November 5, 5:30-6:10

As I approached my sit spot, I had noticed that it was a lot harder to find it than the last few times. I almost walked right by it. The trees surrounding my sit spot had lost most of their leaves. My sit spot when I first found it had been slightly closed off due to all the trees that had wrapped themselves around it. The area directly around my sit spot has many trees that have shed their leaves, so my sit spot now has a lot of leaf litter where I sit.

The air smelled muggy and damp this time. Almost like some moist dirt and a mixture of animal feces. The noises I had heard involved the sound of the tiny waterfall and the sounds of cars driving by in the distance. I would occasionally hear a bird chirp somewhere or something similar to that. During the 15 minutes of my observing I saw a small amount of movement. The things I saw were two birds that flew by very quickly, two bugs that also flew by very quickly, and one squirrel that was jumping across the trees. The squirrel wasn’t all that interested in me, but it did seem to be looking for something in the trees. It would search one tree for a little while then jump to the next. After a while it just disappeared and left me sitting there.

The item I had noticed the biggest change to be the sycamore tree across the creek. The tree had lost most of its leaves. The only leaves that were hanging on at this point were a few leaves on the top of the tree and some on a branch that swung out some. The roots beside the river also had a difference. They had been almost completely covered by the leaves from the trees around them. I wonder what protection the leaves give these roots during the winter, or if the leaves help with saving the water for the roots. The moss in my sit spot I couldn’t see very well due to the dark, so I am not sure if the color has changed more or not.

 

I didn’t particularly enjoy this activity. I had a hard time focusing while I had my eyes closed. When I had my eyes closed there wasn’t much a difference in noise to me as when I had my eyes open. The only difference in sound was when I heard a big truck pass by in the distance. The activity where I focused on one item in my sit spot went a little better than when I had to close my eyes. I decided that I should look up at the treetops where I had earlier saw the squirrel. By the time I had reached this point it had gotten fairly dark. I sat and looked at one treetop in particular. The treetop I was looking at almost looked like a hand with a snake wrapped around it. The top was also kind of fuzzy looking even with my glasses on. It was the only treetop that I saw that looked slightly fuzzy. It made me wonder why it was the only one that looked kind of fuzzy. Was it actually fuzzy up there? I also wondered about how many animals and birds had landed on the tree. Were there animals and birds that would rest on that treetop? How long would they stay there?

The weather has started to change a lot too. The day has become shorter, therefore dark has started to come earlier. I arrived at my sit spot at 5:30. The darkness of the night had arrived by the time that I had left around 6:10. The air has also gotten much colder. The time I had spent in my sit spot it had begun quite cold then it got colder the longer I sat there. By the end of my sit spot I could see my breath. The mixture of the cold air and the early night is why I don’t think I saw as many bugs as usual.