Back to the Woods

Early September. I've been away from the Woods most all summer.
Saturday morning at the NW Gate. Brief, two hundredths of an inch of rain at dawn has wet leaf surfaces glinting in the eastern light but left the ground below largely undampened. Sun illuminated perfect orb webs spun here and there across the trail, mostly the white-backed Micrathena. The trail to the NW pond all looked well and untrammeled, not many visitors recently. Trees looked  like they had done well this growth year, mildest and wettest August in 10-15 years. NW Pond was covered with a good healthy growth of scum, good organic matter, lots for aquatic herbivores to eat. Eastern Pond is about one third full with dark water.. almost black prob. from leached tannin.
A few flowers blooming: some Elephantopus elephant's foot and yellow asters along the eastern Tree Loop.
Mosquitoes were fairly abundant, but not pests with a little DEET. Much of the floor of the NE Woods, west of the Wash had been scoured by flooding in the recent heavy rain Tuesday Aug 22. The water must have breached the western levee north of Island Crossing and flowed SW across the Woods, pushing leaves, branches, logs with it and leaving bare soil - soon to be recovered with autumn leaves. Leaf litter and debris pushed all the way along N Loop Trail to near the Eastern Pond.
  Nice growth of fresh mushrooms, clump of Coprinus deliquescing east of the Eastern pond. Various round puff ball spheres soft orange. Beautiful fresh white shelf fungi.
  Around the tree loop there were 20-30 full fresh plums down below the Mexican plum, fairly sweet with considerable tannin to pucker the mouth. Down along the main East west trail there were fresh green pecans clipped and dropped by squirrels. The green shells with a wonderful lemony tannin pungency.
  South end of the Tree Loop the oldest red bud had fallen across the trail. I thought about trees I had seen alive in the Woods, growing, blooming; had seen die; had watched decay; that are now fallen. Some years gone by. I thought about friends at home, high school classmates, recently passed. Nice to see vigorous trees here old and middle aged and know they will be standing here after I am gone.

Storms and the Woods

Five days ago the Woods had a good 0.7 inch of rain followed by a storm three days ago with strong 80 mph wind gusts and another 0.9 inch.  Yesterday, Saturday afternoon I went for a walk in the Woods from the NW entrance.

I was impressed with the amount of fresh blow down - very interesting. The cottonwoods seem to have lost the most - small branches with clusters of green leaves and larger diameter limbs. One of the largest cottonwoods  (#123) by Carpenter's post now looks like it will fall. The roots on the west side are lifted and the massive tree looks more tilted. (Thoughts of the 'Home Tree' from the film 'Avatar'.) Box elder, green ash and catalpa also lost lots of green canopy. I was surprised how light catalpa branches are. Interesting time to walk around and examine leaf clusters fresh on the ground. Some interesting galling and other herbivory.

  The trail loop I walked (NW entrance to East Pond, Northern Loop to Island Crossing up to the Tree Loop, around that clockwise down to the Elm Bridge Crossing, then back west via the East West Trail) - is blocked in several places by blow down, but you can get around easily enough.

  An interesting time to go see and think about disturbance giving new forest structure. There are a lot of broken trees and new rich resources on the ground. 

The rain produced a crop of small bronze-colored agarics through the Woods. Caps the size of half dollars.

Oliver's Woods is Falling Down

Wow, what a lot of change in the Woods! First time in there in a few weeks.
The western central Woods has had a half dozen of it largest old bur oak snags fall this past month, taking down middle-aged elms and green ash with them.  In more than a decade of visiting the Woods, I've never seen this much windfall and change. The big bur oaks have been dead from flooding in this section for many years. Their roots have finally rotted away. The wet soil from many 2017 spring rains and the moderately gusty wind storms 20-40 mph have brought many dead trees down and broken, decapitated or crushed the young/ middle-aged elm, green ash and others growing around them. (Potential dendrochronology co-occurrence of good wide ring width intervals from abundant rain and stormy weather, with more scars from falling trees wounding survivors?)
Western trails blocked in two places by one massive bur oak and one other.
Under the big persimmon trees, small urn-shaped off-white flowers are falling. The sound is like the beginning of a light rain shower. Faint pleasant smell of melon.
Around the big pecan trees, there are temporary carpets of spent catkins. Near the cottonwoods, there are small tufts of white cotton drifted to ground. The dark soft organic soil in the west is covered here and there with thousands and thousands of new bright green seeds dropped from green ash. So much effort is spent in reproduction. Now spent and done. Trees are devoting their time and resources toward growth now.
I notice all the abundant animal digging along the west side of the Tree Loop (armadillo?).
The Wash from the Elm Bridge southward is layered in new blonde sand. There must have been a new construction project washout somewhere upstream.

Green growth and destruction

At 3 I stopped in to see the Woods at the SW Chautauqua Gate. A strong 30-40 mph SW storm wind was tossing the tops of the big bur oaks, elms and Celtis sugarberries there. A short 50 feet north on the Main SW trail I stopped, as the trail was flooded into a large swamp extending all the way north to the NW Pond. With Saturday's 1.25 inch rain on top of the previous big rains from last week, the W and SW Woods is under a shallow flood. As I stood there, I heard the crash of a big tree coming down, maybe 200 feet north of me. I could not see it, but it sounded like one of the dead bur oaks falling and crashing on younger small diameter trees.
I drove around to the higher, dry NE Gate and walked in on a 1 mile loop. The ponds (East and West) are brim full and over full. A small heron, with bright orange legs, flew away as I walked toward the NW Pond. Across the middle of the woods I discovered two green tops of big trees blown out by the winds. A large green ash top, loaded with new, fully-flushed green leaves, had snapped out of a tall tree just south of Carpenter's big Cottonwood. West of the northern end of Hackberry Alley a big Celtis sugarberry top was ripped out of the crown and lay with its heavy branch partly stripped, exposing the fresh wet surface of the phloem. The elm of Damocles, with its broken top hanging for years directly over the East West Trail, surprised me. The long-healthy big tree is now fading in what looks like a rapid, massive, elm disease wilt. I expect the entire tree to be dead a year from now.
The Woods trail sides and understory are bursting with fresh new green life. The grove of 4-5 catalpas had scattered sweet white blossoms on the ground all around the trees. The small white flowers of some of the early-blooming privet lay on the ground like small white crosses or stars below the shrubs. I was thinking about the odd poignancy of massive focused destruction at a time of abundant rapid green growth.. when I noticed one more piece of destruction. The old blue trash transfer building is completely gone. Nothing left but the cement pad of the huge old ramshackle building where I had once set my bug lights and captured moths and insects near the Woods.

Wet soaking soggy sweet Woods

(From Sunday 23 April)

Wet soaking soggy Woods this morning. At the NE Gate a fresh, clean, sweet scent of new privet blossoms, opening fresh white and faintly lemon scented. At the SW Gate, a sweeter Japanese Honeysuckle smell with yellow and white tubular flowers all along the southwestern boundary.

A quick sharp half inch rain fell Friday morning, followed by another two thirds of an inch over the next ten hours. It was enough to flood the SW Woods and leave standing water in pools and across large areas, all through the south and southwest of the Woods. Cool fresh temps and bright sunshine and a zillion mosquitoes. Cool enough so that as I walk the paths, they rise up in clouds, but are not quick enough to come up to my head or face. Who eats mosquitoes? Dragonflies? Who else?

There are numerous spider webs freshly spun, just some silver strands in the sunlight across the trails. I think spiders don't like mosquitoes. I think they cut mosquitoes out of their silk.

The great big dead bur oak that has fallen and blocked the Main SW Trail at 100 m is surrounded on all sides by water. I will wait until the pools and forest dries.

Sweet Woods with Arthropods

Last 2-3 days I've enjoyed late afternoon and evening walks in the Woods. There is a sweet odor permeating much of the Woods and I am not sure if it is from the invasive Elaeagnus Autumn olive in bloom, or the invasive multiflora rose.

The Wash is still full of (non-flowing) water and the SW Woods' Main Trail and SW quarter is still under water from the 4 inch rain a couple of weeks ago. The water has been there long enough now that a few mosquitoes are showing up. If the water remains for another week, there may be a large population of mosquitoes. Ticks are becoming abundant again. I have seen 2-3 dozen in the past four days. Tiny young ticks, probably first instar < 1 mm in length are most abundant, but larger mature ticks are present and active.

On the positive side of the arthropod ledger, there have been surprising early arriving monarchs (2-3), tiger swallowtails and red admirals. And bright flashing green Cicindela sexguttata tiger beetle.

Turtles and Woods Waking Up

Walking along the main E-W Trail a small young box turtle was just emerging from its over-wintering den, one of those anonymous holes along the trail by the biggest old pecan tree.
Up above the Northern Loop Trail, four Ailanthus Tree of Heaven have sprouted new leaves. The very newest are still purple green. The smell of the leaves is different from the nearby young pecan. Tree of heaven leaves are more nutty. A multiflora rose is coming in to full bloom down by the previous Elm Bridge. Water is still full in the wash, although not moving. Walking down from the Tree Loop, a larger animal moved in the water leaving ripples - a garter snake? crayfish snake? turtle? I didn't see it.
Amur honeysuckle Lonicera maackii in bloom on the Dune Trail, and across the wash from the old mimosa stump. A few dozen spider webs are strung across the trail, young small spiders, probably young Micrathena. One good rattlesnake fern is up and growing by the trio of cottonwoods along the wash. Much of the SW levee there has been scoured and covered in blonde sand in the the flood last week. New pink paint has been applied to the trees along the former 'white' trail (Hackberry Alley down to Beaver Dam). I need to find out about this.