12-5-2019, 3:17 – 3:58 PM
For my last day at my sit spot, I’m happy to report that it wasn’t too boring. Sure, there wasn’t as much activity as I would’ve liked but I was still surprised to see a little bit of activity in my spot. One of the first things I saw upon entering my sit spot was a black crow fly by in the distance, which excited me as previously, I had not seen any birds. I was even more excited to see another bird fly by later on in the first fifteen minutes as it wasn’t just a crow. While I don’t know the exact species for this bird, I did take notice that it had a brown underside and that its tail was a little on the shorter side.
As I looked around, I also took one last look at the plants that surrounded me and, in doing so, I noticed some things that I hadn’t before. Underneath the big oak tree in my sit spot, I noticed that there were little pine trees growing underneath it. While I may have noticed these before, this time I was connecting them with our lesson in succession and how before this oak tree would’ve even been able to grow, there would’ve needed to have been pine trees in that area. The baby pine trees that are growing up there now underneath the oak tree could be little remnants of the pine trees that were there beforehand to allow for the oak tree to grow.
After the fifteen minutes was up, I looked back over at my three objects. While I couldn’t register much change within the items since the last time I was there, I did note that the stick that I had chosen for this activity was easier to see and I noticed something about the wood. In the parts that were previously hard to see, the wood looks to be different in that it isn’t as covered with moss as before which is pretty interesting!
I then looked to the clouds and I will say this was a part in which I was a little disappointed. There were next to no clouds in the sky. I think there may have been a stratus cloud in the distance, however, the only reason I say this is because in that area, the sky looked more white than blue. I did take note that the wind was coming in from the south-southeast but I had nothing to compare it to with there barely being any signs of clouds in the sky.
I decided to do the listening activity with my eyes closed as I had done before in the past. The most prominent sound I heard was that of the wind blowing through the trees, making the leaves rustle. Besides that, I heard a couple of different animals though I did hear one sound that confused me. It reminded me of a cicada, however, I’m pretty sure they probably wouldn’t be out this time of year.
All in all, I enjoyed my last time at my sit spot though I will say I will probably go out to sit out there from time to time after this experience!
I also wasn’t able to observe the clouds so I can share in your disappointment. I found the pine tree sprouts very interesting and am curious to see how well they do next to the oak. It is sad that this is our last blog but I agree that I too will visit mine often!
Its really interesting to think about how the oak tree needed pines to grow and now there are little pines trying to grow there. It makes me wonder how long they will grow before the large oak out competes them. I didn’t see any clouds either.
Some nice observations- good thinking about succession!