It's been a while since I went for walk through my favourite woods and with fresh snow having just fallen I thought it was a good time to head out. The woods were very quiet so what follows is more of a "tour" of the woods.
The trail had a good many fresh deer tracks in the 8-10" deep snow.
The boughs of the spruce trees were covered in snow, making it look they had many three fingered hands
The initial section of the trail is through a damp section which many trees do not tolerate well
The full woods is a mixed forest, by nature and by design. There are areas of cedar, pine & larch (both natural and planted) and beech trees which are dying off due to disease. Most of the trees are sugar maple, but there many other varieties,
Cedar
Pine (planted)
Sugar Maple
Some tree trunks had caught the falling snow. Yellow (?) birch and red maple below.
Yellow(?) Birch
Red Maple
With no wind to have blown the snow around, it was piled on top of stumps and fallen branches
This covered log reminded me of a large male buffalo resting and covered in snow
Some asters, grass, young spruce and a new beech tree were standing in the snow
Beech trees hold onto their leaves over winter
But there are always a few beech (and oak) leaves in the snow
Dead trees over time shed their bark
A dead pine tree that has regularly produced deep red bracket fungus, is continuing to be mined by the pileated woodpeckers looking for grubs.
A nearby beaver pond was frozen and covered with snow. The grassy reeds still standing, and nearby stumps of beaver-felled small trees.
A little further along there is a swamp, that the beavers have tried many times over the years to flood and take possession, was full of cat tails.
For many years my eye, and camera, have always been drawn to a tall "stump" hosting many bracket fungus. If you look closely at the right hand photo below you'll see where woodpeckers have been checking it out and sap suckers had been working on the stump at some time as well (small holes lined up)
The largest/oldest sugar maple has seen better days, but is still holding on. Its age has been estimated at 350-400 years.
Another nearby maple tree has a very large burl halfway up its height
A lone pine cone caught in small branches indicated we were near some pine trees. (Not a pine plantation)
These two pines always attracted my attention. Many years ago they joined together and the tree on the left slowly died over the last 20-30 years
These pines are well over 200 years old having been left by successive property owners. They are representative of trees in the area before settlement and logging.
A third pine was badly damaged in a 1997 windstorm. It was taken down and produced over 1,000 board feet of lumber.
A multi-branched pine died years ago, but its skeleton still stands
A small branch breaking off a tree can leave a small hole, (left photo) but a large branch coming off (right photo) can leave a large hole, which invites decay and the tree limps along. (Although the one to the left in the right photo did not make it).
Under the snow are the remains of a dead tree that 5 pileated woodpeckers "attacked" in the winter of 2015-16. The remains fell over in the winter of 2019-2020.
Over the years, the woods have been hit by a tornado, a microburst and in 2022 a derecho. Each of these, and other, windstorms damaged many trees leaving a tangled mess to be cleared. But the forest renews itself. The derecho killed hundreds of trees with an average age of 90 years. A sign on the remains of beech tree describes the derecho and its effect. Right photo is the day after the derecho. An uprooted tree can be seen behind the stump.
Turkey tail fungus on a small tree and a cut end of a log.
Bark coming off a birch tree. Left photo, a section of the entire bark has peeled back leaving a scar on the tree. Right photo, a thin layer is peeling off, but the tree is protected by the remaining layers.
Lichen
I was hoping for a few birds - but only heard a distant pileated calling and hammering, a few blue jays, nuthatches and chickadees. None presented themselves for photos. I had to settle for a snow capped hummingbird(?) nest
There were no small animal tracks or signs of burrowing under the snow, but there were lots of deer tracks, some quite fresh.
There was one set of what looked like rabbit tracks, a large rabbit. A trail of tracks crossed the trail. The left photo looks like maybe it was in active jumping mode, the right photo of a track two hops away shows it had perhaps stopped to look around.
In a few locations, there are 10-12 foot tall boulders dropped into the woods. In some areas the boulders lie under a shallow layer of soil. In the spring the boulders absorb the sun's warmth and it is often the first place one finds spring wildflowers.
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