On Sunday, November 15^th, at around noon, the weather was again cloudy and around fifty degrees. In this week’s blog, instead of including just a description and analysis of our site, we were also required to make a three minute video recording of our site.

I began my video at the beginning of Tyler Path. I immediately realized that my site had changed a great deal as winter continues to come closer. The forest floor is now completely covered with leaves and only a few sugar maples are still holding onto their leaves. I noticed that these maples that still had their leaves were the ones that were farthest away from the artificial light. As stated before in one of my previous blogs, those trees closer to the lights lost their leaves before those trees farther away from the lights, just as those leaves at the tops of trees (the ones closer to the sun) fell before the leaves closer to the base of the tree. With most of the leaves fallen, I could see the entirety of my site quite clearly.

Through the Periwinkle Valley, I filmed both the Barred Owl Tree and the fallen tree that I had climbed in a previous blog. With the green leaves now gone, the whitish bark of the Barred Owl tree could be seen from across my site. I have not seen the barred owl since that first sighting, so I was unfortunately not able to catch it on film. Above the fallen tree next to the Barred Owl Tree, one can see the few evergreens that reside in my site. There are not that many of them, but they are generally located around the sides of my site instead of in the center. Why is this? The evergreens also live in clusters instead of spreading out. Besides the sugar maples, I noticed this was the case with all the plants in my site. The periwinkles are located in one large cluster and so are the honeysuckles. This is most likely because the seeds are dispersed in close proximity to the parent plant.

I was surprised that I saw so few mammals and birds on this trip. I was not able to get any squirrels or chipmunks on tape, and I only heard the sound of a few birds and crows, but was not able to film them. Panning to the entrance of my site, I was able to capture Tyler House which had more activity than usual. Most of the parking lot was filled with cars, and more people than usual were making their way to and from Tyler House. I have come to notice that Tyler House on Sunday afternoons is usually more active than at the same time on Friday. This is probably because most students are in classes on Friday, while students are free on Sunday afternoons.

Although there were not any animals, besides humans, that I could see, there were still a few signs of the small creatures that usually abound within Tyler. I was able to film the holes made in one of the trees next to the Barred Owl tree. These were most likely made by a type of woodpecker in the area. I have not been able to spot it yet, but hopefully it will appear in the near future. I could also hear multiple birds, although I could not see them. The only one I could identify was the crow, and I also heard the high pitched squeak of one of the chipmunks that I see quite often.

I ended my video at the farthest side opposite the Barred Owl Tree where one of my sightings of the deer occurred. The path on this side leads out of my site and to the houses behind Tyler Woods. Within this shot, I captured a gnarled tree, which I think is a maple. This tree has a thick trunk and looks old. I would like to determine the species of the tree and how old it actually is. It would also be interesting to find out what is the oldest tree in my site. I would guess that since I believe this site to be relatively young, that the trees here would be young as well. Hopefully I can find this out next week once I research the history of my site.