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.

Sinkholes

Walking along the Main SW Trail about 200 ft NE of the Grandfather Cottonwood,  I noticed a small depression, the size of a couple of cottonwood leaves. Thinking that it could turn an ankle I thought I'd fill the depression with a bit of weathered wood. I selected a 4 foot long 2 inch diameter dead elm branch and pushed it into the soft soil. It went all the way down - disappeared into the soil. Some sort of mostly hidden remarkable subterranean cavity. I shoved two more sticks in before quitting; and left wondering what had caused and maintained the deep cavity. In the killing heat of the very dry summer, the soil there was broken into irregular polygons with deep fissures between. I wondered then about the fissures as potential refuges or hiding places for smaller fauna. How much more so to have substantial four foot deep cavities in the soil. Refuges for hidden life.

I remember 10-15 years ago walking a quarter mile west from this point, on the same kind of dried wetland soil in the Woods during another La Nina winter like this one, as a substantial rain was pushing fingers of inch deep water through the area. At 2-3 fascinating places the water was sinking, flowing into the soil with a constant boiling of bubbles of subterranean atmosphere pushed out of subterranean chambers. The bubbling went on for a full day. Evidence of hidden worlds beneath the surface of the soil.

Three white-tailed deer running north into the Woods from the Dune trail. They may know they are safe there as hunting season begins.

Leaves

 Thursday walk in the Woods from the southeast gate. Last few days of gentle breezes have brought down more leaves. From the upper canopy seventy percent are down. Tall elms, green ash, pecan are mostly bare. But in the lower canopy seventy percent remain. Sugarberry, walnut, hickory, mulberry, are still in full leaf. I watched golden leaves trickling down in the still, warm air under the cloudy sky. After Friday's storm front many more (most) leaves will be down.

Last two years, dozens of understory trees, mostly mulberry and younger elm in the southeast quarter, re-flushed fresh new leaves in the early autumn. This autumn I see only three trees that have done this. Perhaps the tough summer drought and heat suppressed this.

Walking along the trails they are carpeted in gold.

Scores of robins through the Woods are 'flighty', busy foraging, I think the cloudy skies and sullen heavy moist air must tell them a storm is coming. There are many gathered around the East Pond. Some are dipping for a drink from small teacup-size depressions filled with water in the bottom of the otherwise empty pond. Woodpeckers are flying too, downy and flickers.

One full grown white-tailed deer dashes away. In two weeks, deer hunting season begins on the 19th. I expect to see small herds of deer move into the Woods for protection until early December.

Walking to the Northwest Pond I pass by the fallen Carpenter cottonwood. Its massive upper branches smashed against other large trees, green ash, box elder and locked upright against them. They stand there now like giants locked in combat, a testament to the destructive power of falling canopy trees and the huge weight of their crowns. Elsewhere below the big tree grove, three large trees have fallen together, as if uprooted by some giant's breath, one striking another and that one bringing down the third like dominoes.

I stop to turn over a small rotten log and see the colonies of busy small ants scurrying on the underside. I break off the top third of the spongy rotten log and open the interior where there are three Mesodon snails taking shelter. I imagine they have crawled into the log to find an insulated shelter, safe from the colder weather coming. I wonder why the ants do not bother them. With just a tinge of guilt I put the log back together rebuilding the snails' refuge.

Light rains the past two weeks have started the growth of new agaric mushrooms, two clusters of perfectly formed gray brown agarics with white stems from the base of a half-dead elm and two patches of much smaller golden orange agarics through the bark of a down box elder. Along the Barney's cutoff trail there are a hundred perfect small parasol mushrooms in one cluster. Only good for a day or two, a few have already begun to deliquesce, their caps melting with their spores.

I see new steps built in the Woods. Engineers providing a help on two of the steeper trail sections.

A peaceful golden few hours in the Woods. I will have to return after the storm Friday to see what leaves remain.