Visit to Foxcroft Farms 4/18

The first thing noticeable upon arriving at the farm today was the fact that the environment was much greener than last week. A week ago we started to see the beginnings of growth, but it was very apparent without even close inspection this week. After arriving at the vernal pools, we noticed that the landscape seemed overall changed from the previous week. Some spots seemed flatter and some seemed more overgrown. My best guess is that this was due to the heavy amount of rain throughout the last week. We also disturbed some of the larger wildlife that was there just by our presence. I think I saw a rabbit running through the bushed on the other bank and I believe the hole I found last week may be its home, I attached the photos I took today to this journal. Additionally, I noticed two deer running across the fields towards the coniferous forest, which really started my day off right. After we started to look through the area, I noticed a lot of plants we noticed weeks prior are finally changing, which was exciting. Most noticeably, the pussy willows are starting to bloom which made me happy, especially because I am specializing in it for my population dynamics paper. We found, I believe, two different stages of it depending on where on the farm we were looking. The ground was a TON slushier than it had been previously, once again due to the extreme amount of rain we received. We hoped the wetter conditions would bring out more amphibious species but we still failed to find any, but we did find a lot more spiders. The ice melted that we found algae frozen to last week. Throughout the whole visit there was an on and off slight rain which looked very pretty on the pools, in my opinion.

The moment of silence this week was much noisier than last week. The birds were constant this week, which enabled me to approximately locate where each call might have been coming from, despite them all being far away. There was a bit of rain which was honestly relaxing because it wasn't raining hard and I love the sound and feel of it. There were less sounds from the road this week, maybe because it slightly earlier, which was nice. There was the church bell at the half hour again though. I actually sat on the ground this time and I was a bit cold by the end.

I wish we had one more week in the field because I really wanted to find some different animal life. I also really enjoyed watching the transformation of the farm over the few visits. I can't say that I would necessarily want to do field work in the future, but I did really value and appreciate these experiences.

Publicado el 19 de abril de 2019 a las 12:09 AM por