A Freshly Created Observational Transect

September 16th, 2016
4:38 PM
Observational Trisect in Site Alpha

I am getting a slightly later start today, but it is still sunny in Site Alpha. I set up a 10-foot trisect, which I marked with black string and wooden coffee stirrers. I did not have a tape measure, but I measured out every two feet of string with a yard stick. At the moment the first 5 inches of the trisect are in shade, but the rest is in full sun. When standing at Data Point A, my shadow runs longer than the trisect itself. I was surprised by how little territory ten feet covered; for some reason I was imagining a study of a much larger area. The oak tree is to my left when at Point A, and the side of the trunk facing me is lit up by the sun. There is very little grass (even dead grass) surrounding the base of the trunk, but there are small piles of what look like spent blooms from the tree. The dried brown strands are about two inches long and have small flowers every 1/8 of an inch or so. I believe that the tree is either a pin oak (Quercus palustris) or a scarlet oak (Quercus coccinea), based on the appearance of the acorns, seven-lobed leaves, and dried blooms. I will have to investigate this further. There were also small rocks and pebbles near the base, as well as acorns/acorn fragments. The oak is lightly and sporadically coated with grey-green lichen, and at the very bottom go the trunk (near the soil) hard, dark green mounds of moss can be found. There is also an unfamiliar weed that is roughly 1 3/4" in height.

I have seen the same reddish brown ants that I noticed yesterday, as well as some black sugar ants, climbing up and down the length of the tree. Occasionally I would even see a medium-sized black ant. I wonder why the ants run up and down the tree in such a way. Maybe they are foraging or hunting? There are so many branches, acorns, and pebbles on the ground that they leave red impressions in my skin if I sit for a few minutes. It is now 4:55 PM, and all of the data points are in the shade; that happened faster than I expected. I hear some of the same sounds that I encountered yesterday: planes flying overhead, traffic on Mass Ave, the wind in the leaves, and a bird chirping. I hear crickets, which I do not remember noticing yesterday. There is also something that sounds like metal being hit together, maybe from someone in one of the dorm kitchens.

I am at Point B and have noticed that a little black ant is running along the length of string that I put down. I wonder if it is easier for it to travel along the string than over the ground. There are pinkish-white balls all over the ground here. At first I thought that they were white pebbles, but they seem too uniform and numerous to be rocks. I counted 21 of them between Point B and C. The balls are about 1/8" wide. They could be pieces of road salt or fertilizer pellets. I was able to crush one between my fingers.

As I was writing a brown jumping spider hopped up onto my leg. I tried to get a photo of it, but it was difficult because it rarely stopped moving. Each hop it made covered about an inch, so it did not take long for it to reach the oak tree from Point C (a distance of about a foot and a half). I can hear an insect call from a tree beyond the parking lot, but it is not one that I recognize. A tree cricket or katydid, perhaps? There is a shard of clear glass between Points B and C. The bench near Point D has dirt and loose webs on its legs, but I do not see any spiders. The crickets are growing louder, I just heard something buzz by my ear, and a black gnat of some kind landed briefly on my leg. I am glad that there are more insects/arachnids present today. I heard four bird calls, but I do not know enough about birdsong to say if they were from four different species.

I decided to count the number of acorns in the area between Points D and E and one foot to the left (so a rectangle that is 2'x1'), and found 23 of them. I realized while counting that it was a somewhat difficult task to complete without defining what counted as an acorn, as there were many fragments, caps, and immature acorns. Something to keep in mind for next time, I suppose. I have also been wondering if I should note in which cardinal direction my transect faces (N,S,E,W) and if I should start using the metric system for my measurements.

Between Points E and F I found a grey bird feather that is about 4" long. I have entered into an area with less grass than the other data points. I spotted an acorn much larger than any that I have seen previously. It has no cap and is about twice the length of the other acorns in the area. I wonder if it was carried here by an animal, or if there is another species of oak nearby that I have not noticed yet. It is 4:30 PM now, and suddenly there are house sparrows (Passer domestics) in great numbers. I can see a group of about 12 near the basketball court, pecking at the grass and occasionally chirping. I wonder if they are drawn to the edge of the basketball court because the grass is still green over there, which may mean that there are more insects to find. They seem to be rather comfortable in the urban environment, and the group has grown to about 20 now. They were not frightened by two loud firetrucks passing, and a male got about 5 or 6 feet away from me before flying elsewhere.

Ten Minutes in Site Alpha

I chose a nearby location and used my senses for ten minutes to take in information about my surroundings.
September 15th, 2016: 4:07 PM

I explored a small area behind my dormitory on Brattle Campus. The area is roughly triangular and is bordered by a paved basketball court, an unpainted wooden picket fence, and a paved sidewalk. Beyond the picket fence is a medium-sized parking lot. Located within the triangle are two benches (made with plastic imitation wood), two metal garbage cans, a large oak tree, and two other trees that I cannot positively identify.

The trunk of Tree 1 is about six feet tall, with branches on three thick, upward-growing limbs. The tree canopy has a gentle curve to it, so it is somewhat proportionally balanced. The side of the tree closest to the garbage cans is missing many of its leaves, and the ones remaining are brittle brown fragments or leaves mottled with yellow and orange. The other half of the tree has green, oval leaves that come to a point. I did not spot much insect damage, but there were a few branches with dried or mottled leaves. There are green, cherry-like fruits hanging from the healthier side that are about the size of peas. I noticed that the side of the fruits being exposed to more sun were blushed with a red-orange color. I imagine that they are beginning to ripen. The stem of the fruit is 4-5 times longer than the fruit itself. It is a smooth, flexible stem that can be bent without snapping. The fruits are often connected to branches near leaf clusters, and the stems are strong enough to stick out at various angles without causing the fruit to hang limply. I expected the fruit to have a bit of space between the skin and seed, but the flesh was tightly packed against a single off-white pit in the center. It was difficult to pry off the flesh from the pit. The texture and smell reminded me of an unripe pear. I broke the spherical pit open (which was easier than getting to it), and inside were six golden-brown seeds--three on each side and each in its own chamber. I removed the outside skin of two of the seeds and found a creamy flesh in one, and a fat little grub or maggot in the other. The maggot is a creamy white with no distinguishable eyes, but I did see a reddish spot that could have be its mouth (based on my experience with aphid midges). It has not moved much since being disturbed. I feel badly for opening up its habitat, because I do not know if it needs to complete the larval stage within the seed. I wonder if he was oviposited into the fruit as an egg. I did not notice any tunnels within the flesh of the fruit or entry holes on the outside, but I could have easily missed one. The maggot's body is translucent, and I can see a concentrated area of black within it. Ingested food perhaps? I have no idea if it is the larval stage of a fly, wasp, beetle, or something else entirely.

I started my observation by listening. I heard the following: 3 low-flying planes, the sound of wind rustling the tree leaves and tall grasses across the sidewalk, dried leaves rolling and tumbling along the ground, acorns dropping from the oak tree and hitting branches on the way down, three different bird calls, sirens and the distant hum of traffic on Mass Ave, a squirrel climbing down the trunk of the oak and crossing the parking lot, muffled conversations from the nearby dorms, people passing by, and two bicyclists. I sat on a bench in the sun and closed my eyes as I listened. The sun's heat felt good at first, but grew uncomfortable warm rather quickly. The inside of my eyelids were lit up with orange when I closed them, and I did not open them again until that grey squirrel descended from the tree. The plastic bench was warm, and I could feel pebbles and acorns through my thin-soled flats. The soil was light in color and powdery. It was broken up by patches of straw-colored (presumably) dead grass, low growing weeds, tree leaves, and acorns. The acorns were marble-sized and many were still a vibrant green. I am not sure why they fell to the ground; some of them were still connected to small branches with leaves. Maybe high winds or squirrel activity were responsible? Acorns of all stages of ripeness were scattered around, some with holes, lost "hats," or discoloration. I easily broke open a bright green one and found flesh that was covered with a thin, almost fuzzy skin. The flesh halved with nearly no effort, and was without air pockets, patterns of color, or other blemishes. The off white-yellow flesh was so smooth and consistent that it reminded me of rubber. I did not examine the oak as closely as Tree 1, but overall the oak's bark was much smoother and less shingle-like. The oak's canopy did not begin until about 2/3 up the trunk. There were projections/nubs halfway up to the start of the canopy that were on all sides of the trunk and not uniform in shape or size. They could be wounds that healed over after the tree was pruned or shaped. The leaves of the oak are thin and not moist to the touch, and the majority appear to be a healthy green. The trunk does not fork into large, separate limbs at any point like Tree 1. The limbs jut out from the tree almost perpendicularly and are surprisingly small in circumference, but the branches are dense with leaves despite this. Some root portions were visible near the base of the tree, but overall it appeared that the tree had ample room to grown (unlike the trees that warp city sidewalks).

I did not notice many insects or other arthropods in the area. I saw what looked like a green bottle fly, a pale yellow spider that crawled along my hand (until I began to peer too closely at it and it decided to make a quick escape with a leap and a strand of silk), and reddish-brown ants that were slightly smaller than the black sugar ants that I often see in my driveway at home. There were abandoned spiderwebs between barren branches and spider silk strewn all over the picket fence. I found a beautiful little web that was about two inches across in Tree 1, but did not spot an occupant. The ants had low nests in a grassless patch of dirt near the two garbage cans. At first I thought they might be the underground nests of bees, because the entry holes were pea-sized and I have never seen such a wide opening in an ant hill. They were not really hills, either. There was barely any soil piled around the entrance so they were fairly inconspicuous. Leaves, twigs, and acorns crunched under my feet whenever I walked. The soil was dry and loose enough that my shoes easily left impressions in it. I wandered around a little and noticed small, round depressions in the soil that were about the size of saucer plates. I have seen similar ones before in areas with powdery dirt. I believe that they are spots where the little city sparrows (or finches?) take dust baths to rid their feathers of mites. I also came across a few candy wrappers and other small pieces of litter, which I deposited in the trash.