Tornadic Spring and New Life in the Woods

April 13 Norman had a tornado tear across town at 4 PM. It brought 0.3 inch rain to my backyard. Last night there was an additional 0.55 inch rain. Mesonet says total 0.99 inch rain in the past three days. I went to the NW entrance 10:45 to see if the last week of strong winds had brought down any trees in the Woods.
The entry is sweet with odor of invasives, multiflora rose, now in full bloom, and Japanese honeysuckle, just starting.
The W. Pond had 2.52 ft of depth and the E. Pond was at 3.3 ft. No turtles visible in either.
Pair of Canada geese continue nesting WSW of W. Pond. First saw them there April 7 with Paul and Claire. At the north end of the W Pond from the galled trunk of the mulberry, a graveled path or one with stepping stones would be good, 15-20 feet to edge of sedge border of pond. White daisies in bloom there along the main trail.
Barred owl was calling at noon along the Main SW trail. There was a strange bright small heron (yellow-crowned night heron maybe) wading slowly along the WNW side of the flooded Ragweed Delta. The bird was gray with yellow cheek stripe and same color head stripe with longer crest feathers extending from the topknot backward. The legs were red (problem), beak black, with a black hood extending down along the back of the neck.
I walked from the E Pond along the Northern Loop to Island Crossing.. water flowing well there.. skipped across.. up to the Tree Loop. It looks like #24 and #37 hawthorn & coffee tree sapling, respectively, are definitely dead. # 22 cored pecan is prob dead #85, biggest walnut on Tree Loop is alive to the south but the north and central crown are looking moribund. Big walnut #171 just off Tree Loop looks almost entirely dead. Just two small clusters of stem leaves along the lower trunk. Interesting to see if there is any chance of recovery.
At Elm Bridge, cut or find a second log, same size as bridge log or slightly smaller diameter and fix it (lash) to small elms on either side of the Wash as a handrail.
Down Southeast Trail, 1st boxelder down across trail, there was a box turtle.. and on the upper dead trunk a good full growth of Auricularia fungi. At second down boxelder there was an old bleached box turtle shell.
The tipulid crane fly numbers seem to have finally dropped way off and surprisingly no mosquitoes .. except maybe along the West Trail as I was leaving. Cold front arrived last night with rain may have slowed them down. Trail needs new pink and blue paint.
At the Beaver Dam, water was flowing well out from the Woods.
Below the Beaver Dam I encountered a doe and two newish fawns.. perhaps the same I had seen a week ago, same location.
West of the Grandfather tree an old dead persimmon or hackberry(?) covered with Schizophyllum commune, split gill fungus, stood out white in the shaded understory along the water of the Main SW trail.
Over at Dragonfly Corner there was another larger doe and two older yearlings (two year olds?) I think this is the trio I most often see. They did not seem alarmed. The young showed their white tails..but then did not run. I waved at them showing my white hands and stood and watched while they stood and watched me. Two or three single bits of cotton with seed of cottonwood(?) landed on me.. early for this.
In the ankle deep water 120 m NE of the SW Gate there was something swimming ahead of me like a small fish or young snake. I did not see it, only a couple swirls of water ahead of me as I waded along. SW Trail had no water from SW Gate to ~85 m at largest green ash #46 at W Trail jct. The damp trail is covered with small green rounded cotyledons of ?? just starting.
Another (small, young) box turtle on the W. trail just south of 100 m post was burrowing along leaving the flattened cleared curling paths through the soft wet mud and leaves that had puzzled me previously.

Troll Under the Elm Bridge

Down by the Elm bridge this evening I saw a large snapping turtle underwater 2-3 m upstream sitting quiet as death. I tickled his front with a twig and no response. He looked dead. I lifted a front foot an inch with a stick and then he moved.. but not much. I hope his stealth strategy results in a good meal of one of the snakes that live along the wash, or some other nutritious meal. Maybe I should transport him to the west pond to dine on crayfish.

The southern Woods are still flooded ankle deep along the Main SW trail from the 0.95 inch rain four days ago; but all the trails in the northern half are fine.. damp but no standing water anywhere. The Lonicera japonica honeysuckle, box elder, green ash and other fast growing plants are in full expansion mode. I'll trim some trail sides with a weed whip. Mercifully, I am not seeing poison ivy along trails.
More of the very late leaf flushing trees (walnut and other) along the tree loop are now putting out very small stem leaves up and down their trunks.. not abundant.. not healthy but maybe enough to survive and recoup if the summer is moderate. Other walnut, pecan and coffee trees flushed good healthy crops of leaves a week to ten days ago.

Lots of deer tracks in the soft damp black soil of the trails.

The two ponds continue to be quiet.. only an occasional insect struggling on the surface. Both coated with films of dust and pollen from the spring.

Rain Pummeled Woods

The rain began just after midnight. Heavy but intermittent it doused central OK and the Woods all during the day. The total amounted to 95/100ths. At 5 I drove (with some trepidation) to near the NE Gate, being sure to park on high, more well drained ground. I opened the gate and entered the green wet Woods. All along the trail, bud scales beaten off trees by the drumming rain littered the path. Shrubs, Russian Olive, Privet and low branches all weighted down with the recent rain reached into or across the trail. At the Elm Bridge a solid river of muddy brown water was touching the underside of the elm crossing log. I grabbed a pole and walked/ leapt across to the sand bank.

Along the way a few new branches were down across the trail, each tangled with vines and gradually descending to earth on its own schedule. Out the EW Trail and on to the East Pond, I was delighted to see a snapping turtle on the east end. It looked like the one I had encountered below the beaver dam heading up stream. The East Pond was at 3.38 feet and the West Pond was 2.52 feet.

Two young deer east of Barney Jct did not seem terribly alarmed with my presence. The trail loop back including the Northern Loop was in good shape. I crossed the wash at Island Crossing with a good mighty leap but the ground was surprisingly soft where I took to the air leaving me a half foot short of the eastern bank and a quick splash with my good shoes and wool slacks.. never mind. I was on my way out and happy again.

Nother Turtle Marvelous Morning

Up early this April morning and decided to go see the Woods first thing. The SW Gate entrance is suddenly overgrown with bursting spring growth, honeysuckle, clematis and dewy grasses. Inside the gate, the trail NE was dry or drying to the first 50 m mark and there it continued to be sodden. I took the fork to the new West Trail but did not go far, as it ran through shallow pools in wet forest too. Bright white new polypores have emerged from some of the decaying oak(?) snags there.. but no Auricularia jelly fungi.

The entire area of the Woods was 'hopping' with crane flies. Lilting and bouncing in short sorties. I wonder what they are up to? Attracting mates? They often don't go any distance but seem to continually 'bounce' in jittery flight and then sit or cling to some perch for a few seconds before beginning to bounce again. Two weeks ago I guessed I was seeing the peak of crane fly emergence and activity - wrong. They continue to be superabundant all over the wet Woods.. a great source of food for nesting birds.

I reentered the Woods via the NE Gate and slowly walked the Tree Loop, savoring each turn in the trail and each sight. I encountered (the same?) box turtle as yesterday as it was ascending the gully trail descending to the Wash. I saw three pairs of squirrels in different parts of the Woods, all playing 'tag' chasing each other rapidly skittering up and down the trunks of trees. More squirrels than I've ever seen there in one visit.. maybe some courtship activity? A flock of robins were hanging out along the east shore of the East Pond. The Woods are at or near their finest. Everything is moving or growing.. every animal is out eating or being eaten.. plants are growing faster than they will at any other time of the year. Life is in high gear. Temp today due to break 93 F and the soil is still moist or wet.

The red buds are now dropping the last 40 % of their flowers. Life is raining down from the sky. All along SW Trail pools west of the dam the water surface is covered with catkins and samaras (shed from elms) and other small seeds or vegetative bits. The coffee trees Gymnocladus are flushing their new double pinnate leaves. Along the wash, the Amur Honeysuckle L. maackii is now at its most visible with 2-3 m tall crowns of bright white flowers. There are more than I previously thought.. maybe 30-40 plants.. and up on the N Rim trail there is a new honeysuckle I am not sure I've seen in the Woods previously, one beautiful burst of red flowers of coral honeysuckle L. sempervirens, 2-3 m up at the edge of the escarpment, just west of the big rotten log across the trail. The poison ivy 75 feet east of the NE Gate along the fence has leaves mostly fully expanded and bright green.

I started listing the trees and shrubs I've seen in the Woods this past month and came up with 29-30:

1. Acer negundo Box Elder
2. Carya illinoensis Pecan
3. Carya texana Black Hickory
4. Catalpa speciosa Catalpa
5. Celtis Hackberry
6. Crataegus viridis Hawthorn
7. Diospyros virginiana Persimmon
8. Fraxinus pennsylvanica Green Ash
9. Gymnocladus dioica Kentucky Coffeetree
10. Juglans nigra Black walnut
11. Juniperus Eastern Redcedar
12. Morus rubra Mulberry
13. Platanus Sycamore
14. Populus deltoides Cottonwood
15. Pyrus Pear
16. Quercus macrocarpa Bur Oak
17. Quercus marilandica Blackjack Oak
18. Quercus shumardii Shumard Oak
19. Quercus stellata Post Oak
20. Salix nigra Black Willow
21. Sapindus Soapberry
22. Sideroxylon (Bumelia) lanuginosa Chittamwood
23. Ulmus americana American Elm
24. Ulmus rubra Slippery Elm

shrubs
25. Cornus drummondii Roughleaf Dogwood
26. Eleagnus Russian Olive
27. Ligustrum Privet
28. Lonicera maackii Amur Honeysuckle
29. Lonicera fragrantissima Winter Honeysuckle
30. Viburnum

.. and some other unidentified willow(?) with small round leaves; and a mystery hickory.

Turtle Spring, Sweet Woods

Good 4-5 inch spring rains on 19 March and the warmest month of March on record for Oklahoma are driving a burst of spring growth. Yesterday all over the Woods every tendril of Lonicera honeysuckle was reaching out with new quick growth. Box elder saplings expanded new green stems and bright green leaves. Along the open trails in the NE quarter, grasses, chickweed, bedstraw, henbit and other annuals were quickly closing over the bare trail.
Two nights ago, I mowed a meter wide swath around the NE Tree Loop to keep it clear for the Phenology class to use. I went the next morning to enjoy a slow solitary walk around the Loop to catch up on each tree and what it was doing. I gave each tree a health score 1 good-4 moribund and concluded four trees I had flagged were probably dead.
Several mulberry trees along the loop have suddenly flushed leaves and produced their distinctive flowers which will become the fruit. I did not know the species was on the Loop. Sapindus soapberry and a mystery Carya are flushing new fresh leaves this week. The oaks, post, blackjack, bur and shumard are all pushing out new soft leaves red and green, or green tinged with yellow. Celtis hackberry are just a little behind the oaks with small bright green leaves expanding. Elm and redbuds have had their leaves out for a fortnight. Eleagnus Russian olive shrubs are covered in soft yellow flowers making the air sweet and attracting all the pollinators. The Eleagnus by the NE Gate at dusk is covered up in noctuid moths and small insects. Walnut and pecan seem to be the hold out species with few or no leaves produced in the crowns.. a few leaves just barely starting now.

Arthropods are beginning their year too. After dusk when I finished mowing the Loop I found a small cloud of several hundred chironomid midges gathered in a 50 cm wide column over the tailgate of my car.. a swarm of males waiting for mates. I found the first mosquito of the year in the Woods the next morning. There will be many more with the wet spring and abundant pools of standing water. Ticks unfortunately are becoming a problem again too. They are not abundant yet; but soon will be.

Bird song in the Woods is almost continuous now during daylight hours. Nesting season is here. I watched male and female cardinals bathing in the shallow pools below the beaver dam with flapping wings and flying water.. some meters apart, but probably a pair. I was delighted to find a three toed box turtle out along the Loop trail just north of the biggest walnut. It has been a long time since there were many of them active in the Woods. A tough hot dry past year probably had many of them just shut down and waiting in their burrows.
A week ago I was clearing the drainage below the dam and came upon a medium sized young adult snapper turtle scrunging its way upstream. Its shell protruded above the 2-3 inch deep water and it was nosing along under the rotten woody debris looking for a meal. I imagine it had worked its way up the drainage from the river. I hope it stays in the Woods, as the other snappers I think may have died in the drought and heat last year.

Two days after the rain, the northern trails were all drying and in good shape but the southern quarter including the Main SW Trail is still flooded with ankle deep water two weeks later. A week ago, in the evening, I flushed a flock of 5 or 6 ducks out of the flooded SW Woods as I walked along the trail in my water boots. This ponding of water and growth of surface floating algal biomass is marvelous to see. The warm shallow water over the forest soil is full of ecology. Around the pools of drying shallow water along the Two Friends trail in the SW, scores of crane flies are gathered, probably laying eggs where there will be good rotting leaf litter in the weeks ahead. A large healthy slime mold has crawled up on to the cut big pecan tree that fell across the EW Fence Line Trail near the east end. It has produced its thin outer shell of lime and is turning into a spore mass. I collected some of the spidery bright golden threads of slime mold plasmodium from the base of a young dead elm by the water east of the hollow cottonwood.

I see white-tailed deer 3 out of 4 trips to the Woods now.. most often three deer, but sometimes a larger group of 8-10.. down by the beaver dam heading north or just east of the East Pond, or crossing the shallow water east of the Grandfather cottonwood.

Jackson has helped me identify, I believe correctly, the mystery Lonicera that has puzzled me in the Woods west of the Bur Oak Bridge for a few years now, Lonicera maackii, Amur honeysuckle, an invasive Asian species.

Vernal Equinox, Spring Green Up and Morels

At 5 PM I went to the Woods to see what yesterday's long heavy rainstorm had done. The Woods are transforming. The spring green that was earlier on the ground in the Lonicera honeysuckle and Stellaria bedstraw, is now suddenly spreading upward as Acer negundo box elder saplings 1 meter tall leaf out abundantly throughout the northwestern Woods understory.
The 4.1 inches of rain filled the West Pond up to 2.74 feet and floated the big northern log to lodge next to the water gauge post. The East Pond was filled to 3.2 feet.
East of the West Pond I startled a white-tail that ran ahead of me eastward on the path. Then at the East Pond I found Ana and Jelena excited with their success finding five fresh morels.
The Woods south by the Grandfather tree are flooded (no surprise) but water is draining through the dam at a good rate and the standing water may be gone in a day or two.
I was struck again with the question of what happens to all the soil fauna ants, millipedes, mites, isopods, microarthropods and other species living in the now submerged leaf litter. How many climbed trees to escape?
East of Tall Stump, the trail was drained with only isolated pools until near the Elm Bridge. The flow there was steady beneath the elm log. Southwest and southeast of the bridge I could see where water had moved in a broad sheet across the forest floor, sweeping away litter and leaving the bare soil.
East of the bridge, up on the escarpment, the Tree Loop was also transformed. There was a delightful combination of a solid carpet of fresh green bedstraw, chickweed, violets, henbit and other ephemerals.. paired with pink purple blooming redbuds in the sub canopy. Prettiest part of the Woods today. The past few days have pushed phenology along. The black hickory is opening large, prominent leaf buds and leafing out. Walnut leaf buds are opening. The bur oak has very small young leaves emerging. The mystery trees at the south end of the loop now look to be mulberry with very small new leaves and small green hanging flowers - that will become the deep purple or white fruit. Several of the younger 4-7 meter tall elms at the beginning of the trail, stressed or moribund from last summer, are now sprouting stem leaves, with no sign of life in the upper crown. The crane flies seem to have finished their earlier abundant hatch.. only a few here and there. A couple new beetles in the Lindgren trap. No turtles or other large life evident moving in the ponds. The new West Trail was under ankle deep water past 50 meters. The poison ivy has not yet begun to leaf out. It will be interesting to see how quickly this portion of the Woods west of the cattails drains.

More spring rain

Thank goodness, another 1.2 inches slow soaking Saturday night. The West Pond is up to 2.27 and the East Pond is at 3.1? but is missing top of depth gauge. Three deer just southwest of the second largest cottonwood.