Ruth Beeland Sit Spot Journal #2
10/6/20 Entered: 12:32 Exited: 1:45
I entered my sit spot at the hottest time of the day, high noon. I was already sweating as I entered my sit spot through a gap in the trees, and as I sat down on the tall grass I could scarcely feel the dew that had gathered on my shoes anymore, it felt as if the water evaporated as soon as I stepped into the beating sun. I took the time to eat lunch before starting on my fifteen minutes of observation and I batted gnats away as I chewed on a biscuit from my lunch tray.
I listened to birds calling back and forth to one another, and in the farthest reach of my view from my spot, I could see some sort of crow or raven picking at the fruit fallen from a tree and hopping around as he did it. The corvid flew away as it heard my drop my bag on the ground, and I set out my blanket for a buffer against the grass. During my fifteen minutes, I observed fat bumblebees bumbling (hah) around a grove of flowers to my flank and butterflies flying overhead.
The sweater I’d taken off as I came in seemed to attract bees, at one point two or three landed in a futile attempt to pollinate on the fabric at once. I’m not sure why the navy sweater read as being a flower to them, but the red and yellow spots of the thread may have had something to do with it. Though the mosquitos were likely sheltering from the heat, gnats were in no short supply, sometimes it seemed to be the only thing I could manage to focus on as I tried to keep them away from my eyes and ears. In my sit spot there seemed to be a lot of bug life, though not a lot of mammal activity came my way this time around which is disappointing. The birds were particularly loud today, though I couldn’t see it I think I heard a hawk calling out every few minutes. I also saw two blue jays chasing each other in the trees very clearly which was a treat.
The insect I chose to follow was one of the many bees that took an interest in my sweater. Eventually, he found his way over the fallen leaves to an actual flower and began to pollinate. He jumped from petal to petal and I think I was able to see the pollen building upon his legs and back. The yellow flowers he landed on were covered in many other bees playing a weird sort of tag within the stems and petals. My notebook also attracted a couple of bees, I had to back up quite a bit to get them to go back to the actual flowers.
The role of water in my sit spot today was actually pretty minimal. While obviously water is an integral part of any ecosystem, other than the dew on the grass early in my time at my sit spot water could scarcely be found in the area at this time. The plants in this area, however, grow wild and tall, so it seems to me that the spot I chose definitely receives its fair amount of rain on other days.
Finally, my chosen objects to keep track of did actually have some changes I didn’t expect. The holly bushes leaves had browned and fallen down for the most part. On my still-unidentified plant, I saw a fair amount of reddish and orange leaves. Then my turkey feathers were mostly scattered away from the spot I’d found them in earlier in the month, though I did see a few of them left. They could have been picked up by animals or maybe even some curious students.
Would have been fun to have set up a trail camera to see what happened to those feathers. Sorry the gnats grabbed so much of your attention – an extra challenge for you to work on your focus!