lamarreb's Journal

Over the past 24 hour period, I have been absolutely struggling to find vertebrates. The weather has been very poor consisting of rain for many hours and subzero temperatures for the rest. After class on Tuesday I took a walk around the Chestnut Hill Reservoir in hopes of finding some squirrels, or any vertebrates in that matter. Instead, what I found was a plethora of more leafless plants than I could count. To my pleasant surprise, I was able to find a group of turkeys roaming around. Other than that, it came down to the wire, forcing me to simply take photographs of some surviving species around campus. My hopes of finding birds, squirrels, or even just somebody walking a dog were high, but let down as a combination of circumstance and the weather clearly wanted be to fail. Hopefully these photos of plants (and turkeys) will help the iNaturalist community regardless.

I went on a walk today around a drainage pond behind my home in the woods of New Hampshire. Because of the October weather, the view was spectacular, filled with bright red and mellow orange leaves. However, with the theme of plants, all the plants seemed to be either dead or losing their leaves. I knew that I needed to stay low and take my time to find any surviving plants. Staying closer to the water yielded more success, all while providing a better view. Waling around the base of a connecting river caused me to find a wide variety of animals, like the frog in this post. I also found a rather large spider that caused me to run in the other direction, which sadly means there is no picture of the beast. The weather was great as the sun was out in a cloudless sky, as I roamed comfortably in a t-shirt. It was a great walk that led to me really observe all the plant life. Bonus: I saw a beaver from a distance!

I took a walk today (Monday 9/16) over to the Webster Conservation Area. I walked a little ways into one of the paths off of Hammond Pond Parkway. It was a very bright and sunny day out, but it did not feel particularly humid. Chipmunks were constantly moving around and rustling through the leaves. It is that time of year because whenever I looked down the ground was littered with acorns. There was not a lot of animal diversity as the only ones I was able to spot were some chipmunks, ants, and birds flying overhead. Overall, however, the plant diversity made up for the lack of animal diversity. There were many different kinds of trees and flowers. The Webster Conservation Area is definitely a walk I recommend.