Tyler Starr
19 September 2008 from 1519-1537
Location: The far northeastern corner of campus on the lawn just north of East House.
Weather: 63 ̊ F, sunny, 5 mph breeze, slight humidity
General: This place is so secluded from the rest of campus. It is cut off from the rest of the North side of campus by the construction, making it even more remote. I really enjoy finding all of these places where I can be alone, since I need time to myself every once in a while, which is a hard time to find in college. I now know many places across campus I can go to get some alone time. The entire time I was sitting there doing my observation, two people passed by, probably on their way to Safeway. It was pretty loud though. The intersection of 12th and State is pretty crowded, and there were lots of sounds of cars and buses. Also, the construction makes quite a bit of noise. I am sitting next to an interesting tree. It is a conifer, complete with pine cones and needles, but its shape is like that of a broadleaf tree, where there’s a trunk and then a big clumpy, bush-like mass of branches leaves (but in this case, pine needles), as opposed to the classic Christmas-tree-like shape of conifers. Tons of pine cones are scattered by its trunk, but I don’t see any on the tree itself. There is a birdhouse about 6 feet off the ground. It is the fourth identical birdhouse I have seen on campus (the other ones are on the big tree I sat under for my last observation on the north side of campus, on the Smith Auditorium way at the top looking over the Mill Stream over Jackson Plaza, and in one of the horse chestnut trees along the north side of the quad. It’s strange, but I never see the birdhouses unless I’m actually sitting there to do an observation. When walking by, I never notice them. I guess we as humans just don’t take the time to look at trees while we’re walking by. I haven’t seen any of the birdhouses being used. I’m starting to see some signs of fall, as have the squirrels who have been rapidly foraging as of late (I saw another one across the lawn from where I was sitting). A couple of the trees that I can see are beginning to change colors (see picture), although all of the trees are still mostly green, and some don’t have any color change at all yet. Also, some leaves are beginning to fall in the breeze.
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