Today is a nice day with temperatures in the 40's and no rain - a good day for a walk in the woods. I find the woods beautiful this time of year with the varied silhouettes of the leafless trees. However, I never noticed much about actual details of the bark and branches until a few years ago. Below is a post I did a five years ago looking at the bark of trees in my yard.
I better get going if I'm going to take advantage of the weather and do some bark examination.
Until next time.
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A Second Look--January 21, 2015
When Aunt Martha was in college, she was studying to be a naturalist. One day I overheard her talking to a classmate about identifying trees in the winter and using the feel and look of their bark to help with that. My ears perked up because that was a new concept for me. I thought that all bark looked basically the same--gray/brown and rough. At least it did until I took a Second Look. And by golly, there were a lot of differences. However over the years, I still haven't paid much any attention to trees and their bark. So decades later during these gray days, I thought it was time to take a Second Look at some of the trees in my yard.
Here are some trees and their bark that
I saw this week during a Second Look.
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| Dogwood |
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| Holly |
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| Oak |
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| Juniper |
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| Silver Maple |
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| Pine |
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| Theodore did the bark investigation with me and took some of the pictures. |
One of the museums in our area has a display with different kinds of bark which you can identify. You would think that growing up in the woods like I did, I would be good at it, but nope, not the case. I think some people are just better at noticing those kinds of details. It is interesting how varied different trees can be.
ReplyDeleteI find the variability very interesting. I remember when I did this post, I really enjoyed it because it was the first time I had done any real observations on my own about tree barks.
DeleteWhat a fun post! You had a nice variety of trees to observe! I would find it very hard to identify most trees by their bark, other than eucalyptus and white birch!
ReplyDeleteI was able to identify all of the trees because I saw them in the summer with their leaves. While I know a few barks now, I still am not that good at identification. I think I could get a birch also, but I'm not sure I've ever seen a eucalyptus tree, so I have no idea what that bark looks like.
DeleteI have never thought of identifying a tree by its bark. Now I am going to have to go exploring in the yard.
ReplyDeleteI found it an eye opening experience. There's so much out there that I have noticed.
DeleteI hope you enjoyed a lovely walk yesterday, Live and Learn. It was cold but dry this afternoon, so three of us took a long walk in our area. Without the flowers and leaves to distract, I find I really see what remains in winter.
ReplyDeleteIs that your former house that I spied in your photos?
Yep, that was my former house. I was thinking I should do the same thing in this yard. We don't have as many trees, but we do have some different ones. But it was cold and windy, so I decided to find something inside to do instead. :)
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