Observations by sierraac

On a sunny and cold afternoon I saw a Japanese maple tree in my backyard. This area is grassy and have dirt and other plants/trees growing near the maple. It is around lots of houses, which could effect its growth. There are no interactions at the moment but sometimes squirrels and kids will play on this tree. The tree is around 20ft tall and 15ft wide. The leaves are 2inchs long and 3 inches wide. It is shaped like a 6-7 pointed star. Also, the leaves are rough. The leaves are bright red with hints of yellow and purple. With some brown aging spots. There are at least 300 leaves on this tree, but many have already fallen. There are 3-7 leaves per branch. There are 4 connected trunks very from 1-4 hands around. And are about 10ft tall. The bark is smooth and is brown with light brown/yellow vanes. The branches are skinny and floppy. That is the observation of a Japanese maple tree living in an urban, backyard habitat.

On a sunny, cold a brisk day at 12:25pm I saw a captive apple tree in my backyard. The tree was in a grassy/dirty area near a sandbox. The mature tree is growing near weeds and grass. There were no interactions at the moment because the tree is mostly done for the season, but when producing fruit bugs will eat the apples. The tree is 15ft tall and 6.5ft wide in all. The leaves are 3.5 inches long and 1.5 inches wide. The leaves are slightly rough and are drooping. It has greenish yellow leaves with brown splotches (because it is old)There are about 80-100 leaves, I could not count them all. The trunk is about 12ft and is smooth. The 2 trunks is brownish gray. It is curvy and bends in many different directions. The branches are narly and have bumps at the new of them. The trunk is about 1-4 hands around. The seeds in the apple are about 1.5cm long and .8cm wide. The y are small and smooth and are a brownish black color. There are about 5-7 in each apple, so about 200 in the tree. The flower of this tree, an apple, is not in growing season, but still have about 30 apples on the tree. They are not looking so good and are no longer good for eating. These apples are red, but are turning yellow from age. They are round, smooth and have wholes in them from when bugs used to eat them. That is the description of an urban, out of season apple tree.

At 6:20pm as the sky was darkening and the nights freezing cold air was coming in I saw my peach tree that is in my backyard. It is captive because we bought it at the nursery and have taken care of it ever since. The tree is mature and has grown its second round of peaches this past summer. Since it was nighttime and most bugs are not out eating I did not see any plant insect interactions, but this past summer all of the squirrels would suck the nectar out of the peaches and bugs would take a bite out of them as well. The tall tree is an estimated 12-14 ft tall. It has smooth dark brown bark and smooth pointy dark green leaves that are about 2-3 inches long. The tree is it of growing season so there is no fruit growing on the tree. The tree is skinny and weak and even needs a string to hold it up right. The leaves are all droopy as result of it being a cold night and the tree being out of season.

In my Backyard at 6:13pm as the sun was fading and the sky was beggining to darken I saw my moms tomatillo plant. It is captive in the plastic bucket it origanaly came in. The whole plant itself was about 3ft tall, the dark green, basil like leaves were about 2 3/4 in, the delicate and thin lime green pod the tomatillo is in is about 1 1/2 in and the tomatillo its self is smooth and round, light green and looks like the size and shape of a medium sized marble. The stem I brown and smooth. It is at its mature/dieing stage because it has tomatillos grown on it but the leaves are srivled up and dieing. This also could be the reasult of the cold as well. The insect plant interaction is non at the moment but there are little junks bitten out of the leaves which means that there has been some insect plant interaction in the past.

Another animal I saw today was a snail on a Saw Thistle. We could not finalize what type of snail it was, but it seemed similar to the salt marsh snail. The snail was very small, 2-3cm and than we found one that was even smaller, 1-2cm. But even though the snail was tiny we concluded that it was full grown. The snail was a yellowish brown color.

One of the insects I saw was the honey bee. I saw it as it was sucking pollin from an Aster. The bee was yellow with black strips and was about 2/4-3/4 of an inch long. It was flying around to many different flowers to pollinate them. I know that it was a female because it was collecting the pollin.

The next animal that I found at Copisic Pond was the American Black Duck. It was full grown and about 1-1.5 ft long. It was a darkish brown color with a yellow bill. At first there were 3 ducks than 2 left and there was only 1. Than I saw the duck diving/bobbing under water. I think it was to get aquatic plants to eat. Also, the 3 Ducks that were visible in the pond were fighting and flapping there wings to clean themselves. It quake was very loud as well.

I saw the aster which is a wildflower. The size of the whole plant was about 1-1.5 ft. And the size of each individual flower was about the size of my pointer finger nail. The shape on the flower had straggly stems and the flower petals were skiing and round/smooth edged. The color of my plant was green stems. The flower had lavender colored petals and megenta/purple pistil (center on the flower)