Tyler Woods Video           On Wednesday, October 21st, Claudia and I ventured out to Tyler Woods at night. It was around eight o’clock, and the sun had completely set. As we walked up Tyler Road, our path was illuminated by the lights which lined the side walk, and the light glow coming from the windows of Tyler House.
           Our last beacon of light came from the lamppost next to Tyler Path, where we then entered Tyler Woods. Although it was dark within the woods, the light from the parking lot and the surrounding houses made it possible for one to see reasonably well. Still, we took out our flash lights, and I began to look for the first place I wished to start recording.
           I decided to first record not too far from the path. As I pressed record, I noticed that the night was still and quite, which was not what I was expecting. I was expecting to hear the chirping of crickets or the hoot of the barred owl. Instead, for fifteen seconds, I recorded the sound of impenetrable silence.
           Wishing to try another location to see if I could catch any nighttime activity, I headed to my right and down another side path. Here we stopped, as I heard the sound of one of the many domesticated dogs which I have seen on my site. Although I could not see him, the bark was coming from the direction of one of the fenced houses behind Tyler House. I readied the recorder and recorded the repetitive barking which echoed throughout the area.
           Fifteen seconds later, we made our way to the Periwinkle Valley where I recorded my third recording. The dog, which we had left behind us, could still be heard disturbing the night’s silence. Besides the presence of this loud, domestic dog, no other sounds could be heard throughout Tyler Woods. The night was strangely quiet. Even Tyler House was devoid of noise. There were no cars making their way up Tyler Road; there was no music blasting through the windows, and there were no faint whispers of conversation which usually made their way to my ears through the small open windows.
           My last stop, and last fifteen second recording, was in Huckleberry Path. The sound of the dogs warning signal was now faint, and only the silence of the night remained. After I had recorded this last fifteen minutes, Claudia made an interesting observation. The strongest light source in Tyler Woods is a lamp post which stands at the end of Huckleberry Path. She noticed that those leaves closest to the lamp post had turned color and were already beginning to fall, while many of the leaves farther away from the lamp post were still green and had not yet changed color. This was evidence that the presence of artificial light impacts the time individual trees lose their leaves.
           The next night when we arrived in the Hopkins Forest, I noticed that Claudia’s sight had trees that were much older than those in my site. The ground within the sight was covered in freshly fallen leaves, and some of the trees were already bare and looked ready for the winter. My trees, on the other hand, still had some leaves that had not yet changed color. Just as in the Science Quad, I could see that those trees that were older usually lost their leaves first, while the younger trees lost their leaves later. Since my site is younger than Claudia’s site, it makes sense that many of her trees have lost their leaves while mine are still in the process of losing theirs.
           Unfortunately, I was not able to record the barred owl Wednesday night. Although the only concrete sound I got was of the nearby dog, I am sure that with multiple visits to Tyler I would be able to capture the sound of dear walking through the leaves, the hoot of an owl, squirrels out late hiding away food for the winter, and the sound of people coming to and from Tyler House. With time and patience, I am sure we would find that Tyler Woods is as alive and active at night as it is during the day.