For sit spot number 4, I decided to take my husband and go with me at dusk. We went on Sunday, October 11, 2020 at 6:50 pm. Sunset was at 6:48 pm. I chose this time because it I have never been to the park this late before and I wanted to see what it looked like in the dark. I did not think that it would have gotten that dark by the time I left. I was only able to spend 40 minutes there because it was raining pretty hard. When I got there, it was only lightly raining and I was ok with that, but when I could not see my writing anymore because of the rain, I had to leave because I did not want to lose all my notes. I left at 7:30 pm. I also chose to go at the time that I did, because it had been raining all day, and I wanted to see how big the creek had gotten. If you remember from my earlier blog, I had lost two of my three items I was going to observe throughout the semester, and I attributed it to the rain but there was no way of knowing for sure without coming after a day’s rain.

Temporary sit spot tree with the huge leaves

A zoomed in look at my sit spot. It is roughly just past the small circular dark spot in the upper center of the picture.

Entrance to my sit spot where my temporary one is.

I definitely figured out that it was the rising of the creek that swept away my items. I did not think that it rained hard enough for the creek to turn into a full-fledged river! There was no way of getting to my actual sit spot, so I was forced to move to the entrance NW of my original location roughly yards away. Maybe if it had been lighter outside, I could have tried to walk through some of it to get there, but I certainly was not going to risk it not being able to see.

After sitting and trying to tune in to my surroundings, there was not much to report. I think the birds, animals and insect had more sense than we did to not be out in the rain. The only sounds were the river in front of me, cars, crickets, and the rain hitting the trees. The river did not have the trickling sound to it like it normally does. It was the sound of a river flowing this time. There were times where I heard what sounded like fish blubbing or frogs jumping into the water, but I never saw anything but a few leaves go flying past me in the water.

My sit spot is covered

The rain hitting the trees above me almost sounds like a symphony playing rather than rain. The different sized leaves play a different sound and it is like a surround sound all around me. It is really pretty to hear. The crickets are the same way, singing their songs it seems to match the rain off the leaves. Looking up to try and see the rain in the leaves, I notice that the sky is a very ominous looking gray with even darker patches in it. Makes you think of a sky that you would see in a horror movie. As the rain got heavier though, the symphonic sounds of the rain turned to more of a rain off a tin roof sound which was still interesting considering it was all leaves and no roofs lol.

Hanging branch hanging on for dear life!

Zoomed in view of the branch

 

 

 

 

Since two of my three things had vanished after a rain, I had taken two more on after the fact. The long tree branch that reached down to the creek for a drink of water is now several inches into the water, getting all the water it needs. It is actually being pushed south down the river a little, but it is holding on tight. These are the best and closest pictures I could get and I know they are not the best. I do not even think my boots would allow me to get any closer either because the water was that deep.

 

The North American Sea Oat is the other thing that I wanted to start to observe to see how it changes. I could not get to that at all because of the water. It was about halfway in between me and my actual sit spot. I can not wait to go back next time to see what happened to it after the rain.

 

The tree directly behind me at my temporary sit spot is interesting. It has huge leaves on it and the rain sounds like it is hitting an umbrella when it hits the leaves. Maybe there are insects taking shelter under there somewhere, but I do not see them. My husband noticed something cool about the tree as I was looking at the river in front of me. He said that the wet leaves almost looked like they were silver from the light hitting them from off in the distance lights. I looked and sure enough it did. He tried for about ten minutes to get it in a picture, but there was not much luck. Here is the tree anyway! While my husband was trying to get a picture of the tree without the flash, he was able to get this awesome looking picture of the rain falling and I though it was worthy of grabbing a spot on my blog!

Awesome shot of rain!

 

I do not mind telling y’all that while I got some interesting photos and was able to see the creek after a long rain (also being able to determine that it was the rain that lost two of my observation items) I did not like being out there at night, nor did I not like all the rain with it. I chose dusk because this was the opposite of what I normally do so I figured I would start there. It was 64 degrees out which was nice but that was about it. Maybe it is just me still trying to dry off talking 😊 but it was definitely an experience for sure. The rain was a bit of a letdown just because I did not see any kinds of animals, birds, or insects when I thought I would at least see a deer. All in all it was a learning experience for sure.

 

 

 

Water Patterns

Water Patterns

Water Patterns

This is how dark it was when we left!