Ruth Beeland Ecology MWF 8-9
9/16/20 1:30 PM – 2:45 PM
As soon as we were assigned to find a sit spot for the semester I had an idea of where I was going to go. In late August, I found myself wandering around campus, and as I passed by the alumni houses the path before me cleared into an upward sloping hill with an overgrown forest at the top. As I peeked to the side I caught sight of a hole in the tree line, and though it obviously wasn’t intended to be used as any sort of hiking path, to me it looked like prime real estate for a sort of nature hide-out spot. It was just a coincidence that about a week later I received this assignment that gave me a very well defined use for my new hidey-hole.
The area is obviously overgrown, though it seemed very diverse in life to me in its own unique way. Once I made my way into the forest I caught sight of a clearing just on the other side of the tree line. The grass was tall and a flowering bush flanked the edge of the path, the trees hung thickly with vines over their branches and moss growing up their trunks.
I caught sight of a fair few animals during my time at my sit spot. As I made my way to my spot again I was able to very quietly approach a group of deer standing down the dirt road that is below my little field. Of course, they were able to hear the jingling of my bag before I even considered what noise it would make as I walked closer, but it was nice to see them nonetheless.
Other than those deer I was privy to the usual suspects in my sit spot. A butterfly perched on my shoulder and I stepped over an anthill on my way to sit down. I came out of the assignment with a few mosquito bites and viewed a cardinal and what I think was a robin in the trees above. Above even the trees a plane flew by something like every fifteen or twenty minutes, I didn’t know that campus was close to an airport, or maybe they just happen to fly over this area pretty often.
My focus for this assignment was two different plants that had fruits that I thought were interesting. One I have yet to identify, but the other I do believe is a holly bush. My third focus was just this pile of what I believed to by turkey feathers just beside my sit spot. I’m curious to see whether those feathers hang around or disappear in the coming weeks, maybe I’ll even find more, or see the animal dropping the feathers itself.
This spot looks very picturesque and nice. I had trouble finding animals so I am a bit jealous that you were able to find so many! I wonder how the feathers got there, was the animal eaten or did it just shed some feathers?
NIce spot Ruthie and I am glad you are connecting to it already. You have some fun objects to follow – am particularly interested to see what happens with the turkey feathers. Good work