As I approached my blog spot, I felt different. I was more used to the environment and it no longer felt foreign. The first thing I saw as I approached my blog spot was two squirrels running behind each other with nuts in their mouths. They looked much bigger than I remember. Seeing that made me smile because without squirrels, Hollins doesn’t feel like Hollins. As I went closer to my spot I could hear the same insect that I did every time, which inviting me towards the stream. I could only hear its sound but a big part of me really wants to know what that insect looks like. Every time I try approaching the stream (from where I hear the sound) it stops immediately. I have a strong feeling that it’s a grasshopper but I am very doubtful. The sound, however, makes me feel more invited. However, today I heard a foreign sound in addition that sounded like a time ticker. I think I know how this particular insect looks like but I am unaware of what the name of the insect is. There are a lot of birds above me some of who were singing and others screeching, and a lot fewer bugs flying around me. I only see ants on the ground and nothing else, which immediately makes me panic a little less because I was prepared to be bitten!

After settling into the zone, I wanted to look at my three objects/organisms of interest:

  1. The winterberry cherries: They were the most diverse form of the plant I could see in the Garden. It had definitely grown bigger than normal. I saw three different kinds of cherries in the Garden. The plant of my interest had two different kinds of cherries, one that was just starting to grow, and the other that looked like a skeleton. This made me wonder, when do they die and grow? What is their favorite season to flourish? One other Winterberry cherries plant beside however had fully grown red cherries on them. The cherries are very versatile but it is definitely confusing me.
  2. The Water Strider: The stream is dying out slowly because of the lack of rain. There are still some puddles in the stream which could be because of the number of trees in the garden that provide shade such that the heat doesn’t dry them up. These puddles had a lot of striders on them. The number seemed to be higher than before. This made me wonder, are they higher in number because of the dying stream? Did it make them gather up in the same place?
  3. The fallen piece of branch: As I tried approaching the third object of interest, I couldn’t see it anywhere around me. It seems like someone definitely cleaned the place up and threw the branch somewhere. This made me wonder, how many times did humans visit this place and how were they affecting these organisms? I understand that they wanted to encourage safety and also keep the place clean. However, the biologists in me wanted to be felt sad for all the biodiversity that was devoid of possible houses for them to reside in.

As I was looking at the stream, I came across a very interesting insect, which I couldn’t immediately identify. It was not bigger than the period at the end of this sentence. It was moving around very fast and kept hiding under the rock. I tried to change its mode of motion but failed to do so. Do they react to the changing environment? My tiny experiment suggested that they don’t. They seemed to not be affected by any specific changes in environment. For the whole time, it kept running around the rock. However, as I was standing up from my position, I saw a bunch of ants together. There were 3 kinds of ants almost together. There was a big, black one that seemed to be running around too fast for me to observe for a long time. There was a medium-sized ant which was of my biggest interest since it was working very hard by carrying 3 times its sized food into its ant hole. The third kind, however, was a very tiny one that seemed to have wings like structures towards the rear end of its body.

The Beale garden is one of the most environmentally diverse places on campus. This region has tons of trees around, a beautiful stream with small water flow, plants, flowers and most importantly animals including birds. In my time there, I see the stream to be one of the most highly populated regions of the spot. Most of the leaves from the trees fall on the stream. It almost binds all the spot together. The stream handles a lot of biodiversities intact. Most of the plants lean towards the stream making me think if they rely a lot on the stream for their life. Most insects, seem to fly above it as well. How is the drying stream affecting this group of organisms and plants there? There are tons of organisms near the stream that make noise throughout. They must definitely depend on the water of this stream.

In the past few days, I have learned so much from my spot. I have not just learned to stay disconnected from the technical world that we live in but at the same time, have taught myself a lot of things along the way. Today I learned how wearing bright clothes affect my observations. I wanted to take a picture of a beautiful bluebird that was screeching on one of the trees, but it wouldn’t let me take a picture of itself. I then tried taking a picture of a squirrel that I had to practically run behind, but it wouldn’t stop. This made me realize, that I was wearing a bright sweater which could have diverted their attention to whatever they were doing. Camouflaging is an important aspect of wildlife and today I saw that in action. I am very excited to see what else my spot helps me experience!