Out Late

Went to the SW Gate Wednesday evening towards sunset. The Woods were dry. After a good wet February we've had almost zero rain for March. The paths in the Woods are hard, the soil is dry to the point that is has lost its resilience. Hoping for rain.
I spotted a herd of ten deer. The indian plum is blooming but seems a little sparse. They may not have recovered from last year's heat and drought. The amur honeysuckle is well-leafed out. Now is a good time to cut and remove.. new growth being produced. This has been a serious invasive problem in midwest.
Lots of small to medium sized branches down from the days of dry winds over the past fortnight.
Spring here, as of late March, is cool, late and dry. Heard the barred owl calling in the central Woods.

Greening of the Woods

Today and yesterday both broke 80 F. I've been spending as much time as I can several hours a week in the Woods watching spring bursting out. Today flowers on the mexican plum were blooming on several trees along the trail between the two ponds. I discovered a pair of Canada geese on the West Pond looking like they were thinking about a nesting site.. and on the East pond there was a night heron standing still in the SE corner. There was a decomposing possum along the trail near the big pecan there tree # 122 busy with blowflies laying their eggs. I re-discovered a small 50 cm tall holly 25' west of tree #131 and nine or ten stems of a thorny unknown (Gleditsia locust?) by tree # 138.
Around Norman, quince and forsythia are fully blooming. In the Woods along the Tree Loop, every elm appears to be blooming. In town, the Bradford pear just 'popped' into full bloom these two days. At home, the big oak out front lost its last leaves and started to open up new green catkins and leaves together. The big deep ravines in the north Woods are now green from side to side with spring Stelleria, chickweed and others. The water in the wash has fallen to 5"  at the post.

Hawk & Squirrel Rain Deer Cold Spring

Blustery cold (37F, 20 mph) spring day. I went to the NE Gate at 4:30 to see what the half inch sharp rain had done Saturday, and the strong northwest wind today. The Tree Loop was in good shape. Students (~18) in Phenology began their monitoring of 100 trees around the Loop this past Tuesday 5 March. Elms were already flowering and Eleagnus leaves were emerging but everything else was still waiting.

At the north end of the Tree Loop I heard a commotion in the top of a dead hackberry tree just northeast of the trail. A red tailed hawk was sitting there and a squirrel was scolding it from a foot or two away. Then I saw why. The hawk had landed in / on the squirrel's nest. I stood and watched and after a minute or two the hawk flew 20 feet away and landed on the ground. It had taken the squirrel's entire nest in its claws and seemed almost stuck. Then I saw the whisking tail of the squirrel (adult or young..the tail looked small) of the squirrel the hawk had pinned in the nest. The hawk stood awkwardly on the ground facing me in the distance for 3-4 minutes then flew up to a nearby oak leaving the nest and squirrel. I didn't intervene. I am guessing after I passed on by the hawk returned to complete it's meal.

I took the Pipeline Trail to head west across the wash. There was water backed up but easy to jump across. I walked along the NW trail to the East Pond and there flushed four ducks. At least one looked like a wood duck.. maybe all four. The water depth was  1.10 '. On to the West Pond (no ducks) & water depth of 1.3 '. Lots of FLAB on West pond surface. It has been there for a few weeks.  At the West pond I flushed 7 white-tailed deer. Two ran upslope and five ran south east of the pond.
All the trails I walked were OK. The water from Saturday's rain had not backed up to the beaver dam.

I cleared some dead cedar branches and decaying logs to make a new Levee Leg off the Tree Loop west of the cedar arch down toward the wash below. I flagged a half dozen new trees (bur oaks, pin oak, big persimmon, big cottonwoods) and a few other small interesting 1-2 m tall saplings there - not sure what they are. I'll have to wait for leaves. Plus two Bradford Pear on the south side of the Pipeline Trail.

Ground hog Day

Burned out, I decided to go to the Woods at 3 and reconnect with the trees and land. I entered via the new North Central gate and followed the deer trail down the ravine to the lower forest. We had recently had 0.25 inch rain. The water in the Wash at the post was 8 inches and the depth in the NW Pond was 0.45 feet. I found a moderately large old bur oak near a larger diameter pecan with a broken top where a raccoon lives and I stretched out on the ground for a good leafy nap. Three white-tailed deer waved their white tail flags at me as they ran north of the Ravine Trail. I took the saw and began clearing a way straight across the top in the center of the Ravine/ North Rim Trail. The one fragrant honeysuckle bush on the south slope was blooming. I caught a small black and red ichneumon landing on my cheek. I thought about I.D. and label for each significant tree along all the trails with a species 2 letter code written on soft soda pop can aluminum inch by inch square stapled to the tree.

South Boundary Cut

Walk in the Woods from the SW Gate on Chautauqua, just above the old trash station. There has been some recent (this week?) power line right-of-way clearing of a 30 foot wide swath, 400 m long, all the way to the culvert where the water drains south from the Woods. This was a thick border of 10 foot high small diameter willow, cottonwoods and green ash with tall Johnson grass and sedge beneath. It was rich, often wet, edge habitat for chickadees, juncos and other passerines. The crews used a D299 rubber tracked Cat with a powerful shredder on the front, and chewed everything down into a flattened fibrous strip between the N and S fence lines. The cleared strip is festooned with a thousand plastic bags newly exposed. I was walking there at sunset and the birds were quite active. I watched a (probably wild) black cat cross under the fence and go north into the Woods. The open SW Woods are now the edge.. no thick brushy habitat providing shelter or a buffer.. just open woods.. or in some sections there is a low hedge of Japanese honeysuckle along the old fence line. I walked the shredded area back and forth a couple of times, intrigued to get a first look at the Woods edge from a new angle; but sad to lose that good habitat.

Saturday morning the East Pond was looking suddenly reddish and turbid, as if some animal like a turtle or a crayfish population had moved in and was going around stirring the bottom sediment. The water is 0.44 foot deep. 

Along several trails, including the southern end of the N-S trail, foraging animals have been noticeable 'bulldozing' their way around through the fallen leaves. Leaving behind a funny pattern of their foraging.. maybe a turtle, or skunk or armadillo or raccoon.

Recently, I have been seeing a group of 3-5 white-tailed deer in the western Woods, in the thick stands of green ash.

This past week I made a tentative new Y trail extending from the big tree grove and East Pond at the NE end and the northern, leaning big poplar at the NW end, past the fallen giant cottonwood to the reclining elm and south to the fumaroles on the SW Trail. The trail(s) go through the thickest of the small diameter ash stands and, on the west, skirt the sedge wetland. We'll see if the trail makes sense enough to keep as is and keep clear.. or if it should be altered.

Spring Rains in January

Last two days the Woods have had a marvelous, much-needed three quarters inch rain - slow and gentle. Fall rains did not come; and the Woods have been unusually dry. I went to the NW Ponds entrance at 4 PM. The NW Pond was up to 0.46' and East Pond was 0.47'. They will both rise over the next two weeks as the water gradually percolates down and raises the water table. The water in the Wash was 31" depth at the post.

There was no water by the beaver dam; but water was rippling as it flowed into the southern delta.

The Woods were quiet,  only one white-tailed deer. The doe ran quickly in front of me descending the steep slope by the NW entrance, as I was leaving.  Fifty feet away it stopped and looked back at me. I stopped and waved. I wonder if some of the deer know me. I think they do. At 5:15, I heard the first barred owl in the SE corner of the Woods begin to call. It was answered by a barred owl in the SW corner.. all along with the barking of neighborhood dogs in the subdivision west of the Woods.

The Woods in mid or late winter are at their most open. The coral berry has lost all its leaves.. only the privet, Russian olive and evergreen junipers produce much greenery over ankle high. It makes the place feel small and the noise of the traffic penetrates farther in through the trees. It is the best time to wander off trail through areas normally too thick to enter. A good time to find new things.

After the light long rains, 20 minutes before sunset, the Woods were filled with a rich light from the low sun when it found a band of clear sky above the western horizon. The rich browns of the fallen leaves set off the wet mottled greens of lichens on the broken branches fallen from the canopy.

With warmth in the mid 50 F range, better soil moisture and earlier lows last month in the low teens, the trees will now begin to swell their buds. We'll have an earlier spring this year.. maybe a few days advanced over last year.

The Largest Tree

Nice day to  be out in the Woods... high 40's and clear sun. I started adding some more large trees to the database working westward along the SW trail from near the Grandfather tree. The largest tree diameter I have measured in the Woods 136.5 cm DBH is the Grandfather tree. It is hollowed out in the center but has a good top. It is in a good location with enough water but some elevation so it has survived the extended floods. It holds its leaves later in the year than surrounding trees. Grand old tree.

I added 23 trees.. all but two were green ash. Interesting that is so dominant over this stretch.. no large hackberries, pecan, oaks, coffee tree, walnut, boxelder, sycamore etc. The large elms in this section have been succumbing to beetles and dutch elm disease for a year or two.

I checked the Vespula yellowjacket nest again at 4. There were no wasps flying; but the ten wasps I counted outside the nest on the leaf litter within 2-3 inches of the entrance, were slowly moving their antennae or legs.

No deer (or other quadrupeds) encountered this afternoon. The water level in the Wash had fallen to 3 inches at the post.