Month: February 2017

The light brown grass peaks out from a light layer of snow, the sky is grey and this afternoon the birds are quiet, not providing their location with song. This is a familiar trail, one that holds adventures and memories. I have walked here before, when the leaves were turning bright with color, in the  golden hour and blue skies. Then I walked along side my family, now I am alone. My walk today reminds me of walking this land with my mother and as I remember, I make my way into the forest, a part of the Otter Creek Gorge Preserve. This area is a section of the TAM and has been owned by the Middlebury Area Land Trust (MALT) since 1999. Under conservation, the Otter Creek Gorge Preserves 340 acres of land and was previously owned by the Otter Creek Gorge Land Trust. Trustees of the Otter Creek Gorge Land Trust, Linda O. Johnson, Willard T. Jackson and Steven Rockefeller donated the land to MALT, thereby allowing for a more continuous path for recreation in the Middlebury community. The forest is beautiful, diverse and quiet. At times the terrain slopes and narrows, causing me to be cautious on the slippery ground. I am joined by an American red squirrel (Amiasciurus hudsonicus) and I wonder how this creature views the forest. It is my first company and only company. I pass a great Red oak (Quercus rubra) and in the distance I am surrounded by American Beech (Fagus grandifolia) and Paper Birch(Betula papyrifera). Now I am ready to see Otter Creek and know I am approaching the gorge, but if you don’t know the land you come across the scene abruptly,  surprised by the beauty and variation of the land. This view of Otter Creek leads me to wonder where it begins and the journey it takes to reach its mouth at Lake Champlain. As Vermont’s longest river, Otter Creek has its headwaters in the Green Mountain National Forest and originates on Mt. Tabor, located in Peru, Vermont. The creek flows 112 miles south to north as one of Vermont’s prized attractions for recreation. This afternoon I become a small part of its journey, and I see the water that has passed so many before me.

Drawing from the perspective of a Red squirrel(Amiasciurus hudsonicus) on the forest floor. (Attached by email because of limited storage space)

Sources:

Conserved Properties

http://middleburymountaineer.com/water/otter-creek

From a distance as I walk up, I see poking out over the top of the canopy what I think are two pine trees growing side by side – probably white pine (Pinus strobus). As I duck through the underbrush to get closer, I am surprised. This is one tree, branching up in two great trunks. I think about what Tim Parsons told us: stress equals growth. So I wander closer, supposing at what could have caused this.

I get closer, and I notice that fallen branches and twigs lie all round the tree, forming a ring of dead debris. Some of the needles are drooping and brown. Though from the top, it looks like two tall, vibrant trees, I suspect that this tree might just be dying from the bottom up. The lowest branches are falling or fallen, the layer above that still intact yet leafless, bare. Each of the two trunks divides into another two, then tree, then four trunks. Much stress must have been felt as this tree split again and again. And, at a distance, I see a black, lifeless figure on the ground.

I am shocked by the dread that fills me as I stand here, looking at it. I turn away from this dead crow, anxious to leave. Every time I look up, I notice fallen branches, caught in one another, hanging inches from my head.

As I walk away, I see a welcome sight: animal tracks. Two kinds intermingle, one of a small dog or fox, and the other more alike to a raccoon, though I do not know if they are present in this area.

Life and death juxtaposed, foreign to my sheltered self. I walk back to the comfort of campus.

My trip out into the woods today was occupied by lots of life.  Not trees, not people, but animals.  When walking into the woods, I was immediately struck by footprints I saw in the snow.  They walked from the trail to the woods about 10-15 feet in, walked around in two circles, then doubled back right back where they came from and back onto the trail.  After inspecting these prints, I came to the conclusion that it was just a dog, but a dog off of its leash as there were no human prints nearby.  Fascinated, I continued on.

Not long after the dog prints I saw, I found a bird nest.  Normally when I picture bird nests, they are high up in the trees, but not at the tops as that would expose them to wind and predators.  This bird nest, however, was no more than 3 feet off of the ground in a combination of a small tree and lots of twigs and such.  Though this bird nest was covered in snow, I was curious to why the bird would nest so low to the ground.  After looking into research for the types of birds and why they would nest low to the ground I was unable to find an exact species of bird, but I did find that birds would nest lower, especially during the winter, to avoid the harsh winds and weather that could damage the eggs and nest structure.  Having a nest that is close to the ground and in some shelter helps protect the eggs and ensure that they have a better chance of survival.  As I continued walking and heard bird calls overhead, I could not help but thinking what if one of those birds were the one that was born out of this nest.  

My final encounter was with woodpecker holes.  After walking into the trees a little bit to observe the holes more closely, it seemed apparent that I was looking at the holes from a pileated woodpecker.  The holes were large and there was lots of damage to the surrounding area on the trees.  When I compared these holes with what we learned in class, I confirmed my suspicion.  When I found a location and sat and observed the trees and surrounding forest, I couldn’t help but think about the animal signs that I had seen and what other animals and marks they had left even just in the surrounding areas.  

As we all dispersed into the forest to make our observations, it was easy to forget that there were other people around. The sound of the water rushing by, visible only between gaps in the sheet of ice covering the river, drowns out any other sounds. The layer of snow covering the dead grasses, rocks, and leaf litter on the ground also seems to absorb the sounds. Beside me lays a bridge that allows humans to cross the river with ease. I wonder if other animals, that would otherwise be unable to cross the river, use this bridge to explore new parts of the forest.

Around me there is a mix of old and young hemlocks (Tsuga canadensis) with a few ash (Fraxinus americana) growing, as well. The branches of these trees are coated in a layer of ice after a recent storm. While these trees have developed strategies to withstand such harsh conditions during the winter, the ice can make it difficult for birds or squirrels to access the food they need to obtain from the trees. The severe differences between the seasons in New England make it difficult for trees and animals to survive in the range of conditions they are confronted with here. With climate change affecting these annual variations, conserving these forests and the species within them will be even more difficult.

I notice that the trees growing along the uphill side of the river do not grow straight up, but curve outward over the river below before reaching up towards the sun. From the time a seed is in the ground, it must be aware of which direction the surface is, and once above ground, the tree must grow toward the sunlight. The path to sunlight may not always be direct, which is the case here where the river creates a gap, letting in large amounts of sunlight for the trees just beyond where they rest in the ground. The curve of the trunks here is a reminder that even when conditions in the forest are not favorable, plants find ways to make it work.

This morning, I was pleasantly surprised by the sounds 0f birds chirping.  I had a feeling that today would be the day that I got to observe animal activity, but my feeling was unfortunately wrong.  I did, however, spot several interesting signs of animal activity.

I walked on a path just off of Middlebury’s campus and I chose to stop when I spotted two birds nests high up in two nearby trees.  I scanned the sky looking for birds, but although I could hear them, I could not see them.  I turned my attention closer to eye level, and I noticed that the forest was dense with trees that grew in many different shapes.  Some branched out immediately and barely rose above six feet, while some grew tall well above forty feet.  There was one similarity between them though.  Almost every one of the trees was slanted slightly left, and there were also several smaller trees on the ground that were pointing to the left.  I believe that this is from wind, possibly a microburst of wind, and I wonder how the birds nests were affected if at all.  As it turns out, birds and their nests are rarely effected by storms unless they are in a tree that falls.  It is interesting that wind that has the power to push a tree down cannot destroy a birds nest made of twigs, leaves, and mud.

As I was about to leave, I glanced behind me and I realized that I had walked right by a tree with clear evidence of a woodpecker.  The holes are pretty large and well-crafted, which are both characteristics of a Pileated Woodpecker  (Dryocopus pileatus).  There were four holes, but my intuition is that they were all the doing of a single woodpecker.  

I left the location feeling more satisfied than I did in the previous weeks, as I had seen very little evidence of animal activity.  Although I did not actually see the woodpecker or the birds responsible for the nests, I knew that they had been there and will return eventually.

Once, several winters ago, during a solo hike in the Great Smokies, I was moved to stop, shed my pack, and silently sit, cross-legged, on a long-dead stump, much as we have done each week in this course. So deep in the Park as I was, there is a total absence of familiar sound, sight, and smell— this world was palpably, terrifyingly foreign. I, like many, came to Middlebury in pursuit of this sensation, the vert in Vermont; I came here to get well and truly lost; with a grandiose philosophical flourish to lose sight and gain perception. Thoreau had two years, two months, and two days to find himself at Walden; I, too, would have my four winters of liberal arts in the wilderness. In short, I came to follow Muir along the clearest way into the Universe.

But as my exploratory experiment over these four weeks has demonstrated, our woods aren’t really as accessible, healthy, contiguous, or all-encompassing as we take them to be. I walked two miles north of town on Sunday and found nothing, and I was frustrated again on Tuesday, not by total failure but by disillusionment. On a map, the Battell Woods through which I hiked are the just same shade of green as the Green Mountain National Forest; but it just isn’t so. These are young woods, sparse woods; woods choked out by invasives and lacking the jutting, jagged, rugged terrain; the clear-flowing stream and crashing falls; and above all— literally and figuratively— the lofty hemlocks and grand old white pines that made the National Forest such a potent driver of the imagination.

I’m certain of the good— psychological, ecological, and economic— of both true woodlands and so-called “urban forests.” The Battell Woods occupy an awkward intermediary niche. They are not close enough to campus to be accessed by the carless student body. Equally, they are not “wild” enough to be “wilderness.” The stream that runs through the Battell tract is interrupted at intervals by Seminary Road, which must seriously impair any ecosystem services the forest might provide. I can’t imagine maneuvering cumbersome logging equipment over this contorted, undulating terrain, but the youth of the trees proves that someone has, and not all that long ago.

A gaping powerline cut bisects the Mean Preserve on the northeast side of the road. It’s a wildlife habitat nightmare, which does little more good than to remind one how aesthetically unpleasant a clear-cutting is. Incidentally, it has given me a chance to observe just what we mean by “even-aged stands”: trees on the peripheries are ancient and towering, while the others— recent arrivals in the heart of the clearing— are densely packed and uniformly 7 feet tall: no champion has arisen just yet. I couldn’t help but feel a little sad that some of the pines wiped out to make way for the powerline apparently hadn’t left the clearing but had been stripped, treated, and resurrected in perverted mockery of life, standing amongst their once-peers as telephone poles.

Pinus Strobus. The Eastern White Pine. In the space of a few seconds what was once a wide open field turned into a dense stand of these trees. Their evergreen needles far above me filter out much of the sunlight that would light my way, so I sit down to let my eyes adjust in the fleeting dusk light. I notice the trees have an artificial looking quality to them. Yes, they were all planted at the same time and were all about the same size, but it was the structure of each individual tree that struck me as odd. Each tree, I saw, had branches emanating from the same point on the trunk, in circular rings all the way up. Perfect for hanging Christmas ornaments, yes, but why is this naturally effective? Horticulturalists have often had diffuclty with pruning pine trees (most of whom share the rings of branches characteristic) without killing the tree. If too many branches are taken from one ring, the tree will die. Though I can only speculate, this ring method allows the tree to grow faster upwards, then shooting branches out over its competitors; instead of having multiple branches continuing to grow upwards, it focuses on one branch for efficiency. This allows the pines to reach impressive heights, in a very straight, uniform fashion.

Humans thus appreciate the white pine for its excellent lumber, and many plantations have appeared in the eastern United States because the tree grows fast, and the wood quality is generally uniform and dependable. In colonial times, large, high quality trees were marked by agents working for England, and these were set aside for Royal Navy ship masts. During this same time period, Native Americans in the Adirondacks (which means tree-eater in the Iroquois tribe’s language) would eat the inner bark, known as the cambial layer, of white pines. When dried and pounded, this layer of park can also serve as a flour for baking. The needles of this tree also contain high concentrations of vitamin C, which make a healthy, if not excellent herbal tea.

Trevor Livingston

I was hesitant to return to the Red Kelley Trail as it was the setting of many of my toughest runs from this past fall. The refuge of shade that I so readily sought earlier in the year seemed to be only temporary as I stepped into a dense deciduous forest full of light. I try out the relative density test, which returns a result of 14, a number that seems high for a forest mainly consisting of skinny sugar maples (Acer saccharum). The skinny and tall stature of these maples display that competition for light is fierce in this forest. Whitish buds led me and a compound leaf structure lead me to distinguish one new species as the box elder (Acer Negundo). A few old white oaks (Quercus alba) represent the tallest trees in the forest. How did these hardwoods persist? My theory is that these hardwoods must’ve been around far before the sugar maples took over because their slow growth wouldn’t have stood a chance against the aggressive, sap supplying light hogs.

An age disparity is quite evident in this forest. The fresh blanket of snow only accentuates just how little grows along the forest floor. While the thick summer canopy provides relief from the summer sun for a tired runner, it is a saplings worst nightmare. As I sit just off the trail, I think back to a time when American Elm (Ulmus americana) may have existed in this forest before being decimated by dutch elm disease in the mid 1900’s. It is a shame that only 29 of these beautiful trees still exist on the Middlebury campus. As I walk past the athletic complex, I am reassured when I pass a stretch of DED resistant young hybrid Asian elms. I can’t help but think about how beautiful this walk will be in 30 years.

I picked up the Class of ’97 leg of the Trail Around Middlebury by the organic garden and headed north. A fresh dusting of snow from the night before had left a thin layer of flakes over a pavement of ice compacted by Middlebury’s population of hardy trail runners. It was late afternoon, but judging by the tracks in the snow, only two people and a canine had ventured out this way so far. One of these people had the foresight to bring crampons, a decision I soon envied as I felt my boots begin to slide.

I soon hit the first taste of forest this leg of the TAM has to offer: a stand of trees which my four weeks of tree identification practice quickly informed me is composed of eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis). I’ve walked through this grove many times in my three years here, but this time I had a new, much appreciated perspective on the ecology of this patch of forest. Unfortunately, given our last class period, this perspective was a rather morbid and hopeless one. A series of presentations and lectures that day had stuck in my mind as not-so-gentle reminders of the serious threats that forests face from diseases, insects, and climate change. Looking at this stand of hemlocks I couldn’t help but wonder how much longer it will stand before Hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae) snuffs it out.

I continued on the trail and crossed Weybridge Street where I quickly wished for the stability only crampons can bring to boots trekking on an icy hill. Walking along the creek, I continued to reflect on how this place might change. How quickly will warming global temperatures alter the forest composition of this small corner of Vermont? Will some of these tree species disappear entirely as more southerly trees migrate north? I wondered what it might look like to return there and find a completely different forest landscape.

From afar, I spotted something tied to a tree just off the trail ahead of me. Approaching it, I found a timely, written reminder of the threat that ash trees face from emerald ash borer. This particular threat is one that Tim Parsons, Middlebury’s landscape horticulturalist, informed us will kill our campus’s entire population of ash trees in the next five years. It seemed a fitting marker for a break, so I sat down on one of serval felled logs in the area and observed the forest around me. Through the canopy of white pine (Pinus strobus) needles, I could see wispy clouds rush by. Looking behind me, I could see trees bathed in the golden rays of the late afternoon sun.

And next to me, I could see a dead tree pockmarked with holes left by pileated woodpeckers (Dryocopus pileatus). It was here that I found some solace: at least those lovers of deadwood will find some enjoyment as pestilence reshapes America’s forests.