Nice time for a walk in the November Woods

 Late November in the Woods is a good time to see new things. After Thanksgiving, almost all the leaves are down. The green of the under story box elder and young green ash have fallen, pulling back the curtain on longer views across the Woods. Sufficient frosty and just cold days have passed, so the population of ticks is essentially dormant. It is a time when it is easy to leave the trails, walk new places, and discover new secrets hidden during summer. It is a time to walk through the thick swards of sedge that are off-limits in warmer months when ticks are active. There are biological features hidden there, deposits of bleached white shells from aquatic snails, cattails, and native Hibiscus, visible in late autumn. Off trail and wandering, there are new fresh growths of big oyster mushrooms. I broke off bits to enjoy as I wandered this afternoon. (Don't try this, unless you are with an expert and certain of the identification.) 

The marked trails now have been refreshed, with some leaves cleared away by volunteers. The trails will fill again with leaves after new windstorms, but for now, the trails are charming brown ribbons winding through the forest.

This is a time when some of the invasives reveal themselves. The orange pinnate leaves of the Chinese pistache stand out like tree flames, held long after native trees have dropped their leaves. The one persistent patch of English ivy reveals its dark waxy green leaves marked with dull white. The one patch of oriental bittersweet I have fought for years reveals new shoots with uniquely rounded and toothed  yellow leaves that have grown this year, some sprouts almost knee high. I stop to check and am surprised that there are easily 50 sprouts visible across the patch. I have been an absentee gardener over the summer. I carefully pull up all that I see by the roots but I know that these invasives will likely be here after I am gone. Who will come and pull them out, keep them from spreading their leafy invasive stems across the forest to entangle all the canopy years from now?

The Western Wash is partially refilled with pools of dark water, stained by tannin in fallen leaves. Not enough water for flowing water to clear the dark pools. The NW and Eastern Ponds both are gradually refilling. This evening's gentle rain will help. Will it be long until the winter is cold enough to put ice across the shallow ponds and wash?

In the SW around the stand of big bur oaks, armadillos have been busy foraging through dry oak leaves seeking grubs, snails, millipedes, beetles. With an impressive palate for chemically well-defended invertebrates they are busy feeding before the deeper cold arrives. They weave winding trails through the leaves, like small forest vacuum cleaners.

The new openness of the Woods reveals a new scar, summer construction work to replace and support the a sewer line running east west across the northern edge of the Woods. The work is finished and looks well done but many large old trees were cut, bulldozed, piled or reduced to chips to allow access for the heavy machinery to do the work. The workers left new impressive banks of heavy, rough light-colored stone rip-rap to hold the steep slopes in place until forest vines and vegetation can reclaim the denuded work area. This will be a new environment for the Woods where stones are otherwise absent. It will be interesting to see what animals make new homes there. Mice? lizards? sun-loving insects, snakes? (now uncommon) enough to limit the smaller rodents, insects and lizards that make up their diet?

Stopping by my favorite grandfather cottonwood on the north side of the old dunes, I feel a letting-go of busy human concerns. The small joys, fears, triumphs, concerns, interactions with others shrink into insignificance. The forest of trees, soil, and all the living creatures here is the real world. My insignificance brings release, relief and a deeper happy connection to the reality around me.

Autumn Return to the Woods

 Near twilight I decided to walk the Tree Loop, starting along the east leg to see how the larger Woods have done over the past six weeks. The Tree Loop is now more overgrown in a healthy way. Fine roots growing into soil, seeds from annuals produced. Wildlife with a rest from heavier human traffic. As I began I found one of the heavy blister beetles, Meloe, with swollen abdomen. Curious why they are often found on cool autumn or winter days, out exploring when the rest of the natural world of invertebrates is shutting down. Some dragonflies are out now, libellulids, probably males, hovering over trails as if they have found a small stream. They seem like a mistake of biology to be out now with colder days coming. Maybe a form of 'bet-hedging' ready to mate and reproduce if warm days should by any chance continue.

The northwest pond has been reborn and is now a small pool perhaps 30' in diameter. I am sure it dried down to nothing in the past dry weeks of October. Wonder what happened to the life in the pond when it dried. Might there be some species that can survive in a form of suspended life, torpor, etc? Small Gambusia? immature dragonfly nymphs? frog tadpoles? snails? This would be interesting to track because the NW pond often will go for a few years without any complete dry down.

July 3 Summer Ticks and Turtle

 Out to the Woods this morning at 9 for first time in a few weeks. Stopped to see the work on the sewer line repair/ replace across the northern section of the Woods. Still heavy equipment operating, dragging large shattered logs around, recently healthy deciduous trees. Chipper running, reducing wood debris to shreds. Not sure how long this work project is slated to continue. Hope it is 'repaired' with reasonable cover of native vegetation, not rye grass or other invasive. Oliver's Woods at times seems to be an easy punching bag to destroy. State highway department plans a road through the middle of the Woods years ago for Hwy 9 and only agrees to abandon the plan when university agrees to sacrifice 13 acres of the north end of the Woods. Utility company requests permission to put major sewer line across the remaining north section. It is done and line is buried. OK for years until sagging pier support means major construction is approved to go back and devastate a few more acres to repair/ replace. Must be done. Power line folks come through aggressively taking out tall trees well back into the Woods in the name of protecting power lines strung across the northern section. Storm water runoff routinely floods the lower Woods suffocating hundreds of trees that grew before the campus directed storm water runoff on top of them. Death by a thousand cuts.

 I continued on to NE entrance and crossed down to the Western Wash. Apart from the noise of the construction/ destruction going on, the Woods are looking vibrant with summer. Abundant Elephantopus, Elephant's Foot almost conceals the trail along the Tree Loop and the canopy of summer growth is luxuriant. This early summer has been good for growth in the Woods with enough rain and good warmth.

The numerous visitors that enjoyed the Woods late winter and early spring this year are gone now. Driven away by the ticks who wait in the forest for passing vertebrates. I find a box turtle on the cross trail. She is probably happy to have no visitors in the Woods for the summer. 

I removed 6 ticks from my clothes and legs as soon as I returned home. Within minutes I had my clothes in the dryer on hot for 10 minutes to kill other ticks. I'm sure I'll find more ticks later today.

The Woods are still a precious green sylvan respite.

Whip-poor-wills and Coyotes

 8:54 pm Standing on the sandy levee of the South Canadian River when the regular evening twilight coyote chorus erupted a few hundred yards down stream on the far side of the river.  It always seems to start from there. After a moment it was matched by the coyotes on my side of the river. Maybe 3-4  coyotes on the far side and fewer, 2-3, on my side. The twilight howl lasted only 3-4 minutes then silence returned but it felt good to know that I was sharing the twilight with others. I wondered who was the timekeeper and what was the signal?

Peaceful sunset 20-30 minutes earlier. Golden horizon lighting sparse ranks of clouds in the mostly clear northern sky. The red and gold, tinting the river water with evening color, and producing silhouettes of the big cottonwoods over by the sunset.

Whip-poor-wills, three or four were competing with their calls. I watched a last late turkey vulture awkwardly join a half dozen others settling in to a roost for the night in a tall cottonwood across the river.

The river was flowing with good volume from the 1.1 inch rain last night. Not a flood, but all the usual sand bars and small islands were submerged.

Before sunset I watched one beaver pushing west across the big flooded sand mine pond.

Peaceful evening.

Refilling the Woods

Good rain arrived 4 - 6 am this morning with thunder and lightning. Mesonet says NE Norman had 1.82 inches. My backyard gauge in central eastern Norman had 2.4 inches. I went to the SW Gate at 1 pm to see what the storm had done.

The Woods canopy has changed from lingering autumn remnant leaves hanging on, to bare clean canopies. Few trees with green leaves (Bumelia) stand out like a torch. Everything else is bare branches reaching toward a blue winter sky.

I was curious how much of the Woods would be flooded, and walked east up the Main SW Trail until I met the advancing front of water near the Carpenter blue stake in the sedge. I marked the spot and returned there an hour later (2:15) to find that the water had advanced west about two meters up the trail. Water was flowing 'upstream' at Beaver Dam.

Walking north and east I came to Island Crossing and found the new pallet bridge partly submerged with a shallow flow all across the 'island'. The flow in the West Wash had diminished since the morning, but there was a lot of muddy brown water moving down to the lower Woods. I walked south along the western levee towards the Elm Bridge. There was a good volume with rapids at the junction with the Eastern Wash. A break through the western levee, south of the morel patch, allowed a part of the flow to move out and flood the wider Woods through a network of braided channels, cut in previous floods. The lower south east quarter was well flooded through the forest of green ash and big cottonwoods. Much of the south central Woods also. Maybe 15-20% of the total 66 acres of the Woods was under shallow moving water. The trees and the soil will have a deep drink before deeper winter cold arrives.

Interesting creatures these past few days. One snapper turtle foraging in the East Pond, barred owl most days flying from its perch, armadillos foraging though the wet, freshly-fallen leaves, large metallic blue-black Meloid blister beetle today exploring slowly across the forest floor. Libellulid skimmer dragonfly couples dipping and ovipositing around the newly re-filled Northwest Pond. Two white-tailed deer moving northeast up to the upper terrace.

This was the good full fall rain the Woods needed before winter.

Thanksgiving Ecology in the Woods

 Wandering off trails in the Woods to see new things. (No ticks November.)

Ecological questions floating as I wander, some old, some new:

The variegated leaves of Smilax green briar, does variegation correlate with non-preference for herbivores? Do females laying eggs avoid leaves with more variegation because the light patches resemble feeding damage from previous insects? Same question for other plants with variegated leaves like "wild ginger" Hexastylix arifolia.  Someone has probably investigated this question and may have published some data.

What is the effect of forcing floodwater upstream west of the old beaver dam - where it can remain trapped for weeks, or longer? Nairn asked, Do the soils show developing wetland character? Old bur oaks have been drowned and killed by floodwater remaining too long. Green ash tolerate floodwater better. Can the amount of green ash butt swell be correlated to the longevity of flooding around the tree? Maybe a normal curve?

In dry summer months when 3-6 inch deep (or deeper) crevices open in the soil what communities of invertebrates and other species take refuge there? What happens when floodwaters rapidly fill and inundate the crevices?

Why do some species have very clear boundaries circumscribing their population? (Question similar to one that motivated former OU Prof Katie Marshall). Linda Wallace, late OU Botany Prof, and I puzzled together over the very distinct patches of the Carex hystericina sedge in the southern and western Woods. Patches of this are bordered so sharply. Linda had the same question about what limits the population of green ash in the Woods.

What is the community of insects associated with Solidago goldenrod galls on the SE border of the Woods? I've not seen the galls in any other nearby field, but there are several galls together in goldenrod in one small 3m x 3m patch in the SSE section.

Future projects for student teams: pick-up of old beer cans and other from western boundary? Styrofoam cups, pieces of paper blow in from Chautauqua. More of the same pick-up along the south boundary.

After the Rain, Raccoons

Back to the Woods after two weeks of cold and a light rain. 

The thrill is gone. The beautiful golden color of autumn leaves is gone. Ninety percent of the leaves are down from the trees. Brown leaves cover the forest floor with a pleasant blanket. With most of the leaves down, I can see through the trees, see the winter life in the Woods.

Northeast of the East Pond I watch three large raccoons (fat? thick fur coats?) ascend the steep slope of the escarpment. Likely going to their burrows for a nap. Big pecan above them on the edge of the escarpment broke and fell ten years ago. Its broad root base became a home for a colony of subterraneans - these raccoons? I wonder if the three were siblings, or maybe a parent or two with their progeny. They all looked large, full-grown.

Significant fresh glistening poop (raccoon-like) by old grave trail could have been from one of these three perhaps returning from a night of foraging at the trash station. Interesting to see the trail junction of the Tree Loop and the top of the West Loop trail has become a 'latrine' a location where vertebrates poop repeatedly to mark their territory and leave a calling card. Probably coyote? maybe raccoon?

Two deer crossing the NE field toward Jenkins. More deer 'snorts' west of the Elm Bridge and buck 'scrapes' marking the soil along the west side of the Tree Loop. Breeding and hunting season has arrived.

What is green now in the Woods? The abundant evergreen Euonymus vine, the young Ligustrum privet shrubs regrowing from their roots after 2021 killing February cold. Other exotics, Nandina Heavenly bamboo, Lonicera Japanese honeysuckle, Amur Honeysuckle, Liriope monkey grass, Holly, English ivy, Elaeagnus Autumn olive, Clematis, Multiflora rose, and Pistacia Chinese pistache. Many exotics have a longer green period. Some natives are still green, Sideroxylon Bumelia or Chittamwood, Juniperus western redcedar, two species of Smilax green briar, the twigs and young stem (but not leaves) of Acer negundo box elder, Chasmanthium Inland sea oats, some field grasses Festuca and others growing on the east side of Tree Loop. Some annuals or vines are starting new green growth before the greater winter cold, Stellaria chickweed, Geum Avens, Carolina snailseed, young poison ivy. Some individual trees hold their green leaves after others of the species have dropped them all, the galled red elm above the Eastern Wash, a pin oak on the Tree Loop.

The Woods has now donned its late autumn look and will remain like this until the first significant snow.