Field Visit #3

October 11, 2025    3:00 pm

58 degrees F, Overcast with no breeze

Sunrise 7:53am--->Sunset 7:09pm

Length of Day: 11 hours and 44 minutes

Senses

Felt - The air was cooler and it was starting to feel more like fall. The water in the stream was getting colder as well.

Heard - I could hear cicadas and grasshoppers like other times. There was a dog barking in the distance, probably somebody taking it for a walk in the park. When I was close I could hear the stream flowing but it was kind of quiet. I heard some birds chirping and chipmunks scurrying. Overall it was a little bit quieter and felt less active from the other times.

Saw - I saw a few birds, one I am pretty sure was the same kind of woodpecker I saw on my first field study. Also noticed that there were a lot more leaves on the ground since last time. I saw the creek moving slowly. The plants seemed a little less green, very few plants had flowers with color.

Thoughts - I wondered as I thought about stewardship if having a parking lot nearby and having people walk through regularly affects the wildlife. Are the animals more used to having humans nearby? Are they growing more and more comfortable to us?

Observations - I looked at my trees that I having been studying the last few weeks and noticed a few things. The elm trees looked like they had lost about half of their leaves already. Between the remaining half on the trees some were yellow and a few were still green. The black cherry trees also had almost half of their leaves on the ground and those leaves were all yellow. The other half on the trees were all green.

Pictures

North

East

South

West

Some wild grapes I found

An old milkweed plant