Heavy Snow - Round One

The first half of winter 2015 was rather unremarkable at Blue Jay Barrens.  We had some cold weather and a few light snowfalls, but overall it seemed that we were headed for a nice winter.  That seemed only fair since I didn’t feel fully recovered from the trials of the previous winter’s persistent cold and snow.  Then really cold weather arrived and I began to wonder what that would do to exposed plants.  When a light snow was forecast for Presidents Day, I felt that a couple of inches of snow cover over the plants would be a good thing.  I hadn’t counted on three storms in a row leaving us with over a foot of snow.  I guess that snow was valuable as an insulating blanket against the several mornings of below zero temperatures that followed.  Three mornings were in the minus teens and the coldest morning temperature bottomed out at -23^oF.

A bit of freezing rain managed to put a nice crust atop the snow layer.  Sunny days caused a bit of snow melt, but the wet surface froze even more solid each night.  The resulting crust was strong enough to allow medium sized mammals to walk across the snow without breaking through.  These conditions make it tough for most birds to forage for seed on the ground.

Fortunately, most of the snow fell as dry powder and did not stick to plant stalks.  Seed heads remained well above the snow line.  Stout stalks like those of the Orange Coneflower were common across the prairies, but I wondered if they still contained any seed.

I checked a few seed heads and found some seed in each one.  I also found seed on stalks of Monarda, Goldenrod and various grasses.  The curious thing was the absence of any evidence that the birds were utilizing this food source.  If birds had been feeding on these seed heads, debris from the disturbed head would litter the snow. 

Dried Sumac fruit hung in full clusters, untouched by any feathered foragers.

Snow beneath the Sumacs didn’t show any signs of debris falling from above.

The Sumac fruit itself looked just as did three months ago.  I guess the birds weren’t being as stressed by the weather as I had imagined.

Some birds are not stopped by a little bit of crusted snow.  Wild Turkeys can claw through the snow and forage in the leaf litter below. 

Exposed areas like this also provide feeding opportunities for small bird and mammal species.

Cedar branches managed to catch and hold a significant amount of the snowfall.  The dark cedar needles allowed sunlight to warm the branches and melt the snow.  Sunlight angling in from the south was then able to melt the shallow layer of snow beneath the tree.  These grass islands beneath the cedars provide additional snowfree areas in which the birds can forage.

This is where the snow halted my cedar maintenance activities a couple of weeks ago.  I’m hoping the snow disappears within the next couple weeks so I can get in here and complete work in this field.  I hate to leave things half done.

The foot bridge is looking like railroad tracks.  The bridge supports held the cold and slowed snow melt on the deck above.  The center of the bridge was exposed to air from beneath and experienced accelerated melting as a result of circulation of sun warmed air along with heat rising from the creek water.

Deer took advantage of every patch of open creek water.  Deer consistently broke through the snow crust and provided about the only tracks to be found in the woods.

Several inches of snow still cover the barrens.  I keep wondering how the Leavenworthias and Drabas are doing beneath this winter cover.

The Indian Grass has managed to stay upright through every storm.  This is the grass species that is most likely to hold up under adverse weather conditions.  Many bird species spend the cold nights tucked down into the tall grass.

The golden colored grass absorbs heat from the sun and melts the snow around its base.  The tall grass patches are the first to become snow free.

Most of the snow has disappeared from the standing Indian Grass on the left side of the trail.  To the right, in the mowed field, six inches of snow still covers the ground.

A warm rain brings up clouds of water vapor from the remaining snow.  March 3 saw 50^oF temperatures and heavy rain moving through in advance of a major winter storm due in tomorrow night.  Snow totals tomorrow are predicted to reach 10+ inches followed by another dip into the subzero temperatures before conditions become more seasonal next week.  Winter weather often has a significant impact on plant growth the following summer, so I keep records of winter conditions just in case I’m looking for an explanation of strange plant behavior later on.

A Good Day

It was hard to tell from the weather forecast yesterday morning just what kind of day would unfold. I was hoping to collect some seed, but the plants need to be dry for that kind of activity. A heavy frost was still firmly in place at 9:00 am, so I knew it would probably be early afternoon before things dried off enough for seed harvest. The problem was a prediction of rain showers moving through in the afternoon. By mid-afternoon, things were bright, sunny and dry. The only problem was a series of small cloud clusters that brought with them a sprinkling of rain.

My primary objective was to collect some seed from the Tall Dropseed, Sporobolus asper. It would be a difficult plant to locate if it wasn’t for the mass of curly leaves that a clump of Tall Dropseed will produce.

It takes a bit of time to harvest the Tall Dropseed seed. The flower stalk and resulting seeds are hidden within a sheath near the top of the stalk. This means that you have to open the sheath to get to the seed. I’ve tried snapping the grass stem to harvest the seeds sheath and all, but the stem doesn’t want to break easily. It’s easier and faster to just unroll the sheath and strip the seeds into a collecting bucket.

I only got hit by one small shower and that one favored me with a rainbow as it passed. I was amazed that clouds so small could even produce rain, let alone enough to produce a rainbow.

The afternoon was quite peaceful and free of the typical noises of human activities. At one point, crows began to pass high overhead. It took about two minutes for the end of the string to go past.

The crows evidently had a need to get somewhere and soon disappeared out of sight. Their passing was completely silent. Not like the locals whose mouths seem to be activated by the flapping of their wings.

The departure of the crows left me with just my collection of seeds and some beautiful weather. I would have to say it was a good day.

Harsh - January 29, 2009

Weather conditions can quickly change. This is the scene five days after the picture I posted yesterday. Everything has a thick coating of ice. Snow is accumulating atop the ice and adding its weight to the load. When I see this photo it’s the sound of falling trees that I remember. First would be the gunshot like pop as a branch in the top of a tree would break. After a couple seconds of silence there would be a crash like a crystal chandelier hitting the floor. This went on for hours. So many branches fell that I was beginning to wonder if there would be a woods left. Thoughts of how much winter work I would accomplish were replaced with concerns over how much additional work the ice damage was going to cause.

NOTE: I’m away on a ten day excursion and have left the computer behind. So as not to have a ten day gap in posts, I’ve selected some of my favorite pictures from my pre-blogging days and set them up to automatically post one each day until I return. They may not be the best photo quality, but each identifies something of significance to me and to Blue Jay Barrens. I’ll continue my practice of current posts on July 27, 2011.

Gentle - January 24, 2009

A sunny January day with no snow on the ground is priceless. This is the perfect day for cedar or brush cutting. Temperatures are cool enough for you to wear a thick layer of clothes as protection against the rough branches or thorns. You don’t overheat, so the working conditions are very comfortable. The shortness of the daylight period makes you stop before working yourself to death. An abundance of this type of day during the winter means a lot of work can be accomplished. Unfortunately, this is not typical January weather.

NOTE: I’m away on a ten day excursion and have left the computer behind. So as not to have a ten day gap in posts, I’ve selected some of my favorite pictures from my pre-blogging days and set them up to automatically post one each day until I return. They may not be the best photo quality, but each identifies something of significance to me and to Blue Jay Barrens. I’ll continue my practice of current posts on July 27, 2011.

Hail You Say

Last night, I made my arrival home from work just in time to greet a quite vicious thunder storm. The duration of the storm was only six minutes, but in that time we accumulated 0.4 inches of rain, not counting the hail. That’s a rainfall rate of 4 inches per hour. The ferocity of the event kept me confined to my car.

These hailstones are what kept me from making a dash for the house. Well, those and the almost continuous lightning and the sticks and other debris that kept blowing past the windshield. Not record breakers, but the large ones qualified as dime sized and seemed to have a lot of pent up rage they were trying to release. I was glad to be under cover.

Looks like an explosion of ice mushrooms beneath the pines. As the storm hit, I watched dozens of birds zip into the pine thicket. Wind blew, rain poured, hail struck, lightning flashed and the pine trees shook in all directions. When the storm began to subside, the birds emerged and went about their normal business. After witnessing the beating the trees took, it was not unreasonable to expect the ground to be littered with bird bodies. Not even a feather on the pine needles. The birds were unscathed.

I guess, even though the hail appeared at the time to be sufficient to batter any exposed life form, the actual distribution of the stones was broad enough that even a bird sitting on the open ground had a good chance of being missed. Add in the fact that only a small percentage of the hail was actually large enough to damage a bird plus the protective advantage of the trees and the chances of a damaging hit seem slight. I often wonder how wild animals survive some of our most violent weather, but I’m usually imagining myself stuck out in the storm, not the animals.

The storm was moving fast and soon spun itself off to the east. This is what you have to expect when it hits 80 degrees on the first full day of spring. At least we weren’t buried in snow again.