Maps

Maps

April 2014

Before we go on exploring the pond some more, I thought it would be a good idea to get some bearings.  To provide that, I went to Cottonwood Pond and did a series of drawings from various angles. Some are more like maps, while others are more like sketches, and some are a combination.  None of them are to scale – that is for certain. I have no skills or experience with this sort of thing. These are just rough impressions of where I am.

Readers can match these drawings/maps to photos and descriptions of Cottonwood Pond and its environs in previous and future blog postings, and can refer back to these when they might help get bearings on what it going on in one of the adventures.

Whenever there are large changes, I'll do new maps.

We will start with an overhead, bird's-eye view of Cottonwood Pond and its surroundings, in the lowest part of the woods.

In the middle of the page is the Root Ball (RB) of the fallen Cottonwood tree – truly the center of everything about this.  The bottom of the root ball (which is full of roots and rootlets and dried mud) faces Cottonwood Pond (CP).  The top of the Root Ball is full of vegetation – grasses, Stinging Nettle, etc.  There are new Elderberry shrubs growing to the SE side (right side of Root Ball in drawing). Extending beyond the Root Ball, toward the top of the page, is the Cottonwood Trunk (CW Tr.) of the fallen tree.  If you could see beyond here, you would see the trunk rising gradually, and the top of the tree ending lodged in the “v” of a two-trunk Red Oak at the top of the slope.

I marked the “deep spot” of Cottonwood Pond – this is the deepest place, where I take the depth measurements.

To the right you see where the Young Maple tree (YM) is located, where the Bent Blue Beech (BBB) grows from near the pond and extends beyond the Root Ball, and where the old Barkless Log (BL L) extends over the Creek (at the bottom of the page), along the edge of the pond, and beyond, where it forks into to limbs.

The Very Rotten Log (VRL) also crosses the creek (and I use it to do so, myself), lays across the ground to the SW of the pond, and extends under and beyond the Barkless Log, where it becomes so rotten it disappears gradually into the ground, where water tends to pool.

The “New Creek” in the upper right is what happens during and after heavy rains.  It comes from along the base of the slopes, flows partly into a place where a “Swampy Spot” is developing, flows under the fallen Cottonwood Trunk (on its way to “little pond”), and also flows to three inlets at the south edge of Cottonwood Pond, called Inlet (I), New Inlet (NI) and Newest Inlet (NWI).

“Little pond” (lp) is seen to the left of Cottonwood Trunk.  It varies in size from a puddle close to the trunk to the way it is now – spread out around the area, causing a swampy, soggy place.  When it does this, and Isthmus (IS) develops between “little pond” and Cottonwood Pond, flowing past (or sometimes around) the Two-Trunk Tree (2-T Tree) on the left.  There are now piles of Mud Deposits (M) on the north corner of Cottonwood Pond, under the Root Ball.

From the NW corner there is a Seep.  When the pond is over-full, water seeps from that corner on a slight downhill to the Creek below.  The Creek flows from right to left in this drawing.  Next to the Barkless Log over the Creek, there is the Pond-Like Place (PLP) that developed after many times of rushing water shoved under the log and carved out this spot.

This is more of a sketch, done while standing across the Creek, looking toward Cottonwood Pond.  Comparing this to the overhead map, you can now see the bottom of the Root Ball with roots and little holes, Cottonwood Pond below it, and the Mud Deposits to the left of the Root Ball. You can see the Creek at the bottom of the page winding its way under both the Very Rotten Log and the Barkless Log, where the Pond-Like Place is.  To the right the Barkless Log stretches across to the Root Ball and over the other end of the Very Rotten Log.  There is the Bent Blue Beech growing and bending to the Root Ball, many small branches growing upwards from the bent trunk.  The Young Maple at the edge of the pond, which often has a water mark that tells me how high the pond water had gotten, grows between the Very Rotten Log and the pond.

You can see the fallen Cottonwood Trunk extending beyond the Root Ball at the top of the page, with “little pond” to its left.  You can see the Isthmus between “little pond” and Cottonwood Pond that develops after heavy rain around the left end of the Root Ball, going past the Two-Trunk Tree (which has a hole in the base) and around the Mud Deposits.  Coming further down, you see the Seep from the corner of the pond, emptying into the Creek. 

We have come full circle around the place.  Now let's look at various views …

Now we are standing off to the north side, looking at the fallen Cottonwood Trunk, the top of the Root Ball, and “little pond” below.  I have included various squiggly lines to show the original size of “little pond” and the various extensions of its borders, depending on the amount of rain.  There is the unfortunate Bush Honeysuckle next to the Trunk, which will be removed.  You can see how the Trunk slopes upward.  This is where Mystery Mammal had traipsed around and under, and where water flows from the Temporary Creek from the east, under the trunk to seep into “little pond”. 

Then, “little pond” sometimes leeks past the Two-Trunk Tree on the right, and through the Isthmus, into Cottonwood Pond.  In this map, you can barely see, on the right side, where water then moves from the corner of Cottonwood Pond through the Seep.

In the upper right, there is the Barkless Log extending beyond the Root Ball, as well as the Bent Blue Beech doing the same thing above it.

Now lets stoop under the fallen Cottonwood Trunk and slip to the other side (taking care not to bump our heads on the end of the Barkless Log that sticks up, as I have done) and take a look at things from that side.  Here, we are on the southeast side of the Trunk.  The Temporary Creek sends an Intermittent Water Flow down toward the Trunk (going below the Barkless Log) and into “little pond”.  You can see that the Barkless Log forks off, near the Root Ball, into two large limbs.  You can see the new Elderberry Plants growing around that fork and at the edge of the Root Ball.  The Root Ball top, covered with vegetation, towers over “little pond”.  Peeking around the left edge, we can see part of Cottonwood Pond. The Temporary Creek has also sent water flowing to that area, under the Barkless Log.

Now we scoot farther over to the left (to the southwest) and look at everything from that view.  We have to be careful where we step to avoid the new Swampy Spot, where some new kinds of plants are growing, and to not get our feet stuck in the sloppy, soaked area around here.  After all those hard rains and snow melt, water started flowing more toward Cottonwood Pond, giving it a periodic fresh influx.  An Inlet had developed some time ago, going under the Barkless Log, alongside the Very Rotten Log (which is Very Rotten on this side).  It has become gradually enlarged.  Then another one, the New Inlet, developed close to the Root Ball.  After yet more rain, the Newest Inlet developed on the other side of the Very Rotten Log. 

You can see the Bent Blue Beech bending to and across the Root Ball, and the Young Maple growing tall and straight as the edge of Cottonwood Pond.  The Root Ball bottom now tilts slightly over the pond after the whole Root Ball started sinking more deeply into the very saturated ground.  The Seep flows from the far edge of the pond toward the southwest (where it eventually empties into the Creek.)

I hope this has made the area more clear rather than more confusing, and that it lends some structure and light to future shared adventures at Cottonwood Pond.

Scoping Out II

Scoping Out II

March 21 and 28, 2014

Back on March 21, after the frequency of warm days began increasing, I decided to take some samples from Cottonwood Pond.  I wanted to see if anything was stirring yet, and I figured that this early start would serve as a sort of “baseline” as we moved further into spring, when much more would be quivering into action.

I took samples of water and mud as well as a twig and dead leaf that had been below water since last fall.  Besides an occasional Water Strider on the pond's surface, there had not been any visible stirring, to the naked eye.  Over the preceding winter there had been a great influx of fresh water from heavy rains and much snow melt.

As it happened, I did not have time to look at the samples until seven days later, on March 28, decreasing the possibility of seeing anything still alive.

I looked at samples under the stereoscope first.  The first water sample showed lots of particles, some long strands that could have been algae, and some obvious plant debris.  Some particles seemed to be what was left of very tiny aquatic animals.  I suspected that these were Bosmina which had spent last summer feeding on algae and one-cellular organisms (after grabbing them with their first pair of legs, then filtering them), spinning around in the water, and reproducing rapidly and prodigiously.  These particles were probably Bosmina that were not consumed by predators, but that simply came to the end of their short lives and disintegrated.  Various, bacteria, perhaps, were gradually breaking down the remains.

That's my theory, anyway.

There were also a number of objects, dark and the size of pinpoints, in rapid motion. I hoped I would be able to see them more clearly under higher magnification.

The second water sample yielded “something that might be a worm”, according to my lab notes.

I put a mud sample under the stereoscope and added a little distilled water to thin it out, then gently pushed it around with the point of a probe while looking through the lens.  There were tiny grains of sediment, some like silica.  I presumed these to be grains of fine sand among the clay particles.  There were also long, skinny, clear strands that appeared to have segments.

The most interesting thing in the mud sample was a critter.  It was a light peach color and appeared to be moving! It had dark eye spots and two filaments extending down from the head that seemed to be antennae. It also appeared to have six legs, like an insect.  I could only discern two body parts (insects have three), but maybe this was an undeveloped stage of an insect.

It was very tiny.  I nudged it very gently with the tip of the probe (which looked giant next to this creature) so that I was able to see it from other angles.  It was moving! In particular, its first pair of legs seemed to be very busy near its mouth.

Curious.

It moved in another way: it would lift its head and crane it back toward the lens, similar to the “Cobra Pose” in yoga.

Curious.

I let these images and observations roll around in my head for some days, then settle into the back of my head and rest there awhile.  Eventually, a thought emerged – could this have been Collembola (Springtail)? Could it be an immature form of the Springtail, or an unusual Collembola species, one that lives underwater in the mud? Many species of Springtails live in damp leaf litter on the forest floor.  Last year, I found a white one on the surface of Cottonwood Pond, hopping around on the surface film with the aid of its spring-like device under the body (see the Cottonwood Pond entry called “Color and Rain”).

Sometime after this thought, I was reading a chapter of a book called The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch in Nature, by David George Haskell (a book I highly recommend).  In that particular chapter, he was talking about peering into the leaf litter and finding Springtails, observing these tiny creatures with a hand lens.  He found an unusual kind with “six stumpy legs protruding from the barrel-like body”.  Also, these particular Springtails, he reported, were “doughy white and wet, without eyes”.  These were members of a family of Collembola called Onychiurid.  Haskell stated that “their lack of pigment and blindness reflects the subterranean specialization of the group; unlike other springtails, these animals never wander above ground. The onychiurids have lost the jumping organ, the furca, that gives springtails their name.”  Another interesting fact he gave was that, unlike other Collembola who escape by springing away, these “deter predators by releasing noxious chemicals from glands on their skin”.

Could it be that the Collembola (if that's what it was) I found in the mud sample was a species in this group that is adapted to underwater mud? The “Cobra Pose” fits the nature of a Springtail.

There were two main differences though, between my possible Collembola and the oychiurids: the one in my sample appeared to have eyes, and it had some color, albeit a very pale color.  I could not see if it had the jumping mechanism, and, of course, did not know if it was toxic (I'm too large a “predator” to notice).

Ah, mysteries – curiouser and curiouser.

I put the twig under the stereoscope.  The outside of it was covered in a network of silky strands, some appearing broken, and some stretching across gaps like spider silk. A piece of old leaf from under water also had strands, but they appeared to be “growing” from a shiny surface.

I decided to put the leaf strands under the other microscope, using an indented slide without a slip cover. First, I used the lowest power on my scope (10/0.25). They appeared clear, segmented, and pointed at the ends.  On one, there seemed to be the remains of something, perhaps a Collembola.  Some strands had gelatinous, circular things attached to them.

I looked at the end of one strand through a stronger lens (40/0.65).

There was a long, narrow space visible within walls, and roughly triangular chambers after that. 

A section of another showed a roundish, bumpy mass along the side...

...and I could see a division between long spaces. The space in this division was amber-colored.

At this point, I wondered if these were the hairs that grow along leaf veins.

I looked at a sample of mud under the same lens. Here I found what may have been the remains of a kind of creature I found alive in the other mud sample (the one that may have been a Springtail).  There seemed to be remains of the main body as well as a segmented leg.  I did not know if the leg had belonged to this particular main body part, or even to the same kind of animal.

Also, I saw those round things again that had been dashing about in a water sample. In this magnification, they looked like two hemispheres stuck together, with an obvious slit of space between them.

That was all I had time for, unfortunately.  If I had nothing else to do (and sometimes I wish I hadn't), I could spend many hours with the scopes, exploring more and more samples of water,mud and debris.  A whole new world opens up under the lenses.

As far as a “baseline”, what I found from late March were the remains of things that were likely alive last year that had sunk to the mud, landed on debris, or were drifting in the water that had been stirred up now then then by a fresh influx.  The thing that I did find alive seemed to be a mud-dweller, perhaps waiting to mature into a form that would leave the mud when things warmed up, or maybe something that just lives in the mud all the time.

My goal is to take and view samples at least once a month and to be able to spend ample time looking at them the same day that I gather them.  Through this, I can watch the progression of the tiniest aspects of Cottonwood Pond.