Houghton Garden, Sunday October 4, 2020

Today I went on a nice walk through the Houghton Garden Conservation Area with a couple of friends who are also in the class. It was a cool 68 degrees with a few clouds to give some shade (although, with the shade from the trees there wasn't much need). After entering the conservation area we immediately saw a chipmunk and were able to take pictures of it before it got away. Aside from that however, most of the other animals we saw were squirrels as well as a few insects that were a little tricky to take pictures of. We did however succeed in finding numerous samples of fungi throughout our walk. We focused our search on the base of the trees and in places that appeared more damp than other (since fungi generally prefer damp locations with lots of available nutrients) but we were surprised to find that the majority of fungi samples were found on the sides of the trees which were still alive. We did find one sample of fungus growing out of a fallen branch that appeared to be dead for quite a long time, but aside from this the majority of samples were lichen clinging to trees. After finding a sufficient number of samples, we returned to the entrance and, after taking a couple pictures of a few squirrels we found along the way, returned to campus.

Posted on October 4, 2020 08:08 PM by thomasmg