Connections

As I was going through my hundreds of pictures to pick out some of my favorites for my concluding blog post, I noticed a reoccurring theme; this beings almost ALL my pictures were of Lake Champlain in different stages of it's cycle, from frozen to open to flooded. I'm fine with this though, as 1) I picked my spot in order to be near the lake to observe it, and 2) Lake Champlain is the key factor in thinking about my place as a system.

Really, the different stages in Lake Champlain either influenced what happened in other parts of my place or was  in itself indicative of the changes in other parts. For example, when the lake was frozen, there was not a lot of wildlife, especially birds, to be seen. As the lake started opening up, birds started to appear also. Geese, ducks, turkey vultures, and even song birds appeared again. The lake both influenced this change by providing a habitat for the waterfowl, and at the same time was indicative of warmer temperatures when birds start coming back.

This interdependence of birds and the lake is also an example of where any changes in the system, especially changes from climate change, are going to have a drastic consequence. What will happen if the lake freezes longer in the winter and the birds migrate back while it is still closed? Additionally what happens if the lake never freezes and the birds can stay in large numbers all year round? How is that going to affect other parts of the system?

The lake also plays a huge role in human society. It may no longer be used as a major form of transport for industrial goods like it was in the past, but that doesn't mean it no longer impacts us. Right now the lake is three feet over flood stage which is definitely causing problems for people who have businesses and homes along the waterfront. It's causing a problem for me as part of the system since I can no longer get to my spot! Basically it's impossible to take one part of any system and separate it out from things that influence it and it's influences. The changes in my spot and the lake are a great example and visual of the connectedness of many different things and really demonstrate the the whole is more than the sum of the parts!

I've really enjoyed documenting my spot, I definitely plan to visit my spot some more, if the water ever goes down! I feel like I'm a small component in the system, I'm not a major player but I'm sure I have affected it in some small way. Maybe I've frightened a chipmunk causing him to not gather a seed that will later grow into a plant that provides food for yet another organism. Just my presence there is enough to cause changes and make me part of the system.

Finally, I thought I'd wrap up with some of my favorite pictures of my place that I had taken throughout the semester, but couldn't fit into my blog in any other place, since they didn't really go with the flow. Here they are from oldest to most recent, enjoy!

Thanks for reading! 

Foiled!

Unfortunately I was not able to get to my spot this week. I drove down to North Beach like usual, parked my car, and started to walk toward the entrance. However as I got closer, I noticed that there were wooden boards blocking the way and a sign that said the beach was closed. Undeterred, I continued to walk, but an elderly lady came out of the building and told me that I had to stop, that the beach was closed due to high water. I tried to reason with her, telling her that it was an assignment for class, but she held firm. Foiled, I retreated disappointed. 

Since I was already downtown I decided to head to the waterfront to take some pictures of buds anyway. The vegetation was very different from my spot's since it wasn't natural, but had been planted with a human's aesthetic preferences in mind. All the trees and shrubberies seemed to be of the same variety. It was nice, but, being biased, not as nice as my spot.

Rhododendron flowering 

Everything is the same and symmetrical 

I could see my spot in the distance, as the Lone Rock peninsula was visible. I guess I'll just have to be sneakier next week since I want to visit it for our last posting. Maybe if I attempt to bike in via the bike trail....

Lone Rock Point in the distance

Poetry

My spot had all but disappeared this morning due to the fog cover over the lake. It was like walking into a cloud; I could barely see twenty feet into the lake before the water and air blended together into an indistinct haze.

Fog over Lake Champlain

Looking to the right

Looking to the left

The fog gave an other-worldly, almost prehistoric feel to my spot. I almost expected to see a dinosaur charging out of the mist.

The lake wasn't the only feature in the usual landscape of my place that was missing. I was shocked to see that the beach had also all but disappeared. The water has been rising for weeks, ever since all the snow started to melt, but I guess I wasn't expecting the lake to get so high. In fact, it seems that this increase in level is abnormal, I've heard people commenting that the lake hasn't been this high in a long time. Even last year, I remember going to North Beach only a little bit after this date there being plenty of sand. Right now, I don't see the water level falling quickly enough to be going to the beach any time soon. The little bit of beach that is left is almost completely covered by driftwood; huge logs and branches.

This missing beach is what inspired my poem that we were supposed to write for this week.

The Rise

Where is the beach?

It is gone. 

Covered in lake,

And wood

Drifted in from far shores. 

Where is the beach?

Birds skitter 

Through the mess,

And call

In the silence. 

Where are you beach?

Come back. 

Soon it will be time to swim

And laze

In the sun. 

Come back beach. 

For now, you are gone. 

Layers

The old maps of  Burlington do not reveal much about my spot. It is too far out of the city limits to have been included in the older maps, and even in the 1906 map, it appears much as it does now, a forest. This is because this land is the property of the Episcopalian Diocese and has been since 1841.

 Similarly the census data does not reveal much about my spot. The parcel the census divided my spot into shows that nobody lives exactly where my spot is. However our friend Chuck and the students do live on Lone Rock Point, just on a different census plot.

Event Map

I had my camera out when the three turkey vultures flew by and managed to catch them on video which was really exciting. They are flying over the water, but are almost right at eye level at me since I'm standing on the cliffs. It's pretty neat. 

Visiting

This week Fed and I teamed up to tour some the phenology spots of our classmates. The day was sunny and warm, great for adventuring. We started off at Fed's place, right in Centennial Woods as it was closest. 

Fed at her spot

Fed's spot, even though also in Burlington, was quite different than mine. For starters the trees were different; the majority of trees at Fed's spot were White Pines, while the majority of mine are Northern White Cedars. I'm guessing this is due to both the nutrients in the soil, and also the different land use histories of our spots. I also noticed a significant difference in the type of birds present. The woodland of Fed's spot lent itself to a higher prevalence of songbirds than my spot, which mostly runs to different types of waterfowl. All in all the spot was lovely and quite peaceful. 

From Centennial Woods, we drove down to my spot on Lone Rock Point. Changes were readily observable from last week when I had come down. The lake is starting to recede a little from where it had expanded due to melt-off. If you look at the picture below, you can see the line of driftwood and pebbles from where the edge of the lake had been, and the clean sand where it has receded. 

Receding water

Due to the warm day, there were more signs of animals than usual. I actually saw some squirrels running through the woods, a sight that I hadn't seen yet. However, the majority of animal encounters were bird encounters, and they were quite spectacular. 

We watched the bird in the picture above through binoculars for a few minutes as it sang. The picture doesn't really do it justice as it was a lovely pale grey color with some orange tints, and a little tuft of feathers on its head. I believe it was a Tufted Titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor). It was nice to see some songbirds, something I usually don't see at my spot. 

The most exciting bird encounter however, was with what I believe was a Turkey Vulture. My spot is right at the edge of the point, overlooking the water. It's high enough that birds flying over the water are sometimes at eye-level. This Turkey Vulture flew by several times right near us. I managed to snap this picture, which doesn't quite show how close it was to us. It was pretty awesome! 

It was a really lovely day to be at my spot, but we had others places to visit so we continued on. 

View from my spot

Our third and final spot to visit was Erica's spot! We're not sure whether we were quite at her spot, but we were probably in the same general vicinity. Even though her place is on the waterfront like mine, it had its own feel to it. For one it was still extremely iced in! The ice in my spot has been gone for a few weeks now, so it was a little startling. Additionally, the lake appeared to be rougher in this portion; the wind seemed to be whipping up the waves more, compared to the gentler lapping at my spot. 

Ice at Erica's spot

Visiting other people's spot was fun. It was really neat to experience the variety of landscapes that are in one political boundary. It was also cool to see just how far the city limits stretched since we visited spots on all the edges. It's definitely nice to get to know where you live a bit better.

Senses

My attempt to use all five senses to observe my site started off quickly as the first thing I noticed as I walked toward my spot this weekend was a sound I hadn't heard for a long time: the sound of waves. The ice had finally totally disappeared, leaving the wind free to blow the water onto the shore.

No more ice!

Continuing on the theme of other senses, the water felt extremely cold! It may no longer be iced over, but it sure doesn't feel very far above freezing. I don't know whether the cold dampened the smells, or I'm just not very good at smelling things, but I couldn't pick out the characteristic smell of sand and water that is stereotypical of beaches everywhere. Perhaps the sun needs to come out and warm the ground up before I'll be able to smell anything.

The air was also filled with the sounds of water fowl of all sorts this weekend. Swimming together in the lake were a pair of Canadian Geese, a pair of Mallard Ducks, and a pair of some other type of duck that I wasn't quite sure of, Buffleheads maybe? I thought it was neat that the different species were all swimming around together.

The pair of Canadian Geese

The two pairs of ducks

There wasn't really anything for me to use my sense of taste on; I'm not sure of the edible properties of any of the plants near my site and I don't really want to risk it!

Water and Animals

It's been almost three weeks since I have been at my spot due to Spring Break, and I was excited to see the changes that had occurred. Since Sunday was officially the first day of Spring, I was anxious to see whether my site reflected the technical change of season or not. I wasn't disappointed, the snow had all but disappeared, making my walk along the beach a whole lot easier. The ice that had covered the lake for the past few months had all but melted; there was just a thin skim left on the surface. Interestingly the piles of ice the waves had formed had changed as well. Instead of just melting away, the ice had formed thin sheets, almost like piles of windowpanes.

All this melting snow and ice had to go somewhere, and that somewhere was the lake. There were large rivets all along the beach where water had flowed into the lake recently. I'm curious as to whether the Parks and Recreation service adds more sand, or smooths out the beach in another way, since I don't remember there being rivets in the summer when everyone is there. 

Further along the beach, closer to Lone Rock Point was an actual stream I had never noticed before since it was buried in the snow. It  was very peaceful to sit there for a while and listen to the rush of the water in the stream, along with the creak of the ice as it entered into the lake.

All this excess water entering the lake has caused the lake to expand. At first I thought it was just a change in perspective since the snow was gone and it was easier to see the boundaries of the lake, but as I walked along, I reached a section where the lake definitely reached farther inshore than usual. Usually there is a strip of beach that runs the whole way to the tree line and the path that goes up into Lone Rock Point, but that path was all but gone on Sunday, making me very glad I had worn my rubber rain boots. You can see in the picture below that the water covers the base of the tree, definitely not what it's supposed to do. 

While the changes in the water were perhaps the most interesting aspects of my site this week, I also looked for signs of animals like we were supposed to do. There were several tracks both in the sand and in the snow up in the woods for me to use my intense tracking skills, learned in half and hour in class, to identify. 

This set of tracks in the sand is clearly from some sort of bird. It appears to me, that there is some webbing between the toes in the tracks leading me to believe that they are from some sort of goose or duck, both of which I have seen at my site before.  

I'm leaning towards this next set of track being from a rabbit, since the front paw prints are behind the hind paw prints, very typical of a rabbit. I also saw prints I believed to be from a striped skunk, but since the batteries of my camera had given out (yes, more camera trouble) I don't have a visual for it. I do however have several more photos of animals tracks from previous excursions to my site. One excursion, I was actually the first person out in the woods after a big snow storm, so all the animal tracks were still clear to see and hadn't been obscured by bootprints.

In this picture you can clearly see the line where the tail was dragging, making these mouse tracks. 

It's harder to tell what kind of animal made these tracks since they just appear as holes in the snow, but because they come from one tree and head to another, I'm going to say they were from a squirrel. 

It was nice to be able to see the ground at my site, but even as I am writing this, it is snowing quite heavily, so it may be a while before I glimpse the ground again. Even though it's technically Spring, it appears that actual Springtime it still a ways off yet.

Birds

I spent Spring Break back home in Ohio where Spring is a bit more advanced than it is here in Burlington. The crocus were already up and the weather stayed above freezing for the most part. It was quite enjoyable to defrost and saddening to come back to a layer of snow on the ground. I couldn't get the Google Maps link to work, but the image below shows where my town is in Ohio.

One bird encounter that I had was with a pair of robins (Turdus migratorius). I was really excited because traditionally robins are thought to herald Spring. However, once I did a little research I learned that robins don't actually migrate South for the Winter; they stay around, but are less visible. So much for that old-wives tale!

The Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) is Ohio's state bird and we have a lot of them near our house. They're around year round, but are especially easy to spot in the Winter since they're (at least the males are) a bright spot of red against the brown and white of bare trees and snow. Reading up on Cardinals, I learned that they are highly territorial. Now I'm curious as to whether it is the same pair of Cardinals I spot out in my backyard all the time. 

Jumping up in bird size, I saw a Turkey Vulture (Carthartes aura) from pretty close range over break. I was outside in my driveway talking to my neighbors when some children in the street starting yelling about a large bird. Behind my neighbor's house, I saw a huge Turkey Vulture circling around before flying off. I've seen them circling high in the sky, but I don't recall ever seeing one from such a close distance before. It really reinforced how large they are! 

Trees

So unfortunately I dropped my camera in the snow while taking pictures at my spot this week. While you wouldn't think being in the snow for ten seconds would damage a camera, apparently it does since mine stopped working. It's currently sitting in a bag of rice in my room in hopes that the rice will draw the moisture out, and my camera will be resurrected. If the hoped for miracle does occur, I'll come back and add in some of the pictures I took this week, but for now I'll have to describe the trees at my site without any sort of visual. (EDIT: My camera works! The rice saved it!)

The most prolific tree at my spot is the Northern White Cedar (Thuja occidentalis). This is a very hardy tree that can grow with minimal nutrients, in fact it is growing straight out of the rock in some places at my site. Cedar trees are used for many things - their needles are a good source of vitamin C. In fact the tree is often called Arbor Vitae, the Tree of Life, since sailors with scurvy could eat the needles and be cured. Cedar wood is also used for fire starting, some of Teage's equipment was made of cedar, and was used in the canoes of American Indians. Northern White Cedars usually don't grow very large, but can live for very long periods of time. The oldest living specimen is over 1,000 years old.

Northern White Cedar

 Another common tree at my site was the Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum). None of the specimens at my site were very large, really just the size of small saplings. This is probably due to the scant amount of top soil at my site. As Sugar Maples are very shade tolerant, it isn't a problem that they're in the understory. Since the Sugar Maple is the state tree of Vermont, I'm sure everyone is already familiar with it's uses as a source of maple syrup and the high value it's wood has so I don't need to repeat it all here.

Beech trees (Fagus grandifolia) were also present at my site. The Beech trees, like the Sugar Maples, weren't very large. This may be a result of the susceptibility of Beech trees to Beech Bark disease, which occurs when a type of fungi invades holes made in the tree by the beech scale insect. This disease may be responsible for the lack of larger Beech trees at my spot. This disease is widespread, all throughout the Northeast and parts of the Midwest. There are even signs back home in Ohio that prohibit Beech wood from crossing county lines in hope of containing the disease.

There was another common tree that I couldn't identify. It had very rough bark and little black berries hanging off the twigs. Perhaps it is some kind of cherry?

Unknown tree. Any ideas?

Since I went out Saturday morning, the snow was still fresh from the storm on Friday. I was the first human to walk on the trail up to my spot, though there were plenty of animals that had already been out and about. I saw tracks of (I think) mice, squirrels, and rabbits. I'm sure we'll have to do a blog post on tracking so I'll save most of the pictures until then :) There were lots of birds around too, including a whole flock of some sort of waterfowl on the lake. It gives me hope that spring must be getting a little closer if more animals are appearing!

Fresh Jenny tracks!

Birds taking off on the lake

Mapping

Since I was away for the long weekend I found myself up at the crack of dawn today to go map my spot. The temperature gauge on my car measured a balmy 6 degrees as I drove up North Avenue. However I do have to say taking a walk on the beach sure beats sitting in class as a way to wake up in the morning. My efforts resulted in this following map:

Due to the heavy prevalence of Northern White Cedar at my spot, I labeled all those trees as a separate symbol, while the rest of the trees fell under the category of "other trees." An additional note is that I didn't mark any trees/shrubs that were shorter than my waist on the map; there were too many of them.

The parts of the map marked "cliff" are where the land falls away abruptly down into the water. There are trees there as you can see, but I didn't want to climb down to count them and risk sliding off into the water.

Steep incline 

There were some Northern White Cedars that appeared to be multiple trees but were all growing out of one trunk. To designate those trees, I drew multiple connected squares on my map. For example, in the case of the symbol on the map where two pink squares are adjacent, the tree looks like this: 

Two trees for the price of one!

In an additional, totally unrelated note to the mapping, the ice in the lake has changed again. Some parts of it aren't frozen anymore, probably due to the warm weather we had last week. In this picture from my spot you can see the unfrozen patches where the wind has created ripples in the lake, and the frozen patches were the lake appears smooth. 

That's all for now!

Patterns

My spot has already changed since I first found it last week. The lake which was only frozen for about thirty yards from shore is now frozen almost as far as I can see.

Ice on February 5th

Ice on February 12th

The extent of the ice even reached to my spot which is on the edge of the land you can see on the right side of the pictures. Interestingly the ice wasn't a solid mass at it's furthest reach, it was a PATTERN of roughly circular pieces all floating next to each other, almost quilt-like. 

Another pattern I observed at my site included the fact that the majority of trees at the edge of the point consisted of the same species, some sort of Cedar I believe. These Cedar trees composed pretty much the entire top layer of trees, though there were some smaller, different deciduous species in the understory. In addition most of the animal tracks I saw on my walk to my spot followed natural hollows in the land. 

It will be interesting to see whether the floating patches of ice have solidified into a sheet or changed in any other way the next time I visit my site.