When I went to my sit spot, it was November 20th at 4:08 pm…
When I approached my sit spot, I noticed the trees were bare of leaves. When I sat down and began my 15 minute observation, I looked at the sky. It was a light blue with several clouds scattered throughout it. Most of the trees had no leaves, with only a few dead leaves on a couple of the trees. While watching the sky, I saw several swifts, about 5 total, fly overhead singly throughout the fifteen minutes. One of the swifts had a light brown or tan underside. In front of me, the sun was beginning to descent and set. The time of sunset according to my weather app was 5:06. I could see a bird’s nest in one of the twin trees. it looked scraggly and like it had been there a while. I noticed the sycamore in front of me has a vine growing up its trunk. The vine is the only thing on the tree still green. The grass is still green, but a few of the plants among the grass looks like it is shriveling up and dying. Even while searching for them, I was unable to see any invertebrates.
The tree I’m following that has a vine growing up it is bare of leaves; as is the vine. At the base of the tree there is grass growing around its trunk. However, there were a lot of bare patches where the dirt was very visible. When listening to the surroundings, I noticed that even the birds had quieted. The only sounds I heard from organisms were the occasional soft chirping of the birds. I heard a woodpecker that sounded far away. The creek had leaf litter along its banks and only two ripples that I saw during my time there. Overall, there were less leaves on trees and it was quieter.
When closing my eyes and listening, I heard cars and traffic more than I heard it last time and any time before that. I’m guessing with the canopy gone the sound travels faster. I could hear leaves rustling in the wind, crackling as they were blown over each other in the breeze. There was not much difference between what I heard with eyes open and closed. The main difference was that it was easier to tune into the sounds with my eyes closed.
I decided to observe the creek. I saw only a few riffles from the breeze. Under the water, I saw a lot of leaves scattered and forming a layer. A few of the leaves were a stark white in comparison. Reflections of the trees and plants were easy to see.
I left my sit spot at 4:52 after taking pictures. When leaving, I noticed some metal things stuck into some trees and they had numbers engraved into the bark. What are these for, I wonder?
Neat observation about the relationship between tree canopy and sound! I thought the same thing! I could hear machinery reverberating through the forest and I hadn’t been able to before – I definitely think that leaves absorb quite a bit of sound. And rustling leaf sounds are gone now, too. It made me wonder if there’s any soundproofing technology based on leaf composition.
Nice blog 🙂
And I think the tree tags indicate lots of things – trees that are protected, trees that need to be cut down, trees that have been treated with pesticide, or perhaps just identification.
Hey! we have sit spots near each other! I also agree with not really hearing any difference between listening with your eyes close vs them being open. Also, the leaf color thing is very interesting! I wonder why some are stark white while others are the typical brown color. Also a side note to say– your picture is very beautiful!
Nice long shadows! And missing canopies do change noise in the landscape!
I wonder what caused some of the leaves in the creek to be stark white. It’s interesting to know that all of the swifts looked the same except for one. Could this have been a different species of swift?