davidan625's Journal

Weather was good, so I took a walk to Webster Conservation area until I reached Hammond Pond. This time, I entered the woods from a different path that was nearer from my dorm and I liked it better than the last time since it was more quiet and remote (last time, I took a walk too close to the street and the traffic was too loud). The difference I noticed was that many of the plant species I observed from the previous walk turned brown and withered (I could directly feel the change in season and weather). For this reason, there wasn't as many fungi species as I expected, or those remaining species already turned brown. Luckily, I found one spot where I found three different fungi species (or at least they looked different) on a lineage of dead logs. Thinking this with the lens of our class materials, I wondered how diverse can such a small area be when it's distant from human intervention, and I thought it as a proof for how human activities have destructed a large portion of biodiversity. At about 40 minutes after I started walking, I finally reached the Hammond pond and saw a herd of different birds gathered around on a tiny rock (couldn't get the picture). Overall, this was better than the last time because I could feel the nature more intimately, away from the city.

Today, I went out to the Houghton Garden. On the way to the garden, I could already feel the coming of Fall, as the roads were full of fallen leaves of red and yellow. In the garden, I immediately saw that a lot of plant species that were green the previous weeks have now gone brown or fallen to the ground. Yet, I still found some plant species that are still lively and even with seeds or fruits. On the rocks, there still existed green mosses, an example of bryophyta. I also caught some plants that sort of looked like ferns(polypodiopsida) but it turned out to be a different plant species when I checked in with iNaturalist suggestions. Obviously, there were a bunch of evergreen trees (gymnosperms) but some of them were cut down to their stumps so I couldn't figure out which tree species it exactly was. I also found some plants with red and green fruits(angiosperms), among all those plants that were withering and turning brown.