Shuvechchha Kunwar Sit Spot #2

Wednesday, Oct 7^th, 2020; Time in: 7:57 AM; Time out: 8:00 AM; Temperature around 57-degrees-celsius

I like doing my sit–spot observations in the mornings. I wish I could pause the weather this morning and enjoy that perfect amount of heat and breeze all year long. During today’s observation, I found more melodies of birds chirping in my surrounding. I think I heard around five-six different sounds. I was not able to decode the species of birds who made those sounds. I saw some birds flying from one tree to the other, probably looking for something. There was a medium-sized blackbird that caught my attention as it chirped during the entire 15-minutes quiet observation. This bird stood on the top of the tree which had only about 25% leaves left. It was probably calling for its group. It flew away and returned with one more of its kind. They stayed there for a while, chirped more, and flew away. And again, they returned with one more of their kind. Those three birds stood on the same spot, chirped with each other, and flew away. I wonder what had brought them to the same spot every time. I spotted more flowers than last time, and they were white, yellow, and purple in color.

I was able to spot differences in all three of my objects. The sky around Tinker mountain had a very light layer of cloud when I got into my sit-spot. It seemed as if someone spread just a spoon of cloud on that part of the sky like bread and a light layer of butter. That light layer cleared up as time passed and was followed by some light clouds. I was able to see a beautiful shade of sky blue when those light clouds decided to bid farewell.The color of some trees to my south is changing into majestic maroons and a few yellows. Most of them are still green and some of them have shed their leaves completely. I can spot some more houses behind these trees as some trees are shedding allowing me to see through the gap.

Unfortunately, the yellow flowering plant that I chose was not there anymore. I think it could not survive the rain or some animals might have harmed its growth as it was a delicate one. I was able to find another yellow flowering plant to my North-West. There were more of them and their stem looked stronger and larger than the previous plant. Some of these flowers are blooming whereas some of them are wilting although they shared the same stem.

I gained many insights into the role of water in our surroundings during class. Using that knowledge to analyze a real environment was very fulfilling to me. There are no creeks or streams near my sit-spot, the presence of water was obvious. The damp soil and water droplets on the grasses made me ask if it rained last night. I believe that these dewdrops have been an important source of water for the grasses, shrubs, and trees in that surrounding. I wonder if dews are enough source of water for plants. They must play an important role in plants in deserts.

The invertebrate I chose to observe were flies. They were shiny green and gold in color. They were stuck to Daisy Fleabanes to my north. There were around three-four of them flying from one flower to another in less than 30 seconds. I was trying to hear if they made any noise — they didn’t. A beautiful butterfly flew in and stayed at this spot for a minute or two. I was surprised to see that this did not scare the flies away given their difference in size.

I take this sit-spot observation as an opportunity for me to tune in to my surroundings and learn more about it through observation, not as an assignment. I am never been tempted to use my phone during the observation however keeping myself away from the thoughts of the work and assignments I must do is a little hard. It has been better than the last observation and I am happy about that. I know it will get even better in my third sit-spot observation.