thomasmg's Journal

Today I took another walk around the Hammond Pond about a 15 minute walk from campus. The weather was a cool 60 degrees Fahrenheit and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. I began my walk and very quickly found several different kinds of plats including mosses, flowering angiosperms, ferns, and even a couple gymnosperms. While the theme of this week's nature walks was plants, easily the most exciting part of today was finding a fully grown hawk sitting right in front of me as I crossed a small wooden bridge. Upon being startled, the hawk flew up to a tree and I was able to take a few pictures. After a few seconds it flew to the ground and, after moving around a bit, returned back to its perch. When I looked at its beak I saw that in that short period of time it had caught a small mouse and was eating it right in front of me. While slightly gruesome, this was an incredible experience I will never forget.

Today I went on a nice walk through the Houghton Garden Conservation Area with a couple of friends who are also in the class. It was a cool 68 degrees with a few clouds to give some shade (although, with the shade from the trees there wasn't much need). After entering the conservation area we immediately saw a chipmunk and were able to take pictures of it before it got away. Aside from that however, most of the other animals we saw were squirrels as well as a few insects that were a little tricky to take pictures of. We did however succeed in finding numerous samples of fungi throughout our walk. We focused our search on the base of the trees and in places that appeared more damp than other (since fungi generally prefer damp locations with lots of available nutrients) but we were surprised to find that the majority of fungi samples were found on the sides of the trees which were still alive. We did find one sample of fungus growing out of a fallen branch that appeared to be dead for quite a long time, but aside from this the majority of samples were lichen clinging to trees. After finding a sufficient number of samples, we returned to the entrance and, after taking a couple pictures of a few squirrels we found along the way, returned to campus.

Today I went on my first Nature Walk through the Webster Conservation Area only a half hour walk from BC campus. The weather was fairly humid (about 60% humidity) and was also very warm (about 80 degrees Fahrenheit), but the clouds offered a nice reprieve from the sun and there was a great breeze for most of the walk. We (me and my two roommates who are also in the class) entered the conservation area at around 1:10 p.m. at the beginning of a trail right off the side of Hammond Pond Parkway and spent about 40-50 minutes wandering around on and between the trails. While we did not find many animals, aside from a few ants, (likely due to the sheer amount of noise we made just walking around) we were able to find many different kinds of plants and mosses. About halfway through our walk we were finally able to find some fungi in the form of the "Crowded Parchment" found growing off the side of a fallen tree branch, as well as some lichen attached to a still living tree.

One of the more interesting things that we found on our walk was a small group of ferns growing out of a rock outcrop about 20 feet up in the air. While the ferns themselves were not especially rare (we had seen several up to this point on our walk) the fact that anything was able to grow in the tiny amount of space and soil available in this crack in the rocks is incredible.