Once my feet stopped shuffling the silence was alarming. The midday winter forest had nothing to say except for a few creaks and groans from tired trees. Wrapped in my winter clothes and aided by the lack of wind the sub freezing weather had little effect on my comfort.
The ground was uncharacteristically bare of snow for the date revealing a layer of leaves, which had been plastered to the ground under layers of snow for the past few weeks. After the melt the ground froze again so that it cracked as the dirt and dried leaves crumbled underneath my feet. Before I turned my head skyward the diversity of the forest revealed itself to me in the leaves on the ground. Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum), Red Oak (Quercus rubra), Beech (Fagus), and White Pine (Pinus strobus) and other tree leaves coated the forest floor leaving little room for anything else to show through. Having lost the vibrant colors that lit the forest just a few months ago, the stark leaves and bare trees did little to provide color to the universally grey sky.
A small pile of scat reminded me that like the trees there are many animals that have incredibly adapted to the contrasts of the seasons in New England. Unfortunately, the oscillating weather patterns that have become more frequent in recent decades are difficult for some animals. Typically each winter the cold and severe weather ultimately kill many of the ticks in these forests so that fewer moose are affected by their attacks. Recently the warmer winters are been in favor of tick survival, which has led many moose to have so many ticks that the moose scratch at their fur until it falls off, which puts the moose in risk of hyperthermia when it gets cold.
Prepared to leave I stood up, but as I did the forest caught my focus: two trees growing so close to one another that for a five feet about twenty feet up the trees they grew beside each other, literally touching. As I walked away I wondered what other uniqueness I missed in my visit to this forest and realized no matter how long I stayed I could always observe something new.
Maddie Lehner