Today we got lost in the woods. It was more of a funny lost than a scary lost, and I blame our GPS entirely. My group of four had settled on our topic for our summer field project, and we set off ready to map and document the habitat surrounding a particular black gum tree in the Barrington Headwaters. Not surprisingly, finding one tree out of entire forest is quite the challenge. Betsy, Mary, Kim and I were so proud of our system of flagging, but it was clear we were going in circle. Kim set off and we marcoed and poloed our way to her, very happy to find the black gum. What sets this tree apart is that there is a marvelous porcupine home inside, and the scat falls out the entrance making very rich soil. We set up our square survey plot, so we could intensely study a small surrounding area and set off to go back to the trailhead. On the way out we quickly found a more direct route and while it had taken us an hour to get in, it was about ten minutes to get out. Just goes to show that technology will never be able to outsmart mother nature.
Betsy getting her bearings.
Our lovely flagging system.
Our tupelo black gum tree.
Setting up our survey plot.
Going through the dense brush to make our square plot.
A salamander we found near the black gum.
A "witch's broom" occurs from disease that shoots out little clusters of young trees.
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