Sites: EELR, KJ
Observers: MD, CLM, GGL
We visited the sites East Elk Lake Road and KJ’s . Both sites were small, bordering on either mowed private property or agricultural fields. We hypothesize that neither site has been burned recently, because there was remnants of old plant matter and the presence of fairly large trees and scrubs. For legumes, there was veiny peas, but no clover. For cold grass, there was brome and porcupine grass, and for warm, there was big blue grass. Otherwise, there were yellow asters and prairie roses.
KJ’s was extremely small, wedged between the road and the tree line, and was probably too small the ever consider planting. There was also a large animal den/hole and turkeys near the road at KJ’s. We also found an old flag at KJ’s, possibly demarking an old transect. In terms of legumes, we found clover, veiny pea, and alfalfa. For cold growing grass, there was lots of brome on the roadsides. However, there was not a lot of big blue grass for warm growing grass. There was also poison ivy, prairie roses, milkweed, and thistle.
EELR had many round bulbs on the plant matter, we hypothesize that these are wasp galls of some sort. EELR was much larger, with a higher diversity of plants, and likely was preserved because it was too steep to plow. Between the two sites, there was a fair number of trees, many of them pine, especially at KJ’s. There was evidence of significant animal activity, including a section of flattened grass where an animal, probably a deer, bedded down for the night, bordering on one of the segments at EELR.
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