Like the October visit, we could hear cars going by. Notably many more cars than the last visit. Also, since we are well into fall, nearly all of the trees are bare. Only a couple of stragglers and the evergreens still had their leaves. Another difference between November and October was the presence of animal sounds. Back in October, you could hear lots of birds chirping and leaves rustling. But yesterday, we heard nothing but the road. The plot was completely devoid of animal activity except for one spider and a squirrel Alexandre claims to have spotted. No one else saw or heard any evidence of a squirrel, so we can't be certain of even that. 
Now, since the majority of the leaves are gone, visibility in the woods has grown to be much better. Our group can observe the surrounding land much better now. For instance, I noticed that there is a house about 40ft away from the plot. Also, there are more fallen logs and branches than there were before. They were all covered in various species of moss and lichen.
In addition to that, there were also two different species of shelf mushrooms present. However, they were the only type of mushroom present. Unlike in October there were no stereotypical "cap and stalk"mushrooms to be found beneath the ground cover in our plot. I wonder why that is. Like last time, we visited after a day of rain. It still rained while we were at the plot. Perhaps it is the change in temperature that determines the types of mushrooms we see? Overall, I think that our group works really well together and we get along. This is shaping up to be a great project.
