Observation #3

Site: Cotton Wood Ranch

Date: 5-13-08

Time of Day: 3:38pm

Weather: cloudy, humidity seemed very prevalent. It was cool about 56 degrees

Notes: The soil again was moist and very rich with nutrients. I saw that my area is, or was upholding a population of voles. There are little tunnels of grass and hay that they used as insulation over the winter. If you followed the tunnels with your eyes you would notice that there were a bunch of big clumps of grass that, I am guessing, they used as beds. The environment has the right amount of food that allows the voles to live. If there isn’t enough food, water, shelter, and space for them to live then I think there would be an intraspecific competition throughout the vole community. Likewise with the mosquitoes and other little bugs that call the irrigation ditch home. Since the last time I was there a tree limb has broken off and was lying across the ditch. Where the tree had snapped, where the actual brake in the tree was, I saw a lot of ants. I had no idea ants could live in trees. The tree was almost dead, very dried out. So I am thinking that the reason the ants would find the inside of a tree suitable for a home would be it could potentially keep them out of harms way. It is able to protect them from predators. And it supplies them with an already made home. Now that I think about it, I have seen ants on trees before but I had never suspected that they lived in them. How do they get in there? The birds and the land animals were inactive. I wonder if that has to do something with the weather.