Observation 3

Site: In front of my house/pond
Date: May 14, 2008
Time: 9:02
Temp: 45.5
Weather: Very cloudy, no sun is peeking through, looks like it was going to rain- there is a little wind
Soil: The soil is a little more damp because of the sprinkles of rain that we had, but farther down is still dry.
Hypothesis: There is a yellow tree that doesn't look like any other one around(willow????)

At my observation site, the many species of grass have grown and have gotten much greener. There is no more yellow grass because of the little showers we've been getting once in a while. The willows have grown a little but the pine hasn't shown any signs of improvement. The cotton woods around my house but not the pond have some little buds on them though. There is one yellow tree that I thought was a willow but wasn't sure of it. But I was right, it is a type of willow called the yellow willow. It has yellow branches but no blooming has occurred on it either. Because of these many trees and grasses, the biodiversity just keeps getting higher and higher. This helps the organisms that live here, for they don't need to be worried about losing a survival need. The population of ducks weren't there at the pond today nor was the population of the geese. Although there weren't many organisms there today, the community on the pond is big. One change I noticed is at the bases of some of the willows, there are some symbiotic relationships going on. Commensalism is going on, there is moss on the bottoms of the willows, the moss is benefitting from the willow and the willow isn't being harmed. Maybe it was too hot of a day today, but there were no insects on the pond, it was a quiet day at the water. The only change I saw at my pond was that there were no ducks or geese and there was moss on the trees. I think I could hear the water running faster because there is more running in it. There were signs of ducks, the duck tracks showed that but there was also dried up deer poop on the other side of the pond. The deer love this type of enviroment with water trees, grasses and other organisms to interact with. Although it was a quiet day, it was loud in its own way.