Eric Outterson

November 13^th 2009

Natural History of the Berkshires

Video

I arrived to film excited and ready for anything.  In the early stages of winter, however, I shouldn’t have been surprised that the only creature I saw was a solitary squirrel trying to do his best to pack on the winter pounds before the real cold strikes.  It was still a nice day, however, at about 65 degrees with a light breeze.  As a set up my camera, the bells at the Thompson memorial chapel began to play and I began a closer examination of my site.

Between the beginning of November and November 13^th, the Stetson woods changed completely.  What was once a vibrant lot with thick grass, flower and shrub cover at the wood’s edge had thinned out to only bare trees.  The leaf cover in the woods, is thick and primarily composed of maple.  Now, the wood edges, previously overrun by small shrubby plants, are all clear.

The video of my site plays as follows:

0-12 seconds:

Southwest corner.

First looking east, then panning North.

Here we can begin to see the thinned out woods bordered by the low grasses for one to three feet to the curb.  The massive trees that we see are cottonwoods.

12-31 seconds:

Southeastern corner.

First face towards Thompson memorial chapel to the south and then face north to look at sidewalk bordering the Eastern side of the Stetson woods.

Here you can hear the bells!  Since the site is so close to the chapel, the bells are quite frequently a sound in the environment.  As the camera pans down to look at the eastern side of Stetson woods, you can see the distinct separation between the woods and the grassy area.

32-41 seconds:

Northeast corner at the bottom of the sidewalk.

Pan from facing South to West.

Again, still hearing the bells, you can get a better idea of the terrain, by looking at the steepness down the sidewalk.  Panning over to the cars, you can see the maple which hangs over them

42-46 seconds:

100 yards North of the site in the lower Stetson Parking lot woods.

You can see here the huge size of the cottonwoods in Stetson Forest.  Some of them extend higher than Thompson memorial Chapel itself.

47-58 seconds:

On the edge of the forest here, I spotted the only signs of animal life here right now.  This was a squirrel engaged in picking up in a few small nuts.  In addition to this squirrel I saw one other.

59-1:04 seconds:

In the center of the woods

Begins facing south, turns east.

The camera passes a sugar maple before settling on a three and a half foot wide cottonwood at the end.

1:05-1:10 seconds:

North of the Stetson woods in the parking lot, looking south.

These are stumps at the Northwestern corner of the lot indicating the lot was recently culled.  The stumps look relatively fresh, so I imagine that this happened less than five years ago.

1:11-1:33 seconds:

This is from a central point in the woods again, and begins by facing south and slowly turns west.

The schistose rocks that I panned provided a nice home for many small mammals like chipmunks, and skunks.  They also provided me with a nice staircase down into the Stetson Woods

1:34-1:47 seconds:

In the center of the woods, I scanned from the Northeast, (Stetson is in the background) to another huge cottonwood.

1:48-1:59 seconds:

Gives a wide view of the woods from the eastern central part of the woods, and then pans over to a car on the western edge.  The cars are so prevalent, that they too might as well be a natural feature.

Field Blog Journal 7

Video of site

Jon Levinsohn

I went to the cemetery woods on Friday morning, November 13^th, 2009. It was relatively warm for this time of year, 12^O C, with a little wind. It had been dry and relatively warm for the last week. The flags in the cemetery were blowing, though not violently. I brought a recording device to take some video of the area. I started panning across the cemetery, which borders the woods, and the woods themselves from edge of the manicured grass. I then traveled down the slope through the woods, recording my 2-minute journey to the Green River that borders the woods to the north. I immediately noticed how much quicker this journey was than it had been during previous weeks. The main reason for this, besides increasing familiarity with the area, was that all of the leaves were on the ground instead of on plants. As I walked, the camera recorded sound of the crispy crunching of leaves.

Upon reaching the river, I recorded the area along the side of the river where the water will run (I believe this due to both the topography of the land, and the knocked over plants, that lean in the direction of the current), if the river overflows. I also recorded the sand that accumulates next to the river.

I then walked down stream briefly, which I have not done before, because the path was typically practically impassable until the majority of the green vegetation in the area had died. I discovered the large rock, (it appears to be marble; Stockbridge formation), which causes a large riffle, which is responsible for the majority of the noise in my section of woods. The rock has iron supports. They form an upside down “L,” with the long straight portion going into the rock through a drilled hole, with the top of the iron rod bent over the rock.  This unambiguously demonstrates intentional human influence in the area, though there are other structures that further support this conclusion. The purpose of these supports might be to keep the rock in place, though this seems strange, as the rock is so large, I have a hard time envisioning the Green River moving it.

Along either side of the river, there are stone structures. On the north side of the river is the remnants of what appears to be a wall, and is about a dozen feet tall. In similar style, along the southern bank is a wall with a large arch under it, which I pass through. I wonder if these are these stone structures are related to each other, as they seem in similar style. Furthermore, it is possible that the supports in the large rock are also related. Could these be part of an earlier bridge across the river, predating the route 2 crossing to the east?

Then, I filmed some Norway maple seeds falling to the ground. Many already had fallen, but some remained on the trees. I removed them by hand and threw them up into the air and filmed their helicopter-like descent. These seeds strongly resemble the sugar maples’ both in shape and in their helicopter-like behavior when they fall.

I next filmed some seeds sticking to my jacket, as they would stick to an animal’s fur. Though the plant was dried out, I attempted to identify it using the National Audubon Society: Field Guide to New England. I decided that the plant was likely the buttonbush. The seeds attached to my jacket were similar to Velcro ‘s mechanism.

The lone animal I was able to film was a squirrel. It was making lots of noise, chattering and squeaking. What I found most interesting, was that the squirrel was perfectly still while making these noises, which seemed strange to me. By making the noise, the animal was attracting attention to itself, but by not moving it was difficult to find the animal, and I struggled for a minute or so to find the animal, though it was 20 feet away from me.

Sinicariello FJ #7
Wednesday, 11/11/09

I immediately feel a rush of crisp fall air as I begin my walk out to the woods.  It is about 55 degrees and partly cloudy, but the air is cool and a bit nippy, giving hints that winter is on its way.  Since I have not been to observe the site for two weeks now, the changes I find are immense.  The luscious orange leaves that once dotted the treetops and covered the ground are now crunchy, dead and brown.  They no longer flutter into the air when I kick them with my feet, but instead just crumple with each step I take.  I notice that some leaves are grayer than others, and seem to form a path on the ground.  These gray leaves are concentrated in lower areas of land, and I wonder if rain or moisture had any role in this phenomenon.  Because it has not rained in a while, the pool of water at the southeast corner of the wood now has shrunken to a size of about 4 feet x 6 feet, although the sides of the pool remain muddy from the usual water.  

Because the branches of the trees are now bare, one can practically look straight through the woods.  I am able to see the Taconics to the west and many birds flying above the empty canopy, whereas earlier in the year the luscious foliage of the Syndicate Road woods formed a green blanket around me.  The crows are being particularly boisterous today, and I count at least ten flying above the treetops.  After they leave, other birds begin to make themselves heard, such as a sparrow and a chickadee.  In these woods of mostly bare maples, beech, oak and aspen trees, one paper birch to the south is easily spotted due to its clean white bark.  Some small trees still have lime-green leaves and one sugar maple still maintains bright yellow leaves. 

Moving closer to the stream, I realize the quantity of fallen logs in the woods.  The odd thing is that not many of them look as if they are decaying and I do not see any fungi growing on them.  This could be explained by the fact that they are newly fallen logs, or by the more realistic explanation that the conditions favor a slower decay process.  The stream, which runs north into the Hoosic River, is speckled with colorful leaves and stones, creating the perfect picture for a painter.  Because it has not rained in a while, the stream does not hold a ton of water, but has enough to keep trickling and moving.  Many logs have fallen into and across the stream, creating a perfect passage over the waters.  One tree, with many individual branches, grows practically sideways off of the north bank and forms a complete arc over the stream.   

The attached video is a typical representation of the Syndicate Road woods.  It shows the pool of water in the southeast corner of the woods, a squirrel, a car zooming down Syndicate Road, and the stream.  In the background, you can also hear the noise of a nearby lawnmower.  Although the woods may seem as if they are secluded from the outside world, now that the leaves have fallen from the trees the presence of human impact is ever more evident. 

Gordon Smith

Natural History of the Berkshires

11/13/09

Field Blog #7: Update and Video

When I visited my site on Monday (the 9^th of November) this week, it was about 2:30 pm. The weather was partly cloudy with a slight breeze, and was extremely warm: about 70 degrees Fahrenheit.

For the video that I recorded, I stood in a spot very close to the center of my field site. While standing there, I turned in a circle starting and ending north, turning counter-clockwise. Visible in the panorama that was recorded are several aspects of my field site that may not have been clear in the written field reports. The first is the quite obvious and loud whirring noise that is going on in the background. This noise was coming from construction machinery currently employed on the Lehman building directly to the south of my site. Another important feature of my site is the amount of human traffic within a short proximity. Though only two students were filmed walking on the nearby paths during this video, during peak class changing hours, there are many more. There is also a car visible in the recording, which is another frequent occurrence.

The video also shows the general state of the site. Though I did not focus the camera at the treetops above, they are all completely stripped of leaves, and had been like that since last Thursday (the 5^th). For this reason as well, the ground itself seems much less green and vibrant, as most of the plant life that remains on the ground is covered by brown fallen leaves. These leaves have created a very dry and crackly bed under which, at least in the middle of the site, there is very little growing. The plants that still seem to be thriving are the grasses on the west edge of the site, the wild mustard garlic and the small amount of goutweed that has not been grazed by passing deer.

This is not to say that the site seemed dormant already. I counted more than five different squirrels happily enjoying the warm weather to get out and about in the leaves, and I also heard several birdcalls over the machinery, though I could not identify them or even describe their calls over the noise. Unfortunately, these creatures seemed to have disappeared by the time that I began filming.

Furthermore, the video shows (around the 28^th second) that the patch of ferns that was first sensitive fern and then was replaced by bracken ferns is now completely dead and brown.

I also found several very interesting plants that seem to have gone into dormancy already. Poking out between the brown leaves was the plant that is pictured below.

The plant consisted of a dry, brittle stem tipped with a small cluster of what used to be red berries. Now, these red bulbs seem to merely be the dried outer casings of where the berries used to be. Though not all of them were burst in a way that would suggest a bird having eaten them, the complete ones still crumpled dryly when I put slight pressure on them. This almost makes me want to believe that the contents of the berries had been reabsorbed through the stem because the berries were not eaten, but this does not seem logical evolutionarily to me. I would think that a better survival strategy would be to sacrifice yourself so that your 7 or 8 seeds could be spread. Of course, it is also possible that some insect ate them from the inside, taking the nutrients and leaving the tough outer casing. This plant did have one half grown green shoot at its base, which unfortunately I did not see until I had plucked the plant out of the ground. I only saw one other example of this plant during my inspection of my site, which I left in the ground.

Another interesting find was on the lone Northern White Cedar tree in the southwest corner of my site. At the bottom, the bark seems to have been peeled off, revealing a zigzag, maze-like pattern on the tree of some insect. The tracks seemed to be reasonably thick and wide, thus I would hazard the guess of some sort of beetle. In any case, it does not live there any longer.

Field Blog Journal 6: Smell

Jonathan Levinsohn

It was October 31^st, 2009 around 10:00 am. It was an uncharacteristically warm day, almost 20^O C, which is well above the average temperature according to the almanac (courtesy of “the weather underground:” wunderground.com) of 12^O C. The sky was overcast, though the radar did not show any cloud cover above us. Perhaps the clouds were too low to be picked up. The wind gusted frequently and there is a wind advisory warning in effect for the area as gusts were reported to have reached 37 kph in North Adams.

Braving the wind, I made my way down to the cemetery for the fifth time in a week to examine the different smells of the area. The mowed and raked grass bordering the woods had, unsurprisingly, the mild odor of freshly cut grass. I looked up towards the trees, and saw few leaves. Only the now yellow Norway Maple leaves still clung to branches. I grabbed a low hanging leaf and ground it up in my hands and took a deep breath. The leaf had little smell, but resembled the smell of the cut grass. Perhaps this is due to common chemicals in plant vasculature. I grabbed some of the sumac fruit and tried to grind it up using my hands. Though my fingers stained red, I was unable to break the hard casing of the fruit. I smelled the pseudo-smashed berries, and detected nothing.

I turned my attention to the ground, which was now covered by more than an inch of yellow, red and brown leaves (mostly maple). There was an exceptionally large pile of leaves in a ditch, which was likely the destination of any leaves that fell on the grass. These crinkly leaves had no apparent smell. There were more beer cans and bottles littering the area, though I did not bother to smell them. I remembered the distinctive smell of yellow and black birch, and decided to see if the decomposing black birch in my plot of woods still had the same smell; I peeled off some bark from a smaller branch and found that it had lost its former odor, and now smelled of dirt and rot. There was some wild garlic mustard along the edges of the woods, which had the familiar savory smell that their name suggests. The moss upon a rotting log also had no apparent smell apart of dirt. After smelling several of these plants, I was distracted by a crow’s caw. I paused to listen for a brief while, and also heard the chattering of a squirrel and the mewing of a catbird. The latter two, are sounds I have heard frequently, but the crow was a rarity. I saw a chipmunk dart into a crevasse in a large Norway maple, and I re-focused upon smelling the area.

The under story of the woods was surprisingly green, due mainly to the number of invasive exotic species (namely honeysuckle and buckthorn). The pokeberry, which was brown and wilted, still had two or three berries left. I grabbed them and easily mashed them in my hand. The purplish-blue smudge smelled like blueberries and V-8 juice. I looked for some of the buckthorn fruits, but saw that they were no longer on the trees. The winged euonymus’ orange fruits and the Japanese barberry smelled the same, a relatively strong odor, which I had difficulty placing, but finally decided they smelled like squash. The mulitflora rose, which was also still green had berries that had a weak, but sweet smell once they were pulverized. The leaves of the honeysuckle and buckthorn had no apparent smell.

In retrospect, it would have been better to have examined the smells of the area earlier, which I prevented from doing by a head cold. I do not have a particularly strong sense of smell, though it would have been nice to have more leaves, berries and even flowers to examine. For instance, it would have been nice to smell the butternut, which I mistook for a black walnut, so I could determine if the two smelled alike.

          Today I went to my site on October 30^th at one in the afternoon. The weather today was still cloudy, and it was quite windy. Fall has finally arrived at my site. All of the trees within my site have now changed color and are a vivid bright yellow. Some trees have even lost all of their leaves and are now bare. Taking my journal, I sat on a stump next to the Tyler Path and listened as the wind blew through the tree tops. The strong wind was ripping the leaves from the branches. They fell slowly, floating down to the ground and adding to the large pile of leaves that have now accumulated on the forest floor.

            While looking at the lay of the land, I noticed that compared to the sites we visited on Mt. Greylock, the forest was quite flat. There were some dips and hills created by fallen trees, but for the most part, the ground is relatively flat. I am sure this indicates that this is a younger forest.

            Unlike some of the sites that we have visited on our field trips, my site lacks the variety of fall colors which we have seen. There are no signs of red leaves like those belonging to the red maple or burning bush. There are a few trees which still have some green leaves, but for the most part, they are all turning yellow.

            There are still a few huckleberries left on my site, though they seem to be disappearing. The squirrels and birds may be eating them as winter comes closer and food becomes scarce. Besides the berries, there are few things to taste in my site. There is not any yellow birch, clovers, or mushrooms in my site to taste.

Speaking of small animals, I saw two squirrels playing in the leaves. I could hear their high pitched squeaking as they ran up and down the tree trunks and underneath the leaves. Soon after, a flock of geese flew above me; the sound of their honks preceded their presence as they made their way south for the winter.

            It will be interesting to see how the site changes as the season transitions from fall to winter. How will the light source change as the leaves begin to disappear? How will the lay of the land change after the leaves have gone and after the snow begins to fall? I am also excited to begin to study the history of my site to see what it was before it became Tyler Woods and to see if it is as young as I believe it to be.

A Taste of Nature               By: Claudia Corona             10/30/09

Neither the slight chill in the air, nor the cloudiness of the day could dampen my mood today. I was going taste-testing! But not at just any site, I was going to Hopkin’s Forest!

I walked into the forest, fully expecting a buffet of colorful leaves and lively green plants, but that all came to a screeching halt when I saw the my site before me. If I didn’t know anything about seasons, I’d think that the Earth was permanently dying. Two weeks ago there was rows of white snakeroot, shrub honeysuckle, and other plants along the trail. But now, nothing but dried up leaves and parched plant stems littered the ground. The ferns were still around, but that’s because they are evergreen plants and they remain green throughout winter.

Even the trees looked dead! Two weeks ago they were a live, rich, vibrant brown color, and now, they all looked dried up. No tree had a lively color to it; the maples. beech, and birch trees all sported a dull gray color. They all looked how they felt (of little energy) and it made sense. As the northern hemisphere approaches winter, trees absorb all of the energy that their leaves have (as a result of less sunlight hours), and then shed their leaves in order to store energy for winter. But that’s not enough, the trees also have to “power down” and go into a sort of hibernation mode in order to survive the cold winter months, which would explain why they looked less vibrant.

“Chirp, chirp!”, is all I could hear while I take in what looks to be a perished forest. Now that more than 90% of the leaves on all the trees had fallen, I could see the birds flying around from tree to tree. There were quite a few birds today, more than I’d ever seen or heard before in my site. The birds were too high up for me to identify, but they couldn’t have been more than 6 inches tall and there were lots of them, flying through the trees and landing amongst the still living shrubbery. I was surprised at the strong presence that the birds were making, both in sight and sound. I briefly wondered why they were still here, there couldn’t possibly be anything of use to the little birds, the majority of the flora was nonexistent! I couldn’t figure out the answer at the moment so I moved on.

The forestry along Ford Glen Brook may have been stripped of its vibrancy, looking like a barren land with nothing on the ground but arid leaves, but that wasn’t going to deter me from my taste-testing! I looked around and sought out any plants that weren’t already dead or potentially dangerous for me to digest. All I could see was japanese barberry and lady fern. Though the japanese barberry had lost most of its leaves, and had a pale orange color to it, it still had vivacious red berries on its branches.

That’s when it clicked. The birds were here for food, specifically berries. Now that almost all of the plants and shrubbery had been cleared away, the red berries were more noticeable and easier for the birds to collect or eat. I wanted to know what all the hype was with these red berries, so I decided to eat one. I put one in my mouth and bit into it, immediately tasting an acrid liquid. It reminded me of eating unripe fruit; sour and dry. I spit that out after a couple seconds, not wanting an upset stomach.

Now feeling a bit more courageous with my taste-testing, I went after the lady fern. The lady fern felt dry in my mouth, and tasted like grass, so I spit that out as well, definitely a less interesting taste than the berries. I’d also always wanted to know if paper birch tasted like paper, so I cut some bark out and tried that as well. The bark was pretty sturdy and hard to chew in my mouth, it felt like I was trying to chew paper, quenching that curiosity. At this point I wished that for some water to get the taste of flora out of my mouth, and I thought about the stream water…but however thirsty I was, I decided to not risk getting Giardia (diarrhea), so instead I called it a day and walked back home, happy to have had a taste of nature (literally!).

6:30 – 7:30

Stetson Tastes

 

I came to the Stetson woods today with an appetite.  After a great cross country meet, and an exciting fight to ensure that our mascot did not fall into the hands of the treacherous Connecticut College cross country team I had worked up an appetite.  The sky was darkening quickly but it was only 55 degrees outside, so I got right to work as soon as I arrived.

Expecting very little taste-wise, I attempted the Norway maple leaves.  My intuition was right; these leaves simply tasted like bland lettuce leaves with no texture.  Moving on to sugar maple leaves I found no improvement.

In search of any leaf taste at all, I tasted a yellow, green and yellow-orange maple leaf to see if there was any difference.  There was none at all.  Continuing throughout the site to buckthorn, ash, dame’s rocket, multiflora rose, winged euonamous, japanese bayberry and several others I found nothing different in taste; the little differences came in texture only.  The wild garlic mustard was only different flavor.

Moving on to the berries that remained at the site I opened a buckthorn and tentatively licked the dark mass inside.  I immediately regretted it.  There was absolutely no sweetness, and a terrible unfamiliar aftertaste lingered for about 2 minutes.  I realized that at this time of year, there was a reason that these berries were the only left.  In the name of natural investigation, however, I soldiered on.  I tasted the Japanese Bayberry and damned my curiosity; these berries were awful too.  I looked to the only birch tree at my site in hopes of clearing my palette, but its lowest branches were decidedly out of reach.  My taste tests were over.  There was still more to examine beyond taste.

On the Northern end of my site a (approximately) five by fifteen foot pool of water formed.  The pool looked to be about 6 inches deep (roughly) at its deepest section and gradually shallowed at the edges.  Exact measurements were impossible though.  Just like the ground around the pool, the pool bottom was covered with a thick leaf layer.  Around the outside, I spotted a new fungi that I’ve since identified as the Coprinus comatus or the shaggy ink cap.  Wikipedia claims that it is a great edible mushroom and is even cultivated in China.  It’s just my luck that only thing I decided not to taste is in fact a delicacy.  Finishing my pond examination I noticed 4 slugs around the outside which I was unable to identify but were about an inch and half long, a pale beige/white in color with a mottled back.

Thinking back to my initial visit into this site, I do not remember many open spaces.  Now, however, it seemed as if much ground cover had been smothered by a layer of leaves and they would not emerge again until next year.  But not all openness,  was seasonal.  Of the maples on the southern side of Stetson, there were three rather large branches that had been partially separated from their tree.   In the center rested many black locust branches.

As I began to leave, it seemed the entire woods seemed to be thinning out in preparation for winter.  The berries that remained seemed at best bad-tasting and at worst, inedible.  But as I prepared to leave I saw signs that this wasn’t a barren site.  A small grey moth perched calmly on a late-blooming goldenrod, apparently probing it for something more tasteful than what I’d found.  Next to it, clung a small grub about 3/4 of an inch in length.  Giving this creature a closer look before I finally left, I picked it up.  It did not appreciate my offer of hospitality.  It quickly curled up, and excreted a huge volume of foul green liquid onto my hands.  Tasteless.

Syndicate Road Woods – Friday, October 30, 2009 – 3:00 PM

The Syndicate Road woods have changed exponentially since my last visit.  The first thing I noticed on my way into the woods is that the asters on the east side of the road which were in full bloom only a few weeks ago have now shriveled up to become little puffy balls of spores.  The large puddle in the southeast corner of the woods, which I believe has grown a bit in size, measuring approximately 10 feet by 10 feet, is now visible from the road due to the bare branches of the surrounding trees.  As I step into the site, I find it ironic that now the floor, not the canopy, is yellow because of the fallen leaves.  Otherwise, everything seems quite still and only a squirrel disturbs the peace by jumping from one bank of the stream to the other.

The stream, in fact, is nothing but still.  Even though it has not rained since Wednesday, water not only trickles but pours out from the culvert.  The sound, therefore, of the gushing water is of a much higher decibel than during my other visits as the stream winds its way through rocks and miniature cataracts formed by fallen branches.  The western bank of the stream is still muddy from the rain, but due to continuous erosion, it gives a good example of the various soil levels present at the site.  I can easily see the two or three inches of dark top soil covering a thick, light-colored, muddy layer of clay.  These layers all rest on a rock which is only slightly visible but appears to be schist.

On the banks of the stream I notice that the honeysuckle has lost of its small leaves but still maintains its bright red berries.  The sumac too, which had a vibrant magenta color last week, has lost all of its leaves, although I do notice another sumac about twenty feet downstream that is later in its cycle and now appears bright pink.  Now that the branches of most of the tall trees are bare, it is easy to spot the oaks that I had a hard time finding during my first visits.  From my zero point I can see at least six as they still retain many brown leaves.  A few sugar maples are also holding off and still sport a beautiful yellow coloring.  Without their leaves, the many bare trees in the woods all become like one, no longer identifiable by their leaves, buds, or coloration.       Inspired by the field trip to various points on the Green River last Tuesday, I wanted to check out the stream in the Syndicate Road woods to see if it had any of the same larvae that were present in the river.  I had brought with me a make-shift collecting kit which consisted of a kitchen bowl and a pair of tweezers.  My first try inspecting the leaves from a riffle in the stream was unsuccessful.  Farther downstream, however, I had better luck.  Among wobbly rocks and broken branches, I managed to collect a large clump of dead leaves from a riffle in the stream.  After rinsing them off I found a large, what I thought to be, true fly larva.  At full extension the larva was about two inches in length, although it expanded and contracted frequently.  The larva had a transparent outer layer that seemed to break into bubble-like sections which hosted a small, black object inside.  I set the larva on a leaf in order to examine it further after collecting more specimens, but by the time I came back it had crawled away.  Although I also examined leaves from pools of standing water, the only other critter I found was a small inch worm that looked like it had drowned in the water.  I was happy with my discovery of the caddisfly larva, however, so I decided to rinse off my materials and head home.  Even though the Syndicate Road woods may seem a serene and quiet area, I learned today that the trickling stream is full of life.

The skies over Wall’s Pond were unusually gray this afternoon. I tend to visit on the kind of day when photographers come to take pictures for the admissions prospectus. The wind gusted to nearly 10 mph and, though the air was a balmy 55 degrees, the wind made it feel, if not even that much colder, markedly more bleak. But a poor day for Williams admissions means a great day for Clark admissions and the entire parking lot was full with cars, motor coaches, and school buses. I picked my way through them to the relative tranquility of the pond and found myself, aside from four mallards that cruised across the surface, the only visitor at the site.
I first took quick stock of the foliage. The big sugar maple by the entrance had but a few leaves left on its low branches. In a week nearly all the ash and beech along the western cow fence had lost whatever remained of their foliage. The only color left along that strip of woods came from four now-conspicuous sugar maples, each of which still had the bulk of its leaves. The signature bright yellow color now caught my eye and I began my rounds along the western edge, deciding to make my general notes first, if only to stave off the inevitable gustatory investigation I was to make on this visit.
As I rounded the northwestern corner of the pond, I noticed a small flock of nine Canada geese standing in the eastern meadow. I became anxious to examine them in closer quarters and approached quietly and slowly, treading lightly around the flooded shoreline. When I was about 20 yards away, and could make out the strips of white and black on their bodies, one goose made a loud honk and flapped mightily into the wind. The rest followed immediately and I jogged over to where they were just as the last goose leapt into flight. They took off into the southeast breeze, flying low over the museum. I watched as they turned east and flew off over Spring Street, until they disappeared altogether.
Once the geese were gone I decided it was high time to get a better taste of Wall’s Pond; literally. Not quite knowing where to start, I knelt down and pulled up a pinch of grass and, like the cows, started chewing away. Not so bad at first, I thought. Bland, with a very slight bitterness. But clean tasting and smelling. Ultimately unenjoyable, though, and sure enough I spat it out (the grass actually turned my saliva a nice shade of Kelly green) after about half a minute. I decided I was not of the constitution to eat goldenrod or mugwort, my allergies being bad enough already, so I turned next to a benign looking sedge in the bordering vegetation and popped a blade in mouth. Similarly tasteless, the sedge was a lot easier to chew. Only for a few moments, though, and I promptly spat the sedge out, too.
I made my way around the pond, sampling various small shrubs with non-poisonous-looking leaves, all to the same conclusion: “people food” is better. In a last ditch attempt to enjoy this enterprise, I pulled down a twig and needle cluster of white pine at the south end of the pond. I tried a few needles, finding not much flavor at all and then stuck the ripped end of the branch in my mouth to try and get some sap. At first I was subtly pleased by a crisp, piney flavor, vaguely sweet and quite refreshing. Within thirty seconds or so, though, the branch became intolerably bitter. I tore the twig from my mouth and rushed to the water’s edge. Braving the risk of giardia (we’ll know in a week or so if this was smart), I dipped my hands into the pond and drank. The pondwater nullified the bitterness from the pine and I remarked to myself how clear and tasty is was. A little dirty, to be sure, but it hit the spot. Cleansed, I walked back to my car. I had, by this time, garnered a few odd stares from passing Clark patrons and wanted nothing more than to sink my teeth into the Subway sandwich I had left waiting on the passenger seat and wipe clear with Frank’s Red Hot pepper sauce all that nature had had to offer.