November 3rd, 2019

3:29 to 4:20

 

Today was colder than other days that I have gone to my sit spot. Autumn is well underway and Winter is around the corner! With that, changes have occurred in my sit spot. During my fifteen minute silent observation period, I tuned into what was happening above me, in the trees. I heard birds chirping quietly every few minutes and saw a few small brown birds perched in a tree to my right. One was perched and chirping while a few others hopped along the tree, then flew off. After a few more minutes of observing the trees and birds, I shifted my attention to the waters of Carvin creek. The water had fewer ripples than last time. I noticed a set of spider webs hanging along two trees by the edge of the water. After a lot of careful observation, I saw a lot of small white bugs flying around the water and webs, a few coming near me. I heard the sound of something walking on leaves on the other side of the creek, but wasn’t able to see what it was. While I wrote down my observations, a small dark spider crawled onto my towel I was sitting on and sat there about a minute before crawling away into the leaves on the ground. I missed what was occurring around me on the ground while observing the creek and trees.

The creek had a lot of leaves built up along the banks, with fewer ripples than last time. The water reflected the sun, making it a bit difficult to see the water at certain points in time. There were a few small and large ripples caused by organisms (Like water striders) and falling leaves. When listening to the sounds around me, I noticed I didn’t hear crickets anymore. Rather, I heard birdsongs and bird calls and leaves rustling in the breeze. The tree I’m observing has very few leaves and looks like a skeleton of a tree. The vine growing up it lost most of its leaves too. The loss of the leaves allowed me to see the birds in the branches easier as they landed and took off from the tree.

When doing the auditory exercise, I took a half a minute to adjust myself before actually seeing what I could hear. I heard different birds continuously, including what sounded like a Jay. I heard leaves rustling in the breeze and the sounds of wildlife moving around through the leaves. I noticed that each time a car passed, the birds would go silent then start up their chittering and chirping a few seconds after the car was gone. I heard several chirps and what sounded like a staccato “cha! cha!” from another bird and a high pitched “woo wo woo” from another. (I’m not sure how to describe the sounds and that was the best I could think of how to spell it if the sound were spelt out.) The experience was different and it took a bit before I could recognize the direction the sounds were coming from.

I chose to focus on the ground right beside me to the left for ten minutes. Where I was sitting, I saw lots of leaves; many of them sycamore, spider webs across the leaves. I saw a small white bug from before land on a blade of grass and watched as it moved around a bit and then stayed there for a minute before flying off. The breeze had moved the grass when the bug flew off. On a decaying leaf side, I saw a very tiny black beetle. It moved from the side to the underside of the leaf, where I lost sight of it.

A lot had changed from last time. This times, there were only about two trees that still had green leaves on them, many more leaves on the ground and in the water edges. There were no crickets to be heard and only bird song and calls were able to be heard. Overall, there were less ripples in the water than last time. The temperature was colder and it was easier to see the birds as they moved around.