Catching up

Last thursday we spent the afternoon in the pouring rain, checking out our vernal pool, doing daily measurements and observations and walking the perimater of the pool area. I was amazed at how huge the area is that is covered by water at some time of year. We paced it off and took compass bearings. .
Both pool areas were almost dried up and I was sad to see them shriveling up.
We returned soaked but satisfied. At leastI did.

Today we spent the misty morning at the vernal pool site,taking our daily measurements and making our observations first. Lo and behold, after the heavy rains last week the pools were both refilled to almost the area they had when we began our observations a week ago. Eleanor wins the bet!! we owe her a peach- or some green beans. Apparently even the 2 suuny days that followed the rain were not enough to dry up the pools again. However, the season grows late for the pools and we saw much less productivity and fewer animals in general tahn we have before. As the rain began again, we set out to map our best guess at the perimeter of the whole vernal pool area. Once this was done, we headed back before the really heavy downpour started.

I remain convinced that this is a really special and interesting place. having known little about vernal pools before this project, so much of what we are finding is new to me. although I am not so fond of them, Toebiters are some of the most incredible critters of the vernal pool. I especially like the frogs and their adorable little tadpoles. Insects are plentiful still as well. Today i also discovered many cool plants and lichen, including a lichen with bright red flowers or flower like things.

Cool grey day in the woods

The mosquitoes in BHW are very well fed tonight. To this I can attest, as I provided, along with the rest of my group, a feast for them. Nonetheless, it was another day of discovery. The first of the pools had shrunk a great deal since yesterday; 4cm to be exact, but was still teeming with life. We found a toebiter in the other half of the vernal pool, although it seemd to be ailing. Logical or not, they remind me strongly of Golum. Maybe the color.... Green frogs in every stage of development were abundant in both pools and the tadpoles were big and seemed quite healthy, despite the apparently high water temp. of yesterday. This is exciting in terms of both pool health and helping us figure out what kind of pool we have here. Revisiting the beaver pond with new insights into the world of the beaver was interesting too. A visit from 3 Great Blue Herons coming to feed added a special note tothe experience for me, as I miss watching the herons in my old marsh.

My Head is Spinning

This experience is so dense and rich; we have covered so much territory already that my head really is spinning. But.... it is very exciting to be diving into so many new things. Given my lagging technological skills the Arcview lesson last week was really a challenge, and not very successful for me. One trial learning at high speed in new territory just didn't take me very far. I will need a great deal of practice to make headway with this.

Today, even though we never left campus, I feel like I made a deeper, more personal connection to the BHW as we made our way through developing our group research project. We'll be looking into a likely vernal pool on the site. These are fascinating little ecosystems in and of themselves, and I look forward to getting into this. It seems like exploring a new little world. I am eager to see who lives thers, how they survive and interconnect and how they are doing. Since there has been so little work done on the possible vernal pools on this piece of land, I hope whatever we find we be of use to others, but more importantly, that it might be of use or importance in protecting sites like this.

Tracking with Dan and History with Randy

A second day getting acquainted with Barrington woods was even more interesting than the first. Dan revealed the secrets the forest creatures leave us clues about and later on Randy gave us rich insight into the socio/political, personal and natural history of the land. Especially fascinating to me were the clues we learned to look for left by a variety of woodland critters that give us a little window into their world. I am really looking forward to finding out what kind of bird left behind the feathers we found. Hoping for some type of owl. I also deeply appreciate Rick's reading facilitation. The exercises he introduced to help develop our sense of place and connection to this land were not only helpful pedagogical tools but also deeply satisfying to me personally.

First Day in Barrington Woods

Well Robert Frost's winter woods in New England may have been "lovely, dark and deep" but on this July day, while certainly lovely, the woods were bright and buggy instead of dark and deep. We had a great first day exploring different sites in the woods, getting to know one and other as well as our study site, with all of its variation. We discovered a mysterious old injury to a tree near the beaver dam, that no one has thus far been able to explain, we explored old homesites and logging areas, as well as the beautiful meadow that resulted from the intense disruption of a powerline corridor. I discovered that "reading the landscape" as discussed by Wessel is a rather daunting task in some regards, especially the notion of age disruption in tree communities. These were just a few observations of our hours in the woods getting acquainted with each other and the land.