The Daily Bucket is a regular feature of the Backyard Science group, a place where everyone is welcome to note the observations you have made of the natural world around you. Insects, weather, fish, climate, birds and/or plants: all are worthy additions to the bucket. Ask questions if you have them and someone here may well have an answer. All we ask is that you let us know where you're located, as close as you're comfortable revealing.
Seattle. April 16, 2013.
April 2, 2013. The Forest canopy.
Once again the canopy in the Forest begins to close. There is texture now in the vacant spaces that have been held open over the winter between the edges of the conifers: fading catkins of Alder and Cottonwood; incipient Dogwood leaves; pale flowers shining from wild cherries and crabapples; impossibly bright Big-leaf Maple blossoms.
April 9, 2013. Big-leaf Maple blossoms.
On April 26, 2011 I noted
this:
The deciduous forest canopy closes one layer at a time. Last month the Osoberries and the Red-flowering Currants leafed out at about head level. This month the Western Hazelnuts (Corylus cornuta) have added their leaves at twice the height. Big-leaf Maple, Cottonwood, Red Alder and Dogwood will finish the canopy in the next weeks.
April 30, 2011. Western Hazelnut filling out the mid canopy
It's 10 days earlier this year and the Western Hazlenuts leaves look very much as they did in 2011. Cottonwood, Red-Alder and Dogwood are close behind, incipient leaves present on all of them.
This is the only record I can find from 2012:
I posted this on May 19, 2011:
Headed over to the forest yesterday for the first time in a week and walked in dappled shade for the first time this year. Big-leaf Maple, Black Cottonwood, Red Alder, Dogwood. The last layer of the canopy has closed...
This year I walked in dappled shade for the first time a good week ago, on trails that had been in full light the week before. The transition from winter's open view is almost too sudden. There is a bit of claustrophobia this time of year, a green light that presses down from above and holds you there. Birding now is by ear alone, with maybe a quick peripheral glimpse of movement, a flash of yellow.
Looking up. Red Alder. The song of a Yellow-rumped Warbler.
We had no real winter this year, no snow at this level and only a couple of mornings when ice made driving uneasy. Given the mild winter, I am comfortable saying that the canopy appears to be ripening earlier than it did two years ago, but it will be a month before I can say anything more except that the Yellow-rumped Warblers have not begun to sing this year.
April 16, 2013. Western Hazlenuts are developing about a week earlier than they did in 2011. Incipient leaves are present on Cottonwood, Red Alder, and Dogwood. Yellow-rumped Warblers have not begun to sing.
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I'll be back around 1pm PDT, then away until late afternoon.
All are welcome to add their observations to the Bucket. Welcome.
