Coniferous Views and Foxcroft Farm Adventures, Part 2

Coniferous Forest Ecosystem Week 3, Thursday Lab Section

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This week at Foxcroft Farm, we were tasked with finishing our biodiversity video, examining the areas around our biocubes for biodiversity, and finishing off our observations with 15 minutes of silence.

We decided to start the day with filming our video; we simply walked around the conifer region and had a good time discussing biodiversity and features of the region. While doing this, I had a chance to lay on the ground; I am not sure how recently it had rained, but the ground was very wet, indicating rain had fallen very recently. The conifer region was also a bit cooler than the rest of the farm, as the trees block most of the sunlight coming in. My partner, Dan, was able to climb the mother tree in the conifer region, which had branches protruding in a ladder-like manner. We were able to observe many of the species we discussed in our video, such as wrens and fir trees.

We were given a box to fill with assorted items and species around our biocube. To fill this, we took some of the high turbidity swamp water from the conifer region, many handfuls of damp, pine-needle ridden soil, many leaves that had blown in from trees in the surrounding area, and part of the log that penetrated our biocube. To do this, I smashed the log into a piece that could fit into the box. After collecting all of the parts we needed for our biodiversity box, it was onto final observations and the 15 minutes of silence.

In my final 15 minutes of silence, I heard similar things as in the previous week; birds, people walking by on the bike trail, and the rustling of trees. I did not hear a crow or goose this time, but I definitely heard a wren and several other whistling and cackling birds. The wind was not as strong as last week, so there was not much noise other than the occasional chatter of the people walking by on the bike trail. I was able to take the 15 minutes of silence to take a good look at the trees above me; I did not realize how huge conifer trees were until I sat down and really tried to observe them. I saw two birds, which were greyish in color, but I was not able to identify their species. I also noticed some bugs flying past, which were not present in the previous lab period. The swamp I was sitting near is an excellent spot for bugs to lay their eggs, so I was sitting near a region of high flying-bug density.

My final observations went very smoothly. I felt more alert this week than in the previous week, so biodiversity was more easily identifiable. I took six or seven pictures of new species, all of which were plants or fungus. The flying bugs were too difficult to take a picture of, but it was still cool to see how quickly the region was populated with them in just a week’s time. I was able to find the species which I wrote my paper on, the turkey-tail fungi, on nearly every dead or decaying log in the forest. I also got stuck with many prickers, as I decided to take a walk through a densely-branched region to see the swamp that isolates one part of the conifer forest from the rest of the field. During this, I found an intermediate wood fern for the first time, which I was expecting to see much sooner. After removal from the pricker bush, it was time to leave Foxcroft Farm for the last time.

- By Joe