User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
Initial Field Observations
Date: January 12, 2021 Time: 2:00pm – 2:30 pm Temperature: 0°C
Weather: overcast Location: yard around my house Season: Winter
The yard is approximately 2.5 acres of flat grassland with a few trees along one edge and neighbors and a road on the others. The treed edge is the edge of a cliff leading down to a riparian area along a creek in the valley below. There is a beaver dam built in the creek below the house. Across the road is a mountain slope up to a plateau. The area is agricultural with most of the surrounding properties having various types of livestock.
The entire yard is covered in snow. No fresh snow for the past few days and snow on the ground has a hard crust. Minimal vegetation visible. Front yard has one large willow tree and a small lilac bush. The back yard has a large Blue Spruce, a small stand of Aspen on the cliff edge, and a small maple tree. Dormant Saskatoon bushes between the road and property edge. No dead grasses visible due to depth of snow. A few cones visible under the Blue Spruce in the back yard. No animals were observed during this observation session. No tracks, scat or evidence of any animals seen.
When examining the willow tree, many rows of fairly uniformly sized and spaced holes were discovered in the bark. Three small mushrooms were also observed to be growing on the willow but I was unable to tell if they were currently alive. An old bird’s nest was also seen in the branches of the willow. Bark damage to one of the aspen trees on the cliff edge was noted and photographed. The bark of the aspen trees was also noted to be green on some sides of some trees.
Three questions that could be investigated further:
1) Holes in the willow tree: What made them? How can they make them so uniform? Why?
2) Green aspen bark: Why is it green? Why isn’t every tree green? Why only on some sides of the tree?
3) Mushrooms on the willow: Are they alive in the winter? If so, how can they stay alive in winter conditions?
