Clare-ity of Nature

  For my last post of the year, I’m going to wrap up by talking about what I saw in my landscape on my latest trip, and the possible way my landscape may have formed.  First, the activity I have logged previously matches up with my experience there this last time. The only exception to this is the decline of bird sightings or hearing them in general. This was expected though, as the increase of their presence can be summed up to migration patterns, which correlates to the decline of sightings since they have continued on their journey. The only other unusual thing that I saw was growth of berries in places where I don’t recall there being berries before. To sum up their appearance, they are most likely invasive species, as these berries are seen throughout my spot and grow randomly in numerous areas. Moving onto the history of this area. First looking at it from a large scale, the Appalachian mountains were formed by a series of continental collisions which folded the Earth'...

  As we enter the later days of November, the transition into winter becomes more noticeable. As seen in the images below, there is less greenery, the deciduous trees (with the exception of pine trees since they don’t lose their green features) have lost all or most of their leaves, with the latter now covering the ground. Most of the larger animals that I used to see in my landscape such as squirrels and deer I have also seen considerably less of, meaning they are getting ready to or already are hibernating. Due to less growing it can be assumed there may not be growth or even a lack of nutrients in the environment. This could not be further from the truth though. While trees are going dormant and larger animals migrate or hibernate, a return of nutrients to the soil is still ongoing. This is because of the leaves on the ground. Since the leaves are already decomposing, it is only a matter of time when they will fully decompose into the soil, returning lots of nutrients to the soi...