The wind blowing through the hay fields dissipates as I walk into the woods. I can see the tops of the trees churning, but the path is almost still, except for the occasional gusts that make the brown leaves of the American Beech (Fagus americana) rattle and flecks of bark fly off the Scots pines (Pinus sylvestris). I cross the creek, which is flowing now with much more water than it had in the dry days of summer, and make my way to the oak loop. A woodpecker, too high to identify, flies between the high, sunlit branches of two of the big northern red oaks (Quercus rubra). As I sit on a fallen pine log against one of the oaks, I see the ground carpeted with a thick layer of solid red oak leaves with the occasional, half-decomposed beech leaf. I can hear the engines of cars on Cider Mill Road and the creak of leaning snags. A silent American Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos) flies over me, followed by another, cawing.The sun is low through the trees ahead of me, so I must be looking south, and the wind comes in waves through the trees from right to left. I watch the tall white pines (Pinus strobus) sway in the wind, with much more movement in their trunks than the red oaks, which only show movement in their uppermost branches while the trunks and large spreading limbs stand still and passive. Under the oaks are a number of beech trees still holding their leaves, and some short, skinny pines, perhaps waiting for a gap to open up? Several of the pines are dead, most standing with woodpecker holes, others, like the one I sit on, lying flat on the ground. There are far fewer leaning snags here than in the dense stand of conifers I walked through.
As I walk back, I see a small white pine fallen across the trail. The needles are still green and fluttering, and the trunk is snapped about ten feet up. The wind is pruning the forest as I listen.
Observations made Friday, January 12, 2017 in Oak loop clayplain forest on Jackson property, Cornwall, Vermont.
One thought on “Winter canopy”