Peak of Early Spring

Update on spring: after an inch of gentle mild rain spread over the last ten days, the Woods are coming to life. Across the forest floor, the light halo of green is almost everywhere.. early Lonicera honeysuckle and Rosa multifora leaves unfolding, Stellaria chickweed, Galium bedstraw, Lamium purpureum henbit (first blooms today), early Poa grasses. In the shrub understory, young Ligustrum privet and Acer negundo box elder leaves (first ~ 3%) leaves are unfolding. When the box elder leaves come full flush, the canopy understory will be closed until September. No turtles in the ponds or visible in the Woods but the ponds are looking OK: 1.36' in the East Pond and 1.52' in the Northwest. Both are covered with a light film of pollen. The East (and probably the NW too) has hundreds and thousands of mosquito wrigglers. They both have a few gerrid water striders but are in need of some odonate larvae, tadpoles or Gambusia to hunt down the wrigglers.
  I saw just one white-tail, a larger doe near the south delta. Several old burrows right along the main trails are freshly dug out.. must be armadillos.. or maybe box turtles. No more tracks of hogs - thank goodness.
  Prunus Mexican plum is in full beautiful bloom scattered through the Woods.
Around Norman, the Forsythia, Quince and Bradford Pear are either at their peak bloom or just before it.
Heather's forensic pigs are in full bloat on this sunny warm day.
Sky is powder Carolina blue.

General Verdure and Great-Horned Owl

Out to the Woods via the Tree Loop trail. We've had light cool spring rains, an inch total over the past week. The Mexican plum Prunus mexicana are all blooming scattered through the Woods, like individual points of light. A few of the Bradford pear, Pyrus are also beginning to bloom. One, on the Pipeline trail had a dozen branches of flowers just newly, fully open. Another pear, seventy feet east, had no flowers but many green leaves just beginning to break bud.  Along the Tree Loop, the elms have all had their small red and green flowers open since February. Yesterday the first redbud flower buds were showing their rich deep pink color still largely closed inside the bud.
There is a south-facing slope on the west side of the west wash I enjoy watching in the spring, as the Galium bedstraw, Stellaria chickweed and other annuals first begin to turn the ground from brown to green.. and then as the low shrubs and young trees fill in a wall of green.
The air is redolent with patches of wild green onions north of the main east west trail.
Along the north fence line, the crews have cut and shredded a swath of destruction ten feet or more south from the fence. They've completed that 'mowing' from the NW corner to the top of the slope down to the western wash. Walking along the newly opened space, the air is filled with the smell of cut cedar wood. I am tempted to place my beetle traps out along the fence to see what is flying.
Sad note from five days ago.. coming to the East Pond I saw an unidentifiable brown shape floating by the the big cottonwood. With two sticks I fished out a beautiful great-horned owl. It must have been recently dead as the wings were not stiff. It was a gorgeous animal with magnificent wings, feathers, large round yellow eyes, powerful beak, strong stiff legs and powerful talons. A mystery, why it came to be floating there. I emailed Gary and rang Tamaki and took it to the Museum.

Cutting and Shredding along the Woods N Fence Line

This morning Greg and Fred, OU Arborists and I met Shain and Tommie OEC at NW corner of Woods. OEC began trimming trees along the north fence line. They will prune trees and shred the vegetation up to 10 feet S of the power lines. Heather's class was out, placing new pigs: 12 on the upper terrace and 6 below on the floodplain. The northern edge of the Woods will be transformed this week and will look scalped. I collected my bug traps. I explained the Woods was a sensitive area and asked that the trimming always be conservative where possible. I trust they will honor this; but there will be a significant disturbance of the habitat.
At 4 I walked the NE Tree Loop to enjoy the late winter Woods while still peaceful and untrimmed. 57 F today with piles of snow melting this morning and more snow and sleet due tonight. Spring.

Marvelous Spring Day

Went to the Woods this afternoon at 3. It was pleasant almost 60 F. Along the Tree Loop, the flowers of the Ulmus rubra slippery elms were opening and open.. new development this week. Each Elaeagnus autumn olive had new green leaves emerging along the stems. The green understory was growing with Stellaria chickweed and Capsella shepherd's purse.. a few Capsella in bloom. There were also the older winter-green leaves of Geum Avens, Allium wild onions and others. There were 4 white-tail deer SW of the Elm Bridge.
I took a saw and cleared an old fallen Celtis sugarberry snag blocking the W Dune trail. Spring is coming on - marvelous Day. Thirty degrees cooler, clouds and snow tomorrow and Monday.

Twilight to Near Dark in the Woods

Another mild mid late winter day in the Woods. Just before sunset I walked in via the NW Trail past the pond and set out, off-trail through the open Woods. East of the NW Pond the forest floor of leaves of hackberry, willow and elm was sprouting a greenish verdure. Young inch high sprouts of Galium bedstraw, Stellaria chickweed and other green understory herbs were beginning to rise above the dried leaves. Good forage for young cottontails, mice and other small herbivores. I wandered east, deliberately not following the marked paths, to see what new sights I would find. As I walked, I encountered soft subtle currents of air, cooler down drafts and 50 feet farther on, warmer eddies. I wondered if the paths of these currents are set by the topography and vegetation so that in the absence of significant wind, wildlife living in the Woods knows which way the breezes will blow and can navigate familiar routes, following scent trails to food, safety, favorite places or to hunt prey.
By the time I turned back west the twilight was moving on to near dark and I admired the silhouetted forms of the larger trees.  The form and size of big deciduous trees are always better appreciated at night and in the winter. The massive pecan with its spreading crown, so different from the lower but massive trunks of the walnut or more tightly gathered crowns of the old elm and sugarberry. The largest green ash with unbranched bole rises straight and tall over branching lower species.
I did not see any white-tailed deer this evening.. but I often do. This is their world. We think of them out and about in the daylight forest, seeing it much as we do. In fact the forest of the white-tailed deer is most often the crepuscular forest of twilight and early evening with colors shifted to reds and golds of sunset or faded altogether into the shadows and forms of the forest near darkness.
I paused to talk with my friend the barred owl. I usually encounter at twilight setting in the branches of one of the largest pecans or some of the smaller old junipers nearby. It calls to the evening and I answer with a four or five note whistle from a small owl. The barred owl I think is curious but has heard this often enough that I think it knows I am not the real thing.

Late Mid-Winter Warm Day in the Woods

This morning I finished refreshing blue flags on labelled trees around the Tree Loop. This afternoon I took off to see the Woods on the warmest day of the year. 77 F at 4 o'clock. I took one spray can of paint for the once annual refresh of all the blue blazes in the Woods. I walked 80% of the 2 miles of trails checking everything I could see.
 The southern and central Woods were busy with woodpeckers - lots of small groups of two and three, a few different species. Three white-tailed deer moved away SE of the East Pond.
The soil was soft everywhere, enough moisture - though none recent,  and warm sun. The Delta and across much of the southern central Woods there is a modestly abundant cover of Capsella Shepherd's Purse, Stellaria Chickweed and other low green annuals. There were tracks everywhere through the Woods. The NW Pond was moderately full and looked to have the first beginning of the layer of Juniper pollen it will have later on. Patches of spring onions several inches high scattered here and there. (Why don't / can't they grow as a larger green sward, I wonder. What limits them?) The West Dune Trail has a tree down across the trail. None of the trees are active yet, although the first silver maple flower buds in Norman began to open last week.

Return from the Deep Cold

Late December and early January were unusually cold and cloudy for central Oklahoma.. 7-8 F below 30 year average. I went to the Woods before sunset and thought of the barred owl I often encounter in the NE corner of the Woods at the end of the day. What do they do when it is 15 F instead of the normal winter 25F? They are insulated with all their feathers but flight for food must be very chilling. Do they just go on? Some other animals (squirrels?) may just shelter in their nest and suspend activity.

Two days ago at twilight I went to the Woods and walked along the south boundary. There, in the failing light, I came on a large track west of the south end of the NS trail. A large cloven hoof, it looked too heavy, broad and solid for a deer..it looked like a hog. Further west along the boundary I found areas that had been disturbed by rooting. It looked too deep to be the foraging of armadillos or skunks, but in the near-dark I could not be sure it was a hog.

Today the jet stream shifted north and temperatures rose to a pleasant 61 F. I went to the Woods at 2 for a walk from the NE Gate. At the foot of the drop to the wash, the largest bur oak had a colorful assemblage of box elder bugs. There were 35 or more bugs in a crevice in the bark, half the size of my hand. They were crawling about and arranging themselves basking in the warm sun from the south. The green growing herbs Stellaria chickweed and Glechoma Gill-over-the ground, looked a little bedraggled, as though the recent cold had set them back. I encountered one large doe south of the east dune crossing. This is the time of year when does will be carrying new developing young from breeding in late November to early December. I approached the NW pond from the south walking through the dried stems of red-brown Polygonum knotweed, present as an unbroken solid cover, surrounded by scattered patches of Typha cattails and a wide ring of Carex sedge. Interesting question what so sharply delimits the knotweed-sedge boundary. Topography seems little or no different.
The pond was still except for the cardinals and other birds there foraging. I settled there to observe and ended up taking a nap in the warm sun.
Back east of the East Pond I encountered a group of three deer, a younger doe and two yearlings. I sang to them from fifty feet away and waved my hands. They looked skittish but did not run. I wondered what they found to eat this time of the year in the Woods.