 3 PM.

Early July walk

2011-07-06T20:41:00.000-07:00

3 July 2011 I rose early and entered the NE gate at 8 AM to beat the heat of the day.
Trails in good shape without much blockage despite powerful storm down burst that hit Norman 14 June.
It has been an exceptionally hot and dry June. The Eleagnus at the jct of Escarpment trail and Pipeline was wilting with drooping leaves. There was still a pool of water 20-30 ft long N of the Elm Bridge. The East pond has shrunk to a 10 x 3 foot by 2 inch deep remnant full of trapped Gambusia. The west pond has a large dry/ mud band around the perimeter..maybe a third to a half the normal water surface. I saw one slider turtle moving on the far side. No mosquitoes at all. Few ticks. Turtle trap is where??
Crossing the Dune Trail the mystery large bird(s) I have heard recently taking off but not seen.. they were there today.. turkey vultures. There is a lot of white wash. It looks like the spot has become a regular roost for a group of 5-6 of them.
Along Woods paths there are now lots of spider webs on the ground and a good many across the trail..but not obnoxious. I saw a few Micrathena..they seem to be more late summer spiders.. including one down in the wash that looked like it was in the process of being attacked/ plucked out of its web by Sphecid Ammophila until I disrupted events.

One deer south of Escarpment black trail, three deer southeast of East Pond.

Paused for a very pleasant twenty minutes in the new flat cement drainage ditch built north of the new trash station (new station now operating). The cement ditch had lots of easily seen insects crossing to or from the Woods.. I found a large Mydas fly.. one of the largest flies in OK.. I only see once or twice every other year or so.

There was a large wolf spider hanging out on the cooler shady side with a few score young spiderlings on back.

Carabids.. Scarites.. scuttling to the top of the 7 cm high curb and then falling back and climbing again (made it second time); green and multicolor Chlaenius and black Carabus running around; and small mutillid velvet ant, scores of jelly belly sized black scarabs.. very common grass grub.. cricket nymphs, one hollowed out Tibicen cicada killed in metamorphosis; isopods, a few caterpillars and a millipede or two.

Early June walk

2011-06-12T07:37:00.000-07:00

4 June 2011 After week away up north (Iowa Lakeside Lab - cool, green); I returned to the Woods. It had been unseasonably warm. The Woods in from the SW gate were loaded with silk net homes of ground spiders.. this one corner more than any place else in the Woods.. maybe 40 m x 40 m.. don't know why..sunny/ dappled shade there, a bit more open. A few more mosquitoes now, but not bad. Abundant cotton from group of big Populus along western wash levee. One box turtle 50 feet west of beaver dam. Same location pile of feathers from flicker(?) eaten. No deer. Big flapping bird.. vulture - still not seen, continues to hangout in trees above south end of beaver dam.. whitewash on the ground there. Flood waters of last month help keep some trails open by flowing along the path (e.g. Barney Jct. trail). E. Pond is now much smaller. I need to place a measuring post there for water depth. Northern Loop becoming overgrown with understory..needs clearing. Need saw two places: Northern Loop by big pecan and Liriope patch & N-S fence line trail for fallen juniper.

Skunk, Measuring SE Wash

2011-05-27T19:57:00.000-07:00

At 4:30 today I entered the Woods at the NE Gate on a warm (90F) humid day. Hiked to the Elm Bridge. Half inch of rain three days earlier on the 24th had brought a quick flood to the Wash. The flood cut west from below Elm Bridge flowing out of banks parallel and south of the E-W Fence Line. With warmth and wind, all (almost)of the standing water in the Woods was gone. The Wash today was still full but barely moving past the Elm Bridge.
I measured the SE Wash Trail from the South Service Road north 200 m to jct with E-W Fence Line Trail. Lot of tracks of coons (?) and deer. Mosquitoes were mild (4-5) with mild DEET. There will be more soon. There were numerous brilliant green Cicindela sexguttata(?) along the damp trail.. probably starting burrows for young in soft soil as puddles dry. At Post One (50 m N of Service Road) I had a lengthy encounter with a small young striped skunk. I surprised it digging in damp rotting leaves. Up went the tail.. and it stayed up. The skunk was 15-20 feet from me.. I was probably within its range. After a few minutes of unmoving stand-off, the skunk began energetically and threateningly to back away. Facing me, tail up it made short backwards shuffle jumps with front feet noisily dragging leaves in a threat display combined with an escape. It backed up against some small down branches blocking it and then after a moment came forward in what looked like a short bluff charge (to within a dozen feet.) I stood and spread my arms wide and growled and the skunk stopped, then began its backwards shuffle jumps again. Two or three more charges and retreats and after maybe ten minutes I moved on down the trail leaving the bold creature in peace.
Returning home I immediately changed and showered leaving my field clothes outside on the hot deck. I removed eleven ticks.. 5 tiny seed ticks and 6 larger.

Rediscovering Oklahoma in the Woods

2011-05-22T16:50:00.000-07:00

I returned to the SW Gate this morning at 9. The Lonicera Japanese honeysuckle bloom is just about gone. The Cornus dogwood bloom is coming in to peak.

All through the southwestern corner, the Woods are draining and drying. I located some deeper pools along the trails where a water depth gauge stick might be usefully placed to start keeping records of the extent and length of inundation.

Up on the west Dune top a brilliant black blue pompilid fidgeted over the ground looking for spider prey. I cut the Cnidoscolus bull nettle leaves away from the Opuntia.. and wondered how many of my ecology students would know the trees, common plants and animals along this trail. Young scientists today could launch themselves into days of discovery just as Arthur Ortenburger did 1920-1930. In the process they could create an identity and much happiness for themselves. Students arriving at university as freshmen could be exposed to the natural history and diversity here locally in the county by visits to the Woods and Canadian River.

The state has changed. In many cases what could be documented are the flora and fauna of reserves, like Oliver's Woods now surrounded by highways that did not exist 90 years ago. Invasives have arrived, climate is shifting, successional processes have acted on abandoned farm fields, habitat has been fragmented, converted, exurbanized and reduced. The basic natural history of the state needs re-documenting. We have the population to do it now.. 3.7 million.

Across the Dune trail 3 whitetail deer splash and dash away. By the odd burial pit(?) like feature, a box turtle wanders south.

Second Turtle, Water Draining from Woods

2011-05-21T10:40:00.001-07:00

Saturday morning, clear sunny, 75F light 8 mph wind. South Boundary trail is draining quickly at 10 AM. The trail through some low areas between A10 and C10 is still covered in water. East it is out of the water until back closer to G10. One small dytiscid zooming in sepia colored water.
Another small box turtle by old OWP sign. Enjoyed one black mulberry, mostly ripe. Kingfisher posted at G10. Five to six MS kites over head.

Flood, Turtle, Invertebrates in High Ground Refugia

2011-05-20T20:57:00.000-07:00

Remarkable and Marvelous

Today we had 4.6 inches rain in 12 hours (midnight to noon). By afternoon the southern 15-20% and western 15-20% of the Woods were flooded- depths 18-30 “ (knee deep to waist deep) with many acre feet of water. (Acre foot = ~326,000 gal.) Marvelous what has happened..every species of centipede, pink millipedes, many thousands of isopods are clustered together on high ground, stumps, branch stobs, sticks. Normally hidden creatures, in a newly drowned forest, earthworms, ground beetles, stink bugs, harvestmen, snails, ants.. the invertebrates have been revealed and they are tightly jammed together in their refugia, wherever there is high ground. In a mutual non-aggression pact predators and prey are jammed together with no evidence of predation as the water rises.
Up on the trunks of trees between chinks of bark there are pentatomids, carabids and more.. a bright red & midnight blue melyrid, waiting out the rain and the rising water.
Bark gleaning birds can/ will have a feast.

OU by flooding the forest (with runoff from Lloyd Noble arena parking lot) sets up conditions for an extraordinary survey of Arthropods. Why are the isopods so dominant in numbers?
The flooded area has been dry and then very dry since February snow until recent 2.5 inch rain late April. But it was flooded last year for long enough to exterminate many of the resident macro-invertebrates. The ones there today are good dispersers, survivors and colonizers. (CA isopods were dominant macro invertebrates in disturbed areas.) I see two of the pretty, exotic pale bordered roach. A big Camponotus carpenter ant colony in a rotten green ash is busy transferring larvae from one part of its nest in a large (now floating) punky log to another. Along NS fence line trail there are isolated pools of struggling earthworms and I collect several of the larger bulky and several of the skinny small ones. Be interesting to see if we have the natives still there or if these are the European worms.

What about the vertebrates? snakes? lizards? They all have to climb trees or leave.
I find a young box turtle by a washed out channel near Elm bridge.. first box turtle I've seen this year. In the NE Woods I startle 2 or 3 deer.. loud snorts.

Aleuria red earth cup fungi are new, out on the Northern Loop. Why so red? Attract spore dispersing flies??? but most of its spore dispersal is by wind.

The East Pond is greatly expanded, filled beyond its borders.. extending out to the jct with the Ravine Trail.. an abrupt change in water chemistry and dissolved oxygen.. interesting change for dominant microbial decomposers in the pond.

A few mosquitoes down on the south side of the Woods.. more to come now.

Density of floating twigs, leaves, ash seeds other lignin debris is quite variable. What determines where it will cover the water surface and where it is absent? What are consequences for decomposition and rafts of debris after drying or drainage.. seed beds? invertebrate and fungal decomposition hotbeds?

More Measuring and Mapping

2011-05-07T16:23:00.000-07:00

I returned to the Woods (NE Gate) at noon with tape measure and notebook. It was sunny and 80 F. I began adding natural history observations and some tree species at measured distances along the Escarpment Trail. I covered the first 300 ft with more detail. I will try to update this file each time I go to the Woods and can locate features along one of the measured trails. This project could take a long time.. and never be finished.. always more observations to add. I hope this can serve as the data for a Tree Tutorial Trail. The May 7 draft of the file is loaded on the Oliver's Woods web page under the Maps link as Olivers Woods Post-Mapping Project.xlsx

Along the trail in bright sun spots I saw up to a dozen brilliant green tiger beetles Cicindela sexgutata? - individually or in pairs. I saw no deer or dogs or turtles today.

Today at Elm Bridge the Wash was not flowing.. a pool extended to within about 20 feet of the bridge - upstream.
Early cotton was floating down from the big cottonwoods east of the Elm Bridge and collecting in the eastern dry wash below the Elm Bridge. Not what Robert Frost had in mind but it seemed to fit the moment and the place.
"Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow."

Measuring and Mapping the Woods

2011-04-30T19:23:00.000-07:00

This afternoon Lance and I began measuring and mapping the Woods trails. Beginning at the NE gate, foot-long stakes cut from cedar branches were placed every 50 meters down to the Elm Bridge (`290 m).. across the orange E-W Fence Trail; past Tall Stump (another 200 m) to the end of the orange trail and the jct with the yellow Main SW Trail (~650 m total).
Then on to the SW Gate for a new zero point and we placed stakes out to the end of the yellow trail at the Beaver Dam (500 m).
Then on to the S Boundary and a new zero at Carpenter's G10 post. We placed stakes north across the white Dune trail to the Dam (100 m) .. then up Hackberry Alley to jct with green Trans OWP trail (340 m total).
We saw no large animals but I thought I heard two deer moving off west of Hackberry Alley. The pools of water along the Main SW trail were almost entirely gone but the soil was quite damp and there was plenty of water all along the Western Wash.
Four tiny seed ticks < 1 mm and one larger young tick.

Owl, Canada Geese and Big Bird

2011-04-28T19:53:00.000-07:00

6 PM entry via NE Gate. I took my saw and cleared two large fallen logs from orange trail. Also cut away hackberry tree leaning/ laying over the NS Fence Line Trail.
West Wash was full but still. Water largely drained away from the Main SW Trail.. although there remain some large disconnected pools. No water at Beaver Dam. Up on Dune Trail encountered (heard) large bird taking off..but did not see. Sounded like GB Heron or T Vulture. Earlier I heard owl in the south of the Woods. Canada Geese flying over..
Next day, Friday.. what a difference the wind can make. Strong 20-30 mph winds all day and warm 80+ rapidly dried almost all the open water along the Main SW trail..only one or two small pools left.. and the wind continues tonight. I cleared the path to the big log from the Main SW trail and painted new blazes to clarify. Sweet honeysuckle perfume at SW Gate and elsewhere scattered through the Woods.

Snake Skin Elm Tree

2011-04-25T19:20:00.000-07:00

At 6 PM I entered the Woods by the West Pond. After 2.5 inches of rain the Woods are full of bright green new growth. Japanese honeysuckle Lonicera was beginning to bloom, producing its sweet odor in the Woods. I walked to the Ravine Trail and up along it to the East Pond trimming growth along the trails.. Out at Island Crossing, water flowed slowly in the western wash. Floods swept over the island yesterday.. one fresh dog track since then. (Subsequently heard one dog barking in the Woods on the dune near the Grandfather Cottonwood). All the paths were clear, good walking. A hundred feet from the SE end of the Northern Loop I spotted an interesting snake's skin up a meter high on the bark of an elm tree with Virgina Creeper. Odd to think of a snake shedding its skin up in a tree.
From Barney Jct walking east the trail crossed over the braided course of the flood as it entered the Ragweed Delta.. some pools and riffles remained in the Delta.
Upstream to the Beaver Dam, water was flowing slowly the entire distance. Above the Dam, the Woods were slowly draining; but the water was still several inches deep.. all the way to the Grandfather Cottonwood and beyond. For the entire distance the water was covered with rafts of floating debris.. mostly seeds of green ash and elm, old leaves and bits of bark. I wondered about what biological processes were jump started in all this organic debris floating in water.. colonization by oomycetes? Who would the first colonists be? What effects would they have? The soaked organic debris will be piled in rafts when the flood water recedes and will create an interesting mosaic of decomposing damp debris (and associated micro-arthropod population booms) .. and clear bare sandy soil.

Rain Returns

2011-04-24T21:37:00.000-07:00

Easter Morning and we awoke with light rain falling.. a miracle of sorts.. after weeks and weeks of drought. The rain gathered and grew heavy at times .. two and a half inches altogether in the day. At five I ducked quickly in the SW Gate to see what it had done in the Woods. Three white tailed deer were in the west side forest near Chautauqua.. looked like young deer. The Auricularia fungi were thick, heavy and fleshy on the hackberry down a short ways in from the gate. The Woods had a wonderful smell of fresh damped leaves as all the soil microbes returned to life by the rain were busy decomposing dead leaves and producing wonderful earth smells. The path was clear almost to Dragonfly corner where there was standing water moving my way. I walked on, in shallow water east until it became too deep. The whole drainage along the main SW Trail was filled with water flowing west from across the Beaver Dam.. flood waters from the Lloyd Noble parking area.. but the water was not red clay colored from the trash transfer site construction. It was turbid but only reasonably so.. mostly clean water moving across the forest floor. Looking out over the slowing filling/ flooding Woods I thought again of the huge change for soil organisms: millipedes, snails, ants, centipedes, ground beetles, earthworms, mites, soil micro-arthropods of all sorts.. and the change for the trees, going from mild drought stress to perhaps some weeks of drowned roots. It will be interesting to see how long the water stays and how deep and wide it is. I should go and check the culvert on the south side and be sure it is not blocked.
I walked across the West Dune trail to near the Grandfather Cottonwood and saw the Woods and the stands of green ash there north filled with water. The trail back along the South Boundary was clear and good walking on my way out..

Raccoon in Big Pecan Snag

2011-04-23T16:36:00.000-07:00

4:30 entry via SW Gate on a still mild (60 F) overcast day. Lots of small limbs 1 inch diameter down all over the trails from this past two weeks of strong winds. A couple of medium large diameter snags down across orange trail.. dead green ash by SW end of orange trail and medium large pecan trunk/ branch down east of tall stump. Both require saw.
Followed good sized raccoon down southern Hackberry Alley trail to Tall Stump. It stopped and looked back at me and then scooted SW to big old pecan snag to climb up and in.. probably home.

The forest is very shady today..feels like it has now gone to 90%+ full leaf out.. all fresh summer green leaves. On this one visit the forest now seems transformed to the dense green that conceals and shelters all within it.

The young plum at the northern end of Hackberry Alley now has nice green plums each the size of a large pearl.

Construction on the new trash transfer station looks like it has moved along and they are ready now to sod in the NE corner with many rolls of sod sitting there ready.

Heard but did not see dog barking at me on dune west of Grandfather cottonwood.. several minutes.. and another (?) dog barking on the escarpment above the western end of the Northern Loop. Heard but did not see one or more deer (presumably) moving south and west of Elm Bridge.

East end of the West Pond now has 10 foot wide exposed pond bottom from drying winds.
One yellow salsify blooming at Island Crossing. Pool there still dry. One prickly Cnidoscolus on dune near Opuntia prickly pear.

Windy

2011-04-16T06:55:00.000-07:00

Friday's winds were the strongest prolonged, all-day winds I can remember in Norman. An hour before sunset I went to the NE Gate with the wind gusts still strong enough to wrench a car door out of grasp. A few hundred feet up the trail the shelter of the Woods was remarkable. I met Ana and Luke emerging with collections of flowering Viola, Rosa multiflora and others.
The NE and Central trails had many smaller branches down but no large trunks. The small pool above Island Crossing was now gone, just wet earth..no open water. One cottontail rabbit on the upper NE Escarpment trail.. several robins but no other large animals seen in my loop down to the south center and back up the southeast creek trail.
The Ragweed Delta is growing up with lush grass, Gallium bedstraw, Ambrosia giant ragweed and some other spp.... still just ankle high.
Sunday morning 17 April I took my saw to NW entrance by Rudy's and cleared a heavy hackberry trunk blocking the trail. The winds broke the top out of the tree 25(?) feet up. Farther east along the Trans OWP Trail a large walnut trunk had broken off and smashed into the vegetation along the trail but was not blocking. One squirrel in the Woods. I drove around to the NE Gate and walked in on the new trail (not completed) in the upper younger Woods. Lots of Symphoricarpos coralberry to clear from the southern half of the path. Noticed full new blooms of Lonicera honey suckle near the Bur Oak Bridge.. but a free standing bush with solid trunks.. not L. japonica I think. The blooms look identical. Not the January flowering L. fragrantissima. Noticed Ben & Angie jeep at gate.

Tiger Swallowtail Clusters

2011-04-12T16:57:00.001-07:00

Several clusters of big yellow or black tiger swallowtails in the SW Woods this afternoon. They seemed to be in the tree tops around persimmon and other species. Scores of them in a few different places.. mostly near or along the Main SW Trail. I have never seen so many in there. Good walk with grad student Ana T in the Woods this afternoon. We entered via the NE Gate and walked past all 21 of the known Carpenter steel stakes. Ana captured GPS coordinates and promised to send map.
Lots of honey bees collecting water on shore of East Pond. Small group of 3-4 whitetail deer.
New leaves on trees continue to flush out.. estimate that canopy leaves are 35-40% out now. Understory leaves 80-90% leafed out. Woods are very dry..small(er) pool of water remains in W Wash above Island Crossing.
More small branches settling down and needing removal. Yellow Ranunculus and white fleabane like daisy near edge of western seep. Eleagnus Russian Olive is just about bloomed out and gone. White Viburnum shrub blooming along east edge of West Pond. Back home just two seed ticks to remove.

High Winds Little Down

2011-04-04T21:01:00.000-07:00

Strong gusting winds 30-45 mph for most of past two days calmed late this afternoon. I went to the Woods 630 PM through SW Gate and found little changed. Small branches scattered across trail here and there, nothing much. Group of 5 whitetail moving southward east of Hackberry Alley. Small pool above Island Crossing suddenly much smaller - the wind, I think. Big Event crew cleared much of the flotsam and jetsam from the wash above the Bur Oak Bridge. Seventy percent? of understory has greened up/ leafed out. The upper canopies of trees are still bare, leafless. One or two small Bradford Pears on east end of Pipeline leafed out there light green leaves early.. before the rest.

Dry Woods Spring Equinox

2011-04-02T17:43:00.000-07:00

After a week of unvarying cloudy cool windy days (45 degree highs) the sun finally broke through. I headed to the Woods at the end of the day. It has been a very dry spring but the east and west ponds' water level seems fully normal.

In the evening the eastern woods are pleasantly filled with the sweet smell of Eleagnus Russian Olive in bloom. Saw no deer, no large animals.

All along the South Boundary of the Woods there is a new five foot wide, flat bottom, concrete drain with sloping 5 inch high curb sides. This should have an impact in further isolating the Woods and stopping previous migrations of amphibians, turtles etc..

Saturday (today) walked with Cindy and Jim in from NW entrance and took long winding walk through much of the Woods. Discovered a handsome morel on trail just west of Island Crossing. We discussed possible futures of land at the eastern edge of the Woods with the old compost facility.

Eleagnus Blooming Mid Spring and Tiger Swallowtail

2011-03-24T19:42:00.000-07:00

End of day walk in the Woods..in the SW Gate at 6:30. It has been dry and warm.. many days in high 70's/low 80's this month. The understory shrubs Cornus dogwood, young elm, green ash, are beginning to open leaf buds with leaves peaking out..maybe 5-10% of the way. On either side of Hackberry Alley there is a general profusion of early spring green. The Woods are filling again with this year's new leaves.
On the east side, Eleagnus Russian olive is coming into full bloom and the Woods are profused with a subtle lemon scented sweet odor. One female tiger swallowtail flitting by with its broad blue band above the black on the handwing. The earlier wild plum Prunus mexicanus flowers are almost all gone now. There is an interesting clump of several old wild plum at the north end of Hackberry Alley - why? Their heavier musky chaparral odor is now gone.
Along the Creekside Connector trail two morels (regular light mocha color caps) fresh and in good shape. Farther south on the Creekside trail lavender and purple violets with arrow shaped leaves are out with abundant bloom.
No water anywhere in the washes except the small pool above Island Crossing.
Colony of 20 ant lion larval pits 450 feet south of the big walnut at the junction of the Escarpment Trail and the trail down to Burr Oak Bridge. Why so many there?
Skunks or armadillos or both have been foraging extensively turning over the leaf litter on the SW end of the North South fence line. Midway along the South Creekside Trail there is a dead raccoon with Thanatophilus? black carrion beetles and blowfly larvae. The exposed ribs are like a row of wishbones.
Crossing over the crest of the Dune trail the young German shepherd is back and barks at me from 50 away in the brush, then runs away.
At 7:30 there is a marvelous hanging ball of the sun over the horizon.. a brilliant fiery red orange.
The growing season is beginning again in the Woods.

New Morels

2011-03-14T20:40:00.000-07:00

Entering via the SW gate I encountered two hefty morels up by tree #45 an old oak snag.. never seen that color before.. the stem chalky white not yellow and the cap a handsome cordovan red brown, not the dark mud brown. The 15/100 inch yesterday damped the soil enough to get them going. No water in the wash, though.. except the small pool above Island Crossing. 6:30-7:30 no deer for recent few excursions. Sun setting at 7:30 with time change last night.

Two weeks of spring

2011-03-12T19:50:00.000-08:00

First two weeks of March have been mostly mild, warm and dry. Today at 6 PM I walked from the SW gate along the S Boundary Trail and up across the Western Dune Trail. Approaching from the Dune crossing from the southwest there are a series of small hummocks of soil that are curious. I need to ask Katie K and Jason J what they might be. At the top of the dune two cottontail rabbits sprinted or loped away. At the top of Hackberry Alley there are three plums blooming. Eleagnus Russian olive leaves are more fully out on NE Escarpment Trail. One yellow lab sized dog..no collar with large red sore on left back emerged from under the base of the Burr Oak Bridge.
On the north side across the SW trail I found an old green ash log and sat to observe.
This past Tuesday 8 March Mike and I walked through much of the Woods.. Found Lamium pupureum (not henbit) in bloom by Elm Bridge.. first flower in the Woods for spring. We checked a herp array bucket left open west of the western pond. Three crayfish had fallen in. Liz identifies as Procambarus arcutus. One pulled from bucket went walking away over dry leaves. Interesting that they disperse by walking across dry habitat. Also in the bucket were live Scincella lateralis little brown skink and several millipedes: long thin Julid? and stout Polydesmid; black Meloid beetles Epicauta (?)
Along the trail Mike found Tridopsis (?) snails and several white-tailed deer.

Fragrant Woods and Wildlife

2011-02-27T08:36:00.000-08:00

This Sunday morning may be one of the finest days of the entire year in the Woods. The air was soft and warm - high 50's. The sky a low overcast. After the 10 inches of snow (1 inch of water) this month and subsequent quarter inch of rain Thursday the 24th, the ground was soft and springy .. alive with new growth. Where there is bare soil, the early low growth of Stellaria chickweed, Galium bedstraw, something like Erodium heron's bill with dissected leaves and something like Lamium henbit.. all are just beginning ..not over an inch high. Patches of new Festuca fescue? are growing bright green and somewhat taller along the northern portion of the ragweed delta.

The leaves of last year, until a month ago still crunchy dry and brittle, are now matted down on the soil and soft. A small drift of oak leaves behind a fallen log up on the slope gave a rich fragrance of old oak, old barrels, or an old wooden barn in the spring.

Elm flower buds are breaking open. Tapping the branches I released a small puff of pollen. The Lonicera honeysuckle area west of Hackberry alley is visibly greening with the earliest low leaves. Small foraging spiders the size a pea are out moving around on the leafy forest floor. I walked through one strand of gossamer and walked into one small orb web.

South along the N-S fenceline trail I was delighted to find a striped skunk Mephitis mephitis trundling north up the path unaware of me. It stopped 40 feet away from me at Barney Jct. and headed east. I followed it and after a couple hundred feet the skunk looked up and noticed. Up went the tail and after another moment by the big cottonwood it was visiting, it headed east towards, I presume, its home in the cliff of old logs, broken culverts and other junk at the western edge of the old compost facility. Beautiful animal.

I returned south along the N-S fence line trail and found the good-sized area 30-40 square meters.. where the skunk had been hunting.. burrowing under the leaves and into the top inch or two of soil hunting for grubs, beetles and other insects or worms.
West of there, a small group of three deer trotted off towards the beaver dam.
Yesterday, Saturday the 23rd at 4 P.M. there had been two groups..maybe 10 deer total north and east of the SW Gate. There had also been the dog pack crossing the northeast Woods N of the Northern Loop. The same five: two yellow retriever like dogs, two black lab type dogs and the one German shepherd type mutt.

I sat for a while by the tall stump and watched the Woods. I listened to the various birds foraging and singing and noticed the woodpeckers. The Woods there are in a transition. Well distributed, (75-120?) yr old large diameter, pecans, elms and hackberries are breaking down. Their large diameter spreading trunks and limbs weakened by fungi and broken by wind, ice and age - are falling among a thicker growth of small diameter 5-40 yr old green ash, elm, hackberry oak and shrubby viburnums.
Eventually the new smaller diameter trees should become the new canopy and fill the Woods. Disturbance, including borers removing species like the green ash, will alter the succession. Eventually the large open grown trees that once stood in a grazed open floodplain until 1960, will succumb and provide the large snags and hollow down logs used by a new generation of wildlife.

Bright Woods

2011-02-13T15:16:00.000-08:00

In the mid afternoon Saturday walked in via the NW gate. Time to go slow and explore..see what the cold and snow of the past fortnight have done. Woods were full of light, and warm. It felt like the first day of spring temperatures.. in the 60's.

By the East Pond a woodpecker drilled several (7-8) holes in a large living grapevine. Each hole is the size of an acorn. I wonder if grapevine wounds are particularly likely to bleed sugary sap and attract insects for the bird.

The East Pond still 95% frozen but all the perimeter has melted. The southern third of the West Pond was frozen.

Heard a kingfisher in the SW Woods and a flicker. Somebody ate a female cardinal. The feathers had fallen from a broken hackberry branch across the trail SE of the bird feeder. At the base of the largest old (oak?) snag just NW of the Pound.. there lay a freshly dead junco..still soft and flexible. The cold and lack of food may have killed it and others..

Fresh spring onions were up 3 inches and longer by the ditch crossing W of the Elm Bridge.
The early new reddish multiflora rose leaves beginning to flush.

Under old rotten log near Elm Bridge a two inch centipede crawled slowly into the cold wood.. under same log, two hibernating snails; and a quarter-sized patch of gold slime mold sporulating. Some new gossamer in the Woods with warm temp.. amazing spiders!.. and one green bottle blow fly out at fence corner.

Water flowing slowly to Elm Bridge and beyond.. the ragweed delta not flooded; but water held in channels there slowly moving.

Ligustrum privet leaves browsed heavily on some plants.. must be survival food in snow. Some rose hips left.. not many. Odd that hackberry berries are all suddenly coming down now after the melting snow especially along the south boundary.. maybe evolved strategy as starvation/ survival food for dispersers after cold or snow when all else is gone?? Some Euonymous leaves look to have died in the cold - the most exposed.. while those slightly more sheltered below are still green.
Idea: measure the aerenchyma butt swell of green ash at ground level vs circumference at 1 meter.. as indicator of frequency of flooding.. should increase to a maximum and then percentage tree mortality should increase where flooding is more common than trees can handle.

No evidence of dog or dog tracks. Four or five deer moving north from the South Boundary across the Dune.

Disturbances in the Woods: Dec. 2000 big pecans, elms and other trees west of the wash between Burr Oak Bridge and Island Crossing down in ice storm.
Dec 2007 ice storm hit all of Norman heavily.

Evening Walk, Snow Going

2011-02-11T20:17:00.000-08:00

Out at six for a half hour across the Woods and back at sunset. In the SW Gate and along the Southern Boundary Trail. Snow melting and the Woods 20% uncovered. No dog under the hollow cottonwood.. no fresh tracks there either.
Up the South Creek Trail, the water now drained from all the delta and washout plain, remaining only in the deeper pools of the main channel. No flooding anywhere. At the Elm Bridge no water flowing, only pooled there covered with a white sheet of ice.
The Woods, after six months of increasing drought, have had a good inch deep drink of melting snow... about 10 inches of snow or about 1 inch of water.
Back across the E-W Fence Line trail. Few tracks the entire route.. back to the western sedges. One yearling deer bounded away across the western end of the dune in the near dark. Before, interesting track of (that?) young deer dragging the front of its hooves leaving light lines in the old snow between each hoof print.
Late sunset color on the horizon at 6:30.
The past few days have been the coldest, down to 1F. Tomorrow up to 60F.

Woods Winter Floods

2011-02-08T08:27:00.000-08:00

Sunday Feb 6 late in the day I went to see how the Woods were faring with the melting snow.

I walked in the SW entrance and found the Western Wash draining the Lloyd Noble parking lot was running full. At the Elm Bridge the water was a couple feet deep, just below the blue blazed log on the bridge. Walking south along the new South Creek Trail water depth was over the 17 " top of my knee boots and I had to walk a bit west of the trail.

Water had flooded the 100 m long ragweed delta stretching north from the south central boundary; but did not extend to Barney Jct. West the water extended up the wash toward the Beaver Dam but had not reached it. Along the south boundary water drained out towards the main south culvert under the service road. At the culvert it had backed up and had flooded back into the Woods in a 10 " deep pool extending back towards the Dune. Need to clear the vegetation and recent slash/ debris partially blocking the culvert.

Across the flooded area there were scores or hundreds of robins busily foraging in the shallow moving water. I wondered what they could be finding. I also wondered what was happening in the soil, around the roots of the trees, around their mycorrhizal caps with this first flooding water in seven months. What was happening to soil fauna earthworms, insects, mites, millipedes, microarthropods etc..

Southeast of Carpenter's post on the SE corner of the East Pond I found a beautiful dead armadillo in the snow. It looked like it had just died hours earlier. I was surprised at how pink all of its undersides and limbs were. I could see the track it had bulldozed to where it lay, perhaps vainly seeking food under the snow.

Snow melting. Deer's Foot

2011-02-06T07:53:00.000-08:00

Russell and I went out at end of day Saturday. The drift by the Ponds Trail entrance was waist high on Russell but all across the south face of the escarpment the snow had melted and thinned to reveal the brown leaves, leaving a patchwork of 60% snow cover and 40% open leaf litter. The flood plain forest floor was still well covered in snow and the two ponds were solid enough to walk across..although thinning around the edges.

Everywhere there were trails of deer. We found new deer beds on the Northern Loop, melted snow where the deer had slept.

Interesting that there was no water flowing in the main Western Wash despite the 0.6 inch of water held in the recent snow and the beginning of the melt.

We walked to the South boundary Trail and there by the old 1960's OWP sign we found a fresh hoof and 4 inches of lower leg of a young deer. A predator or scavenger had brought it there.

The deer continue to be located primarily in the thicker forest east of the east pond.

Many more small passerine birds out foraging than two days ago. Forecast rain should strip away much of snow before more cold and snow arrive later midweek.

Deep cold, deep snow.

2011-02-03T15:10:00.001-08:00

Out late morning for a foray into the Woods from the NW Entrance by the Ponds Trail. February first brought deep cold hovering in single digits for a few days and blizzard conditions with several inches of snow. The snowdrift at the trail head was 20 inches deep, over-topping my knee boots. The snow depth along the trail was 3-5 inches.
The west pond was frozen solid enough to allow me to stand in the center and contemplate the trees on the northern edge from a novel perspective. Around the edge of the pond there was an inch of open water as there was at the northwest seep feeding the pond.
I saw numerous deer in the Woods; maybe a dozen or more..moving in small groups of 4-5. Lots of deer tracks in the northern center of the Woods, east of the East Pond.
I found several clusters of deer beds, four or five roughly elliptical beds with the snow melted.

Interesting to see the degree to which the deer are using the blazed trails. I wonder if it is because the trails are open.. or if they recognize and follow the blue paint blazes. No deer tracks at all south of Barney junction along the N-S Fence line trail.

The East Pond is also frozen solidly enough to walk across. I saw no robins, one lone sparrow on the ice at the East Pond. One other human track west of the Western Wash.

The snow reveals the tracks of animals using the base of hollow standing snags for shelter. Need to get Nick to help figure out what they all are.

I encountered the same wild dog in the Woods along the South Boundary Trail and followed it to its den under the big cottonwood log. It ran away barking.

Deep cold, deep snow.

2011-02-03T15:10:00.000-08:00

Out late morning for a foray into the Woods from the NW Entrance by the Ponds Trail. February first brought deep cold hovering in single digits for a few days and blizzard conditions with several inches of snow. The snowdrift at the trail head was 20 inches deep, over-topping my knee boots. The snow depth along the trail was 3-5 inches.
The west pond was frozen solid enough to allow me to stand in the center and contemplate the trees on the northern edge from a novel perspective. Around the edge of the pond there was an inch of open water as there was at the northwest seep feeding the pond.
I saw numerous deer in the Woods; maybe a dozen or more..moving in small groups of 4-5. Lots of deer tracks in the northern center of the Woods, east of the East Pond.

Interesting to note the degree to which the deer are using the blazed trails. I wonder if it is just because the trails are open.. or if they are following the blue paint blazes that guide humans. No deer tracks at all south of Barney junction along the N-S Fence line trail.

The East Pond is also frozen solidly enough to walk across. I saw no robins, one lone sparrow on the ice at the East Pond. One other human boot print west of the Western Wash.

Norma the Leucistic Hawk

2011-01-23T11:27:00.000-08:00

Chilly Sunday morning birding in OWP with Angie. On ravine trail watched 4-5 white-tailed deer foraging. The bucks were snorting back and forth and flaring their tails. I think they knew we were there but could not smell us or see us well.

On the south boundary trail we watched a pure white red-tailed hawk, Norma, fly away south over the waste water treatment plant. Birds were fairly active until about 10 or 11. We saw golden crowned kinglets, fox sparrows, one great blue heron in the tree tops over the cattails, red shouldered hawks, downy woodpeckers, chickadees, creeper, carolina wren, phoebes, cardinals, redwinged blackbirds, robins galore, blue jays, etc.

Wondering about who eats berries of privet, multiflora rose, symphoricarpos, lonicera, smilax, juniper, euonymus, hackberry.

Picture of Norma above taken by Ben Holt Feb 12 2011 with the comment
"Norma A white "Red"-tailed Hawk and the guardian of South Jenkins, Oliver's Woods, and the Norman, OK Water Treament Plant"

Leucistic Robin and Dead Ducks

2011-01-22T16:13:00.000-08:00

Walked through the SW Gate this afternoon at 4. Cloudy quiet, cool (~50F) overcast. Cold front coming.. twenty degrees cooler tomorrow. Found a leucistic robin with odd coloration: mottled.. half white, half brown, tail almost completely black and brown with one splotch of white. Eye was black, beak was bright yellow orange, breast was mostly normal russet red with some white mottling. Head of bird was striking .. coloration at first glance almost like a white pigeon. I watched for 5-10 minutes before it flew. It flew with a large flock of 30-40 robins. Hundreds of robins foraging in the leaf litter or overhead in the canopy.

South service road crossing culvert 10 meters east of the extension cord from the blower building there were three ducks dead and left in the weeds. One female mallard with no head, one smaller wood duck, and one other mallard(?). All were not stiff.. and not eaten by predators.

Observed one squirrel dash up a large cottonwood.. and two or more deer escaping north into the Woods just north of the new trash station.

The path along the south border trail looks to have been cleared and swept clean of leaves in a path about a meter wide. The earlier human soiling was largely gone.. at least the most evident. Still some of that left on top of the Dune trail off to side.

Cold Opossum

2011-01-22T06:45:00.000-08:00

Four nice walks in the New Year.
I returned from the tropics of Belize and went for a sunset walk on the 13th with temperature diving to 11 F.. near a low for this winter.
I saw and heard no deer, no dogs.
The Woods were very dry. The leaf litter of October/November still unconsolidated, crisp, light chaff. No water in the Wash at the Elm Bridge.

On the 14th with temperature in the low twenties I took a longer afternoon walk on all the trails. Very little blow down or branches to clear. Fewer than ten small branches down on the trail cut by twig girdlers. Previous years there have been scores of these with the distinctive ring incision the cerambycid longhorn beetles make before laying their eggs. Small amount of gossamer across the E-W Fence Line Trail probably from activity on warmer days a week earlier.
Much of the new winter green ground cover forbs like Stellaria chickweed were looking poor, browned up around the edges of the new small leaves from cold and/or drought.

There was a recently dead young opossum at the eastern end of the Ravine trail, perhaps dead from the sub 15 F cold of the past few days, or more likely perhaps, a predator or dog moving through. The pelage was barely mussed with few tufts of hair nearby.

The Western Pond was mostly (85%) open water. The Eastern Pond was 75% frozen over.

There was still a pool of water in the Western Wash between Highway 9 and the Pipeline.
Robins and cardinals in the Woods. No deer, no dogs.

Another late walk on the 16th.. much warmer.. nearly 60F. Late just past sunset I saw one deer navigating south into thick concealing brush on the west end of the sand dune. I heard one owl near the Grandfather cottonwood at twilight.

Then the 21st, a pleasant afternoon walk with new geography faculty member, Kirsten de Beurs. We discussed a possible phenology class and maybe a phenology cam from the south (blower building) recording the Woods. We discussed possibly using 30m satellite data to register when and where Woods have been flooded back to 1980(?) and possibly having Geography students map more precisely the location of Carpenter's steel post 200 foot grid.. perhaps more big trees too.

No deer or dogs. Few birds. No branches down from light (.02 inch) freezing rain & snow on the 20th. Armadillos have been heavily foraging the trails and southern area turning over the upper soil and leaves in winding foraging bouts.

OWP Investigations Projects

2010-12-26T17:01:00.000-08:00

Relaxed ramble in the Woods.. they were still today.. cold.. low to mid 30's. East Pond and small pool in Wash were mostly frozen over. West Pond was 80% open water. One cottontail rabbit dashed away near an isolated patch of wild onion 200 feet north of Fence Corner. Four or five recent deer beds- ellipses of flattened leaf litter- northeast of northeastern corner of North Loop. Nice fresh Pleurotus oyster on freshly down pecan snag #175. Lots of fruiting polypores in large deep hole left when snag fell. This is the origin of odd large vertical holes in the Woods.. uprooted rotten snags.
Ecology students can map: Ligustrum privet, Rosa multiflora rose, vines (what vines are on what trees?), cedars (branchy? in rows? dead?), Prunus mexicanus wild plum (by early April blossom), Eleagnus Russian olive, catalpa (by blossom), more 'Liriope monkey grass, persimmons. All large trees in 3 or 4 acres (each 200 x 200' block =~ one acre).
Along the south boundary and elsewhere through the Woods there are patches of junipers all blown over in the same direction, now supporting impenetrable thickets of honeysuckle off the ground.. cozy sanctuary for any wildlife sheltering within.
Winter green on the ground: Geum, Stellaria chickweed (good snack), Galium bedstraw (very small), Stachys-like horse mint-like (same leaf odor, shape and venation).
Need to remap with GPS all of Carpenter's posts found:
1-5: C10,D10,F10,G10,H10
6-8: NE quarter off Pipeline Trail NE of flagged Liriope patch; and SW of patch in Wash; and at the jct of N Loop and Trans OWP
9-10: at Barney Jct; and by Grandfather Cottonwood
11-12: first found post between two green ash; and west in sedges (east of line to break in Chautauqua fence)
13-17: at old western gate; and north (found in the ice); and east on pink line along south border of sedge; and north to small raised clump of trees in eastern sedges; and north (on pink line) to large sedge lobe in middle of woods opening;
18-21: SE corner of West Pond; SE corner of East Pond (in water pit); by big cottonwood; just off trail between two ponds at trail turning.

Opuntia Prickly Pear and Briers

2010-12-26T11:00:00.000-08:00

December 25, needing some exercise, I went to the Woods with saw and machete and opened the old game trail from the Two Friends across the dune to the Grandfather Cottonwood.
At the crest of the sand dune was a good small patch of Opuntia prickly pear, not common in the Woods. The dune supports a different community from the surrounding Woods. It is never flooded. The exotic Lonicera honeysuckle grows thickly along with Ligustrum privet, Cercis redbud, and other shrubs and forbs down to a sharp boundary defined by the high water mark of the floods. The two species of Smilax briers under the junipers were particularly dense and I needed some impervious clothing to wrestle with them and open a path. The woods east of the Two Friends had many small 1-3 inch diameter green ash. All the mature green ash down to 1-2 diameter should be killed when Agrilus planipennis, the Emerald Ash Borer arrives. It will be of great interest to observe the fate of this advance regeneration. After beetles kill the mature ash, will the beetles remain and kill the young regen, or will beetle populations disappear and allow many young green ash to survive and the species remain an important part of floodplain forest? I think we will lose green ash entirely and will want to find out what returns.. grasses and sedges? elms? (but Ophiostoma novo-ulmi), redbud? persimmon? Maybe a chance for cottonwood to re-establish. Perhaps it would be good to establish some of the other tree species already present, before the ash die.

Christmas Eve in the Woods

2010-12-24T15:28:00.000-08:00

Two o'clock walk in through the NE Gate. Good to get into the Woods and out of the chill wind. Last night's storm brought only 5/100ths of an inch but it has turned much cooler with the wind. Under three damp decomposing logs southeast of the East Pond, I found three carabids.. all the same species of Agonum. The isopods were clumped together in tight clusters like honey bees sheltering from the coming cold. One millipede adult (polydesmid??) and a dozen tiny (first instar? white millipedes). At first I thought they were dolichopodid fly larvae. One thin earthworm.

Under one log there were patches of bright orange slime mold in small decorative beads. Under other logs there were swatches of mauve, or white or orange polypores.. just the thin body of the fungus with no conk. One log has nice charcoal black Loculoascomycetes on top and beneath.

At the base of the biggest down cottonwood there is a nice fresh clump of oyster mushrooms in good shape. I broke off a good sized chunk and enjoyed a fresh snack.

From the bottom of the tree looking up into the hollow center it looks like a cotton rat has constructed a nest there.. lots of broken sticks and chunks of bark piled in a loose assortment providing shelter. This is less than a hundred meters from the only other old cotton rat nest I've seen in the Woods, in the broken triple trunk mulberry.

I have not seen any deer the last four times.. the last five days in the Woods. I have not seen dog(s) last 2-3 times.. although this time I heard a dog when I was on the south border trail.. sounded like it was over by the Beaver Dam.

I discovered (again?) one of Carpenter's solid 1.5 m steel stakes, H9, just 25 feet WSW of Barney Jct. The base fully enclosed in a vigorous young hackberry. I relocated two others of Carpenter's stakes I'd seen before, just off the Pipeline trail NE from Ramin and Victoria's flagged Liriope monkey grass patch.. and laying in the wash just SW of the patch. And I found again Carpenter's stake (with orange flag) by the Bumelia NW of the Two Friends.. just off an extension of the Two Friends Trail.. looks to be due north of the W(?) corner of the new trash station. The trail beyond that point follows a well formed game trail to cross the Dune where I once painted small blue dots.. emerging on the north side by the grandfather cottonwood. It is probably worth opening this trail from the greenbriers as a second way across the dune without having to go to the South Boundary Trail with its new construction worker litter and mess.

No water in the wash.. except the small black pool above Island Crossing. The East Pond (and West Pond) still have good water levels. West of the Burr Oak Bridge the bright red berries of the tall honeysuckle shrub have shriveled to tiny red raisins with the winter drought.

Few birds. The Woods were fairly still. A few cardinals foraging on the south border by my southeastern bug traps. A few robins up high above the Elm Bridge. Two days ago there were a pair of golden crowned kinglets on the South Border Trail.

Looks like fresh active foraging by armadillos along the SE Creek Trail under the cottonwoods.

Along the Main SW trail 50-150 meters west of the beaver dam the soil surface is bare.. the leaves all stripped away by the wind. The soil is cracked into plates. There are small patches of windblown sand and sediment. No sign of the white calcareous deposits Linda Wallace and I puzzled over when she visited there with me.

What a Day to be in the Woods

2010-12-20T15:53:00.000-08:00

What a Day to be in the Woods.. at 3 PM on the south side it was nearly 80 F.. mid December! I drove on the grassy service road down to the blower building and then carried a short machete and saw to clear the 100 foot section of trail along the south border fence from G0 post east to H0. Lots of Smilax greenbrier and Symphoricarpos coralberry entangled with dead fallen juniper. I cleared a meter wide path there.
Then I drove out to the Chautauqua entrance by Rudy's. Despite the dryness of the Woods, the toe slope West Pond there is full. There were small fish, likely Gambusia, busily feeding at the surface. Eastward to the Ravine trail I encountered three dogs, a black lab and two German shepherds who growled and barked at me and then ran off east along the trail. I have seen this same group of dogs in there before. Down in the mostly dry West Wash flocks of robins were gathering. A dozen stood by the edge of bathtub-sized pool above Island Crossing.

Cool Saturday Afternoon

2010-12-18T20:36:00.000-08:00

I went to the Woods at 3 today, NE Gate. I walked most of the trails except for the NW. Larger group of seven deer down in the SW sedges. No flowing water in the Wash .. a pool was there above Island Crossing from the very light 2/100 of an inch of rain this week. The land hereabouts is unusually dry.

What's green in the Woods now? Sideroxylon Bumelia keeps its old leaves this late in the year; Juniperus cedars, of course; Ligustrum privet is green cover for birds with black fruit ripe now; Lonicera honeysuckle is starting to put out fresh new purple green leaves. Sedge beds in the west are a mix of green and older decadent. There is also herbaceous ground cover starting up..but not much with the drought.

At the G0 post I blazed and partly cleared a trail eastward towards the base of the NS fence. Found again and flagged the H0 post there. I need to return with loppers or saw to clear the trail through dense greenbrier and brush at one point.

Work crews have grubbed out the south side of the Dune trail clearing away leaf litter and soil. Not sure this is good.

Old barb wire fence line is cut at Fence Corner.. good to remove trip hazard.

End of my walk out at Pipeline trail at sunset beautiful brilliant gold sky illuminated the fallen compound walnut leaves laying on top of the leaf litter.

Old tin sleeves wrapped around trees maybe to keep squirrels out of pecan trees?

I found the den of a young mutt living in the Woods beneath a fallen huge cottonwood near and north of the F0 post.

Dry Winter Woods

2010-12-16T21:39:00.000-08:00

One hour noon visit to the Woods today. The past 90 days are among the driest for this time of year in the record books. Along the south border and just south of the fence a bulldozer has scraped away many of the brushy young trees, cottonwoods, etc.. leaving a narrower buffer along the fence. The black erosion fence along the construction zone was also scraped away. New rains will push red clay into the Woods until the fence is reestablished. The tree cutting and clearing of the power line right of way will allow much more light (and summer heat). (The growing tall cement wall of the new trash station will shade some or much.) Honeysuckle and poison ivy should take off.
Crew clearing electric line right of way on the north has applied Cambistat to most of the trees along the northern fence line..with aluminum tags.

Veg Plots Revisited and Leaf Layer Cake

2010-12-04T16:36:00.000-08:00

August 1966 student paper by Charles E. Olmsted in Botany 348 class with Elroy Rice describes vegetation and soil data from two approx. one acre plots set up along the western border of Oliver's Woods. I have found thin (1/8"-1/4") rebar stakes along two parallel lines that look to be the location of the North plot 145 yds by 33.5 yds. The two east west running lines are 100 ft apart. They should run 435.6 feet. It is not clear where they begin on the western end: at the fence line of Chautauqua (as Olmsted states) a few feet further west along the earlier fence line.. or some feet east into the sedges. The SW corner looks like it could have been a now-half empty green ash.. left open as a low hollow stump with live trunk above it.
Olmsted reports all the trees greater than 4 inch DBH.
I would like to mark the boundary of the two plots and do a before and after 44-45 year snap shot of the changes. Have as exercise for Ecology lab? publish in POAS?
Olmsted's discussion lists 234 juniper seedlings (>6 inches tall) along the western edge of the southern plot. Today there are many good sized junipers there; but almost all are dead, over topped by oak, elm, hackberry or pecan. Olmsted also mentions the common grass in the south plot Leersia virginica. It barely occurs in the forest there now.
In the north plot in 1966 there were 101 green ash greater than 4 inches DBH, six persimmon, one cottonwood and one elm. Today the near west end of the plot is choked with ~30-40 yr old green ash 2-3 in DBH. They are likely most all regeneration from the years after 1961 when cattle were removed. Half are dead standing from periods of high water table.

Coming in the SW entrance the trail is filled with dry new fallen oak leaves. Beneath these are the earlier fallen leaves of hackberry and elm. The different species, ash, elm, oak, persimmon, hackberry each year drop their leaves in the same sequence and deposit a leaf layer cake with oak on the top. Interesting to contemplate the consequence of the phenology being reliably translated into a spatially repeating sequence of species layers in the leaf litter.. with the arrangement varying place to place depending on species near by.

Thanksgiving and New South Trails

2010-11-26T20:14:00.000-08:00

Day before Thanksgiving I joined Tom, Chenmei, George, Wendy, James and Sarah for a walk. We entered the NE Gate and walked along most of the trails of the Woods. Encountered one group of five deer in the dense, small diameter green ash.. and another 2 or 3 deer later.

Tom had a good idea about signage in the Woods.. opening beer cans and writing on soft metal interior with ball point pin. Ink doesn't last but the indentation of the metal does.
Label each junction with a number and the names of the trails crossing.

Along the South Boundary trail someone had wrenched Carpenter's G0 post out of the ground (with great effort). I returned it to the same hole and pounded it back in place with a sledge hammer today.

Today, the day after Thanksgiving, along the South Boundary Trail I encountered two of the same dogs by the big hill of bulldozed soil/ debris. The small black dog ran off NW into the Woods running up the drainage toward the Beaver Dam.

In the Woods, all the leaves are down.. a nice crunchy layer underfoot. Should do some litter bags. Wonder which species of tree's leaves decay fastest or slowest, contain the most nitrogen per weight, the most toxins or tannins per weight. Could test green ash, walnut, pecan.

Cut a new south trail from Barney Jct. running east and then southeast to the service road; arriving there a hundred yards west of the South Creek Trail. Applied small dots of blue paint to trees with yellow and black stripe flagging.. and a few pink dots under the blue at the south end of the trail.

The new trail passes by two parallel lines of green ash trees that suggest the edges of an old farm road, cutting through the top of the tall ragweed wet area. (Wonder if this is visible in old satellite photos?) Lots of scars on boles from beaver damage. Wonder if these eventually heal with little pathology to tree.. or if they are an infection court for fungi. Could do a study on healing of trees with beaver scars that either do or do not reach the ground.

Further north in the Woods two parallel rows of limby cedars suggest another old road, now gone. Any association of greenbrier or other species with the old cedar rows? Any change in soil pH still present beneath the old dead cedars?

Dogs in the Woods

2010-11-21T20:09:00.000-08:00

Sunday eve at 5..lovely day.. warm and mild.. another last chance to enjoy 2010 in the Woods. I walked along the S Boundary Trail. Near the east end of the old transfer station a group of four growling barking dogs charged over at me coming from the southeast. I yelled at them and they ran back towards the waste water treatment plant. Looked like 3 young dogs maybe 6 months old.. a black lab with white chest, a young german shepherd, and a mixed breed black and brown mut.. along with a larger all light brown retriever sized dog.. maybe a year older? The older dog might have had a collar the three younger dogs did not. Bit worried that they might be forming a group running into the Woods and chasing wildlife.

Walked east then north to Barney's Jct and west back to the main SW trail and out through the gate with the last sunset light a deep orange, red, yellow on the western edge of a dark sky.

Flash mob of biologists at the Woods

2010-11-20T07:52:00.000-08:00

Friday afternoon Profs David Durica, Randy Hewes, David McCauley, Bing Zhang, Liz Bergey, Ken Hobson (Zoology) Laura Bartley (Botany) and Celeste Wirsig (OU-Health Sciences Center). Assembled at the NE Gate with eight students for a good afternoon exploration of the Woods. Mild (mid 60's), clear, breezy. We dove in and navigated a figure eight to the Elm Bridge, Fence Corner, Tall Stump, Beaver Dam, Dune, SW Gate, Hollow Cottonwood, Hackberry Alley, East Pond, West Pond, Northern Loop, Pipeline and out via the NE Gate again. Beautiful afternoon to be out in the Woods.

Fresh Fall Woods and New Trail Paint Blazes

2010-11-14T20:22:00.000-08:00

Back briefly to the Woods, the NE Gate, just before sunset. Priscilla had provided a supply of blue marking paint and I took a can with me to the Elm Bridge. There I marked the new trail I had made south along the western side of the wash down to the service road. I need the saw to clear off several large down trees across the new trail but it already is fairly easy to follow. I walked on up the Creekside Trail (northern section), walked Hackberry Alley, took the Northern Loop and returned up the Pipeline Trail in late twilight freshening paint where it was needed. At the jct Hackberry Alley and Trans OWP a dog barked maybe a 100 yds west. I did not see but yelled "Hey"..no reply. Not good if dogs start to regularly hang out in the Woods and hunt wildlife.

Previous day, Saturday 13 Nov I enjoyed going to the Woods and slowly wandering off trail as I used to do.. getting lost and discovering interesting features. I found again the row of old limby cedars running west to Hackberry Alley half way from Tall stump to the Trans OWP Jct. Noted again the sharp line between honeysuckle and no honeysuckle produced by the floods; found a second beautiful fresh white Hydnum toothed fungus on a stump where the great display of Coprinus had been out earlier. Sitting for a while inside the three way split mulberry by the cotton rat nest and partly hidden there I watched a family of three deer, doe, buck with modest antlers and yearling move past me. I was downwind and they peered in my direction but could not see me well. A pair of small kinglet-sized birds paused at the Elm Bridge while I rested there. I disturbed a large hawk that flew from the tree tops by the Elm Bridge.
After the one third inch rain on Friday the 12th, water was flowing at the Island Crossing but not beyond the Elm Bridge. With 70-80 percent of the leaves down the forest floor is beginning to green up again.. violets, buttercups(?), Geum, evergreen Euonymus, patches of Stellaria chickweed and similar sized small forbs. Bright red berries on Lonicera shrub west of the Burr Oak Bridge. Clambering up onto the huge Burr Oak washed out and fallen across the Wash upstream from the Burr Oak Bridge.. it had been used as a pooping station that morning by something eating a lot of hackberry seeds. There were two or three piles deposited well up on bole of the tilted tree.

Waiting for the Storm

2010-11-11T20:30:00.000-08:00

Expecting tonight or likely tomorrow mid morning, a long-forecast rainstorm and cold front. This fortnight, stretching back to Oct 30, I've been able to get out to the Woods four times for good walks. No seed ticks! Zero. One adult tick. No turtles seen. The small group of four or five white-tailed deer has moved back into OWP for hunting season.
Watching the dry leaves come down.. now sixty percent (?) of leaves have dropped. They make a pleasant crisp rustle as I walk along.. and provide a smooth, old oak or old tobacco curing barn smell.. I associate with oak and hickory forests back east in autumn.

Out on Halloween's afternoon, a lovely day, there were robins flitting along the wash by the Elm Bridge. Distant calls of crows relaxed me into thoughts of distant times and places - like the calls of seagulls at the coast. Lots of deep brown Polistes wasps flying singly here and there.. likely new queens looking for a place to overwinter, under a chink of bark, in a rotten log. Down by the wash at 4:30, I could feel the cooler down drafts and drainage. Up at the top of the slope 100 feet north of the big walnut, two largish healthy persimmons look ready to drop their orange fruit..but nothing shook loose when I banged the tree with my shoulder. At the Elm Bridge, a nice place to sit and observe a couple of daddy long legs. Just west a woodpecker drilled on trees. There are so many broken trees, there should be good foraging.

October 30 I had walked in the SW Gate and headed east along the South Boundary trail and encountered a young dog, a black and tan mut trotting north into the Woods from one of the breaks through the fence along the south boundary by the trash station. The dog didn't seem worried..just trotted away from me into the thick juniper brush. I wondered if it might 'belong' to one of the trash station employees.

On Oct 31 I decided to mark with yellow and black stripe flagging a potential route for a trail extending from the west wide of the Elm Bridge south along the western side of the wash where it spreads into braided smaller channels; continuing southeast to the southern service road. At the southern end it comes into a zone of several medium large cottonwoods blown over, or broken northward with beautiful fresh green leaves of violets growing around the cottonwoods. The route I've marked emerges by the section of large culvert pipe sitting along the service road. I then walked west along the road to the southeastern end of the seasonally wet, tall ragweed half oval. Entering the Woods again at that point and continuing north northwest along the eastern edge to a line of new deep blue flagging Ian's Plant Ecology class marked, extending back to Barney Jct on the N-S fence line Trail. I am sort of happy with the route marked but want to walk it several times and see if it is the best way.

I returned a week later Nov. 6 with a saw to the South Boundary Trail and cleared away some of the old dead junipers and a medium size hackberry that had fallen lower across the trail close to, and east of the old rusted southern OWP metal sign.

On November 7 Russell and I entered the SW Gate and went to find Penfound's old tree plot extending east from near the Chautauqua fence. We found the old small steel stakes of the southern line. It extended 200 feet ? east then 100 feet ? north to the northern line. With Russell's help I tried to flag the straight shortest lines of what looks like the original plot.. need to check published dimensions from Penfound's paper, and mark the western edge. The long rectangular plot included several largish diameter green ash and a section of small diameter ash.. probably regenerated in the 1960's after cattle were removed.. now dying from crowding and flooding. Hundreds of stems rotten at the base, easily pushed over, the bases slightly swollen with aerenchyma in response to floods from the Lloyd Noble Parking area. An interesting 50 year snapshot of change in that forest plot.

Walk in the Rain

2010-10-23T11:27:00.000-07:00

Overnight, the skies delivered a much needed full inch of rain.. and this morning the rains began again with another third of inch by midday. I decided to go walk in the Woods. I entered the SW Gate at 10 am.. walked up the Main SW trail to the Two Friends Trail; east on that a short ways to the Two Friends Cut-off. A large tangle of branches and larger trunks has blocked that and I'll need the saw there. At the Two Friends, the big broken top of the cottonwood (#99) has fallen further .. an impressive ruin. SE to the OWP rusty sign on the South Border trail then east to the G0 stake; north on the Dunes Trail across the dam. There was no water by the dam but it was clear that flood water had moved west upstream through the dam and traveled west towards the big hollow cottonwood.. stopping and settling into the soil in a sort of reverse delta about a hundred feet east of the big cottonwood.
I walked east off trail to the NS fence; east into the tall ragweed and more open young ash/ willow stand there, east across the braided streams and longer pools south of Elm Bridge. The next few weeks would be a good time to find and mark a trail or two in this SE quarter of the Woods. West from the Elm Bridge to Fence Corner, then SW to the Barney Jct trail, north past Tall Stump up Hackberry Alley. There I disturbed 3 whitetail deer. They ran away to the SW. The East Pond was refilling but still low. Round eastward along the Northern Loop to the levee. There was continuous water flowing slowly in the wash. South to the Trans OWP.. and by now I was getting pretty wet even through my raincoat; so I took the Two Elm Trail back to Fence Corner, out the cutoff trail back to the Main SW trail and out at the SW gate at 12:30.
The rain had brought down maybe 60% of the green ash leaves..now yellow..mixed on the forest floor with fallen yellow hackberry leaves. In several places there were nice fresh displays of Auricularia ear fungi.. often on dead elm. Interesting I don't see elm disease in the Woods. Along the SW Main trail from an old very decayed stump (willow?, elm?) there was a nice growth of fresh Polypore .. a broad band of cream colored new growth added to the older brown cinnamon lacquer conk of last year's growth. Here and there a few other other fresh large agaric clusters were pushing up through the leaves. The Coprinus shaggy mane of a few days ago are melted and gone. The light velvet red of Symphoriocarpos fruit were maturing. The green fruit of Ligustrum privet were full formed but not ripening to black yet.

Shaggy Mane and Dry Leaves Falling

2010-10-18T12:14:00.000-07:00

Noon today, low 80's F, I went for a walk in through the SW Gate. The last of the white clematis flowers on the fence were still blooming - only a half dozen left now. The red full berries of Cocculus snail seed or coral berry were on the fence too. Inside the Woods the forest floor is covered with new dry fallen leaves <5% of the full canopy down.. but leaves are falling. It has been very dry this autumn. OKC departure from normal rainfall for Aug-October is about 5 inches below average. (Need data for SE Norman). Two tenths of an inch of rain Sunday 10/10/2010. Two hundred feet up the trail I disturbed 5 whitetailed deer - dashed away north.
Along the main SW Trail near the big green ash leaning to the north near CCarpenter marker, there is an approx 100 m. long gold line strung through red and white loop stakes. IanR. and botany class doing 2 m wide tree transect and soil. West of big hollow cottonwood a large dark dog in the Woods (size of a lab or golden retriever) barked a bit then retreated south towards the trash transfer station.
Wonderful populations of shaggy manes..mostly fresh.. some deliquescence 10 of them with another 8 tops eaten north of the grandfather cottonwood.. and scores of them (>100?) in a long arc 30-40 m east from cut in dam..under young elm canopy.
East pond had shrunk to deepest pool maybe 12 m by 4 m. Upper Island Crossing was dry but pool just above there. Elm Bridge crossing was dry but upstream a 30-50 m long pool had lots of dark stained water. Need George's help with bridge.
Few if any spider webs. Abundance of webs seems to be correlated with rainfall. Russet brown wool fungi (slime mold?) on broken walnut trunk hanging across levee trail. One lonely katydid singing in the tree tops, unanswered. Red berries ripe and full, of double trunked large shrub -Lonicera(?) near jct Trans OWP trail and Creekside Trail.
The Woods are ready for the storm rains of autumn.

Autumn morning botany walk

2010-09-27T18:56:00.000-07:00

Nice cool morning low 70's at 9:30. I walked with Bruce, Jenna and Kayti from NE Gate to Elm Bridge, west to Fence Corner, north to Trans OWP, north and around the Northern Loop, south along Hackberry Alley to Tall Stump, south across Beaver Dam and across Dune to South Boundary, west to SW Gate, northeast and east to Cutoff Trail to EW fenceline to Creekside Trail to Northern Loop, across to Pipeline Trail and out again.

Several branches down across trail with lack of regular visits.

Blue common weedy flower = Elephantopsis together with large leaved single tall stem Polygonum on Escarpment trail, red and white Morus mulberry, Verbesina, Eupatorium boneset in white flower, 4 species of grapes etc.. Kayti took a list and Bruce will review.

Discussed establishing a one hectare plot; collecting samples for Bebb Herbarium and for a teaching herbarium (maybe laminated) for ecology students.

I found no ticks (so far) and there were far fewer spiders with cool weather. Tussock moths were skeletonizing leaves of some younger mulberries. No mosquitoes..too cool?

Last of summer: Cloud of butterflies

2010-09-18T10:52:00.000-07:00

Been warm.. fairly unrelenting. Nice 2.2 inch rain 10 days ago on the 8th but dry and warm since then.. most days in the low 90's. Now 3-4 days before autumnal equinox I went for a stroll in the Woods one of the last days of summer.. 10:30 am 81 deg F no wind.

At the NE Gate, ranks of Lespedeza were in white bloom. The trail was clear and I stepped along quickly to enter the quiet shield of the Woods and leave behind the traffic noise of a game day along Highway 9.

Late summer blooms of purple common weed, Elephantopsis; and Polygonum very common with tight small white flowers along leafless tall stem above large elliptical leaves. My favorite, Commelina day flower in bloom here and there.

A hundred meters into the Woods at the Pipeline Trail junction the soft heavy humidity damped the sound of cars and I could hear the silvery sounds of tree crickets' constant background trilling... with the loud squawk of a pair of jays flying overhead. Bird life along this trail section is more diverse than elsewhere in the Woods. The woodland border with the open field to the east is good habitat.

Mosquitoes were out in good numbers but with DEET, they were not a serious problem.

At the Elm Bridge the crossing was dry but a long pool stretched from just upstream for a hundred feet or more up the wash. It was perking with life.

I walked west on the Fence Line Trail and then took the Streamside Trail north to the Trans OWP Trail and that to the junction with the Northern Loop. Fair number of small branches down. I cleared from the trail but the trail was in good shape, if a little overgrown out to the East Pond. Lots of webs and I kept my spider stick out in front of me.

Pecans have started to fall abundantly in the NE Woods and leaf fall of elms and some green ash is getting underway. I stood and watched for some minutes as leaves drifted down from the canopy with no wind.

Across the Dune Trail armadillos have been busy burrowing on the north side. Westward along the South Border Trail a pile of gray feathers from a slaughtered dove(?) with a pair of hawks crying overhead (the likely culprits)?

By the SW Gate the sweet smell of Clematis bloom mixed with the odor of old garbage.

North along the Main SW Trail a good sized female Catocala gray underwing moth flitted from one side of a hackberry bole to another to escape me.

There was bright whitewash (owl? heron? other?) north of tree (snag) # 47.

At the Sympetrum perch there was nobody home and the configuration of dragonfly perches looked different as if some had fallen.

East up the Cut Off Trail to Tall Stump. West of Fence Corner a clump of a half dozen 2 meter tall green ash are being skeletonized by a colony of lepidoptera larvae. Eastward on to the Elm Bridge.

North back up the NE Trail just north of the ditch by the old redbud I startled a small cloud of a dozen or more nymphallid(?) butterflies beneath the Eleagnus and looking around spotted the only turtle I saw today. Out through the fence by 12:30. Small tick count eight (so far) on me and clothing.

Rain, Relief and Autumn Arrives

2010-09-04T19:27:00.000-07:00

Thursday night (2 Sept) we had a gusty powerful thunderstorm blow through Norman and bring > 1 inch of rain and strong 50 mph winds... temp dropped from 97 F at 6:45 to 66 an hour later. This followed on > 0.3 inch the previous day. Today Saturday early morning I went to the SW Gate. All along the fence north of the gate the Clematis was in peak white bloom producing a light sweet fragrance.
Up the Main SW Trail the Woods were fairly dry up to the Sympetrum dragonfly perch. No dragonflies there before the direct morning light. Just beyond to the east the earth along the trail was damp, heavy muddy..but no standing water along the trail. It was obvious where the flow of water had moved up from the dam along the Main SW Trail to the dragonfly perch. Rafts of sticks and leaves were pressed together indicating the direction of the flow.

I walked to the dam and then north along the blue white trail to Tall Stump and north along Hackberry Alley. East on the Trans OWP Trail the Woods did not show signs of flood wash over. At the Elm Bridge, water filled the wash but did not extend downstream from the bridge.

A few large branches had fallen across the trails.

The number of spider webs I encountered was greatly reduced. I wonder if this is just the temporary result of the rain.

One white-tailed deer. Mature full sized green walnuts are beginning to fall. A few large green persimmons had fallen.

Puddling Butterflies

2010-08-28T08:44:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning 9 AM SW gate, a short 20 m into the Woods, there was a delightful cool from the night and dawn held in the understory. After the quick 0.5 inch rain four days ago I wanted to see if the Woods were wet. They were not. It has been a dry hot August. Peak hurricane season, mid August brought no hurricane westward to the Gulf Coast. The western wash has no standing water in the Woods.

One or two former pools above the Island Crossing are still lined with damp, almost muddy clay. Below the pipeline, where the cement underpass splashes floods into the wash, there were Limenitis 'puddling' red spotted purples and viceroys and other nymphalids, hackberry emperor et al., Ammophila sphecids. No water there; but through the underpass beneath the pipe there was still a large (1 foot?) deep square cement pool of chalky green open water leading to the underpass beneath Highway 9. One large frog splash as I approached.

The underpass beneath the pipe was home to 2 or 3 swallow nests and many fine mud-dauber pipe nests.

Along the Main SW Trail (much of the length) there are prominent broken polygons of clay or soil with perimeter fissures providing potential refugia (cooler, moister, hidden). Are these important as seed germination sites?

Through the green ash zone, the seed fall is well begun. The eastern pond is dried to an area of open water perhaps 10-15 feet long. At the eastern pond a dead, medium sized green ash has fallen across the trail and needs clearing with a saw. Some significant fall of small cottonwood leaves has begun with the heat and drought.

Saw no turtles and no deer, although I did hear a larger animal moving..likely a deer in the woods east of the SW gate.

Need to get Bruce here to look at veg before the annuals are gone for the year.

Back home removed 38 seed ticks from clothes, ankles, legs and arms.. then went for a swim!

Still Dry Tree Fall - Why?

2010-08-14T13:13:00.000-07:00

102 F at noon.. one of the hottest days days of the year in a string of hottest days.
This morning at 10 I went to the NE Gate of the Woods. I mowed Escarpment and Pipeline Trail. Smell of carrion fairly strong.. not intense maybe 30 m in from gate. Has HK placed new carrion off the trail? or is this some other natural occurrence?

Below escarpment, beside trail descending to the wash and the Elm Bridge, a large 2.5-3 foot DBH hackberry fell. It took down a large 2 ft DBH oak, a couple mid sized and smaller elms and the whole tangle blocked the trail by the wash.

Why did this happen? There has been no wind and no rain for a month or more. Earlier (early July) we had lots of rainstorms. Why did the tree come down now when it was still? Odd.. the hackberry was rooted mid slope on the escarpment and I imagine was suffering from various root decaying fungi. The May 10 tornado would have shaken it pretty strongly most likely.. a few other large trees in the same southeast quarter of the Woods did come down in the May 10 storm.

I cleared the trail through the tangle of boles and branches.. and cleared some logs blocking the EW Fence line Trail and Northern Loop.

Pool near Elm Bridge was dry but pool above Island Crossing was still there.

Quit at 1:00 drenched in sweat and suffering from modest heat exhaustion.

Exiting NE Gate I noticed new aluminum tags on several (7-8?) small diameter trees (hackberry and green ash) labeled TGR CAMBISTAT 2010. Mystified, I looked on web and found discussion of tree growth regulator that interferes with gibberellic acid mediated tree growth. I wonder who is doing that? Probably folks that clear the right of way for power lines.

Need to talk to OU surveying class and see if they want to survey in Woods.

Summer Heat and the Woods

2010-08-08T12:54:00.000-07:00

Parked by the SW gate this morning at 9:30. It has been hot and dry (even for this part of the year and this part of the world) and I wanted to see if there was any water remaining in the wash. Just about a month now 28-29 days maybe since we have had any rain. The average high temperature over the month has probably been 96-97. The first four days of this first week of August were 102,103,101 and 100.. and yes! the western wash still has water (near the road).
Entering the SW Gate the cicadas were thrumming loudly. One stridulated and flew as I walked by .. but crashed a few feet away. I picked it up.. likely an adult nearing the end of its life. I wonder if the flooding killed many/ most/ few/ or any cicada nymphs.. buried however deeply they burrow in the soil.
Passing by the dragonfly perch there were four of the Sympetrum sp. there at the regular location southeastern tip of the sedges.
Nearby big green ash to the west 100 feet had shed large numbers of its seeds recently.
Lots of Micrathena webs around in the Woods.. mostly around areas with sun and low green vegetation along stream bank etc.. not that many in the deep woods along the Main SW trail.
East on the trail to the Dam I encountered soil with more clay dried and broken into polygons with cracks providing refugia to soil arthropods and other small organisms.
About 50 m west of dam there was also fresh yellow white sand along the trail looked like it had been washed in during flood, dried and then blown by wind.
Principal green in lower 30 cm of understory were young persimmon plants.
Elm at the dam has 30 cm long slime flux streak on bole and as I observed a nymphalid landed opposite on trunk. Drawn by fermentation?
Up to Tall Stump and east to the Elm Bridge. Wash there was dry except for one small puddle 1/2 square meter.. shallow muddy water. A large, 80-90 cm long olive brown snake crawled quickly out of the puddle as I approached. There were dozens of Gambusia trapped there on which the snake had surely been dining.
I walked along the wash and in places there were large holes dug in the bank like crayfish castles.. one or two. There were lots of tracks in the bottom of the wash, deer, coon etc..
Near the top of the wash immediately upstream of the crossing from the end of the Pipeline Trail over to the Northern Loop there was a large pool with a steady flow of water coming in.. and above that, flowing water all the way to the culvert. pretty amazing. A second olive brown snake maybe 50-70 cm escaped upstream there.
No sight or sound of deer or turtles.
I painted fresh blue paint on older trail blazes and blazed new marks for the Pipeline Trail.
A few large diameter branches broken and fallen across or hanging above trail were puzzling. No real wind for the past 4 weeks but these branches (hackberry, oak and elm) had green leaves and so must have broken recently. Reminded me of the phenomenon of "branch drop" when seemingly healthy green branches would crash down from trees on still nights. Bit mysterious.

Afternoon Light Gaps

2010-07-24T16:32:00.000-07:00

Returned to the Woods through the SW Gate this afternoon. I am thinking we may get some rain from Bonnie and I wanted to see if the Woods have dried up. They have.

The first 200 feet of the main SW Trail is now covered with a layered processed leaf pack washed there by floods a fortnight ago. It has been baked dry by the heat.. The soil beneath it is still quite moist but it has the smell of good aerobic decomposition..not a flooded anoxic odor. Further along the trail, the soil is wetter.. or moister.. there is no standing water remaining along the entire trail.

I marked the deepest pool location (now dry) with a red wire flag. A meter west of it there is the most heavily used, game highway. Quite pronounced and well defined only a meter or less wide running south to cross the dune and north to enter the dense young green ash stand. I flagged it. It may be interesting to observe game trails and see how constant they are, season to season and year to year.

The Sympetrum dragonflies had returned to their regular perch.. five adults this time. I watched as one dropped down to forage on flies in a light patch a couple meters to the southeast.

Light gaps were attractive for other showy insects too.. red spotted purples and orange brushfooted nymphalids were flying in other light gaps. A nice day-flying patchy gray Catocola underwing moth landed on a dying big green ash while I sat and scribbled. Significant mosquitoes around me even with DEET.. not too bad.

The SW Cut-off Trail to Tall Stump needs replenishment of orange and light blue paint.

Around many of the snags there is now an abundance of frass or boring dust from beetles and carpenter ants. Some of the frass from down bur oak branches I imagine may be cerambycids or Dynastes Hercules beetles.

The flooding of the forest from the Lloyd Noble run-off has more or less simultaneously begun the death or degradation of many of the large mature trees in the southern half of the forest. Dendrochronology and stand analysis should document this.

In the canopy, cicadas and katydids. The cicadas start in the mid range and then increase their pitch and accelerate like a bicycle tire accelerating with a card stuck in the spokes. One cicada will produce this call and then be answered by another some distance away in a duet.

On the ground there is relatively fresh (< 2 week old) "cotton" from the big cottonwood. I think these trees must shed their seeds over several pulses throughout the summer. There is also a widespread white efflorescence common on the ground like patches of white mycelia.. or drying crusts of soluble minerals.

Small flocks (3-5) of robins in the understory.. there are more closer to the southern cattails.

I walked back towards the Chautauqua side and north around the sedge beds toward the 2 meter plus tall cattails. The forest and sedges were all dry until near the cattails where there was standing water.. (smelled like feces). I found the hibiscus (in flower) I had seen in the ice and snow of winter.

I must go and really explore the cattails now in the full summer. There are growing Argiope garden spiders there.

Hibiscus and box turtle

2010-07-24T10:00:00.000-07:00

On the west side of the west pond there were three 1.3 meter tall hibiscus with large showy white flowers each with crimson throat and stigma. They were standing in waterlogged mud surrounded by tall sedges. I recognized the dried brown seed pods from the plant I puzzled over this past winter a few hundred meters south, at the southern end of the cattail marsh.

I took my saw early this morning to clear the hanging bumelia snag blocking the dune trail. Across the dune I cleared several logs blocking drainage below the dam.. then walked north and cleared other branches and boles accumulated across the trails since May. North toward Tall Stump; east toward the Wash, clearing old broken hackberry and branches on big live cedar leaning across the trail at Fence Corner. At Elm Bridge water was no longer flowing. A large pool of tea-stained water remained, perking with life north of the bridge but the trail crossing was dry. The southern end of the two trail connector had been nicely cleared by floodwater coursing along it parallel and west of the Wash. Westward I cleared a pecan bole (heavy wood) blocking the Trans OWP west of Hackberry Alley. The Northern Loop was in good shape. The lower southeast end had become a course for floodwater flowing from a low point in the western levee.

There are now thousands of undersized pecans on the forest floor and full sized green persimmons. Defoliating bagworms feed on young persimmon saplings in the understory.

West of tree #151 encountered a young box turtle on the trail. No other turtles, deer, rabbits, squirrels skinks etc. The herp bucket trap arrays seem to be all gone except three on the west side closest to Rudy's. The ecology multi-hoop turtle trap is still by the west pond.

After 12 dry days, with highs in the mid to upper 90's each day, the eastern and northern Woods are dry. The shaded Woods along lower Chautauqua are still wet looking. I need to check the main southwest trail.

The Woods have the feel of the start of late summer. The leaves are older and rougher.. damaged by nibbling and galls. Bag worms and their silken defoliated branches are developing in the mulberries.

Along the southern service road the big yellow grasshoppers are abundant.

Dank and Sodden

2010-07-17T11:13:00.001-07:00

It has been a week since the recent flooding rains ended on the 12th; and it has been hot 95-100 F most days. At 10:30 I checked in the SW entrance to see if everything was wet or drying up.

The main trail was sodden but clear of water up to the big green ash (#46). The Woods on either side were dank with humidity and rot.

Beyond the big green ash there were shallow pools and some continuous ankle deep lakes. I walked / waded the trail to the dam. The water stopped about 50 feet west of the dam.

With some DEET there were few or no mosquitoes bothering me. I saw one middle aged dobson fly larvae swimming along undulating through sunlit water. I hope there are many more reducing the population of mosquito wrigglers.

The traditional Sympetrum dragonfly perch at the SE end of the sedges was occupied by a solitary Erythemis instead.

The deepest water, mid calf, was by the small elm northwest of the old hollow grandfather cottonwood.

I saw no deer or other tetrapods although there were tracks a-plenty, likely coons, possums, skunks, armadillos and similar.

Birds in the understory were robins and a pair of nuthatches (?).

I drove around to check other access points. The south service road was passable although a little more eroded and there is a new deposit of soft sand at the base of the hill where one could spin tires. The road should should firm up OK in the next few days. A lake of water was still ponded up at the trap by the culvert.

The northeast entrance drive was OK too although it felt a little soft. I walked in to the big walnut and the trail seemed fine although not as clear as this spring. I need to walk out there with Bruce and learn more of the plants that are growing in.

Where is the flood?

2010-07-12T13:32:00.000-07:00

This morning from 10 am to 1 pm we had an additional 0.8 inch of rain for a total of 4 and a half inches this two weeks. At 2 pm I checked the north side of the main wash coming into Oliver's Woods along the north shoulder of highway 9. There was a large lake ponded up below the ropes course and the Aquatic Research Facility.. no current or whirl detectable of flow into the culvert. On the south side of the highway the flow in the eastern wash was moderate. I stepped across it a couple meters above its junction with the western wash. The western wash was deep and flowing fast. It passed by the northern most bur oak fallen across and into the wash without a problem. I crossed there on the tree. At the second bur oak suspended high across the wash (not the Bur Oak Bridge) the western levee wall was 2-3 feet lower across a 5-6 meter gap and this was where a river of water had spilled out to flow across the Woods cutting a channel by the junction of the North Loop and the Trans OWP Trail.

Down by the Elm Bridge the main channel flattened out to become a braided, wide flowing delta with no levee walls. Water was flowing everywhere westward across the SE quarter of the Woods. I imagine water was flowing upstream over the dam. Need another culvert under the southern service road or better, faster drainage from the southern central drainage point of the Woods.

Fallen Giant

2010-07-10T20:38:00.000-07:00

After a week of warm rainy days the skies cleared to partly cloudy today and at noon I ventured in to the NW entrance to the Woods along the Ponds Trail. The forest was full of warmth and thick humidity.. fungus heaven. There were also new spider webs (Micrantha and others) across the trail everywhere. (Interesting to see several webs were rebuilt from my first passing, just past noon, to my exit up the same trail at 4:30 pm.)

Measured big cottonwood in the Big Trees down in ice storm (?) three (?) years ago. At 4.5 feet above the base the circumference was 12 feet 6 inches..150 inches; 47.75 inches diameter. The height of the first three way fork was 34 feet 6 inches. Main straightest top was 80 feet to a broken top 13 inches in circumference. Tallest (left) main canopy branch was 94 feet from base to unbroken top. This is (was) the largest tree in the Woods.

Walked a good circuit: Ponds trail & Trans OWP trail to Bur Oak Bridge then south on the Two Bridge Connector; across Elm Bridge and up the east side of the stream then back across the Elm Bridge and west on E-W Fence Line Trail to Fence Corner, north on Two Pecan Trail and north again on the North Loop back to the East Pond and out via the Ponds Trail.

I cleared a fallen snag and tangle of branches across the path by the ponds, rebuilt the Elm Bridge and cleared vines and branches down across the trail.

No deer, two bright Cicindela sexguttata, two skinks? (not good observations). Surprised to see no turtles. It was perfect for box turtles today.. wet and warm everywhere. Gambusia in East Pond and by Elm Bridge (40+ there). Lots and lots of isopods everywhere.

All through the Woods there was evidence of washing or flooding mostly just flows of water from rain in the Woods.. deposits of sand, trail swept clear of natural litter. Will have had significant impact on forest microarthropod community. Interesting to watch it swing back into equilibrium.

Trailside needs clearing of small regrowth all along length with mower & loppers in fall.

Nine (small seed) ticks on me. Few adult mosquitoes after DEET.