October 4th, 2020 10:15 am. Temperature around 50 degrees, warm sun

During my first 15 minutes in my sit spot, I could hear a lot of different noises. I heard many different birds chirping and two distinct insect noises. One of the noises that I heard was very loud and felt like the insect was somewhere near me. As I sat beside the creek and there were some shrubs and plants around the banks of the creek, I assumed that the noise was coming from the shrubs. I could also hear some birds, and I am interested in learning more about bird noises. Some noises were very sharp while some were blunter. I wondered what phenotypic differences these birds must have, that creates this difference in noise pitches. I also thought about how chaotic it must sound if one could ignore everything else in the surroundings and just focus on the noises coming from the insects and animals.

One of the trees that started to change the color of its leaves

One of the focal points that I identified in my last blog was the creek. I think the creek has become a little shallower compared to when I was here the last time. I could see the watermarks on the rocks on the bank, and it looked like it used to be more submerged in the water. The canopy above me has not changed. The leaves are still intact and green. There was one branch that had turned brown and was about to fall off but I was surprised to see that it was still hanging in there. I noticed one weird thing, I don’t know if it was there the last time. I saw something like a strong string, coming out of a trunk of the tree that was attached to two different trunks. I wondered what that was and how it got there. My other focal point, the shrubs with the orange flower were still there. I saw fewer purple flowers compared to last time. The leaves were still intact and green. Some other trees had started changing the color of their leaves. I am really curious about why some trees change colors faster than the others although they are in the same area and get the same amount of sunlight as the other trees. 

Where I am sitting, there are a bunch of tall trees around. As we have talked about in the class, root pressure will not be enough to get water up to the leaves in these trees. Most of the trees around my sit spot get a lot of sunlight throughout the day, so the transpiration process must be effective. The creek that is flowing near my sit spot must be supporting a lot of these trees around it in ways we might not even be aware of. I think the average height of the trees in the Beale garden is higher than the ones in other places around the campus, so the creek might be helping the trees grow better. The shrubs on the sides of the stream get plenty of water, helping them thrive in the area. I also thought about how animals and birds could use the Beale creek as their source of water every day. The presence of Beale creek in my sit spot is not just nurturing a life inside the water, but also helping other living organisms thrive.

The invertebrate I observed was a bug. It was black and white, with its upper body being almost completely white and the lower body being almost all black. The insect was visiting the small orange flowers of the shrubs around the bank of the creek. The insect made a buzzing sound similar to the one a fly would make. Had I hSieard that sound without seeing the insect, I would have thought it was a fly. After some time of dwelling around the flowers, it landed on a rock to defecate. The excreta was small, white. Then it went back to the flower right after. There were some other insects of the same species and all of them were dwelling around the shrubs near the creek. The insects would go near the flower and look at it for less than a second before either jumping on to another flower or sitting on it and doing whatever they were doing. They were probably examining if the flower had enough nectar for them. I was curious about how these insects could be similar and different from bees and I am also interested in their egg-laying patterns.

My focus has improved in the past couple of weeks. There was still some noise in my head, but it was not severe enough to distract me from what I was doing. I did not think about pulling out my phone except for when I had to take pictures. There is so much to see and think about and once I sat down, I got immersed in the little world around me. It felt good to find a little escape from everything going on and sitting, observing, and appreciating the life around us.

Left at 11:25 am.

Can see the weird thing coming out of the trunk if you look carefully