Classifying Natural Communities

I have been working on classifying natural communities for my landscape natural history class. It's a very interesting process, and I have learned that many areas don't fit into specific descriptions, but instead encompass several different natural communities.

Check out this very useful online version of Wetland, Woodland, Wildland: A Guide to the Natural Communities of Vermont

http://www.vtfishandwildlife.com/books.cfm?libbase_=Wetland,Woodland,Wildland

Tamarack at Conserve School

Here is a beautiful quote about the tamarack tree that I came cross while reading Peattie's A Natural History of Trees of Eastern and Central North America:

"The Tamarack goes further north than any other tree in North America and at the farthest limits of its distribution it grows in summer by the light of the midnight sun. At that season it is one of the most tenderly beautiful of all native trees, with its pale green needles like a rime of life and light."

"Then when spring comes to the North Woods, with that apologetic rush and will to please which well become the tardy, these same trees that one thought were but “crisps” begin, soon after the wild geese have gone over and the ice in the beaver ponds in melted, to put forth an unexpected, subtle bloom. The flowers are followed in a few weeks by the renewing foliage, for the Larches are the only Conifers (except the Bald Cypress of the South) which drop their needles in autumn and renew them again each spring. And there is no more delicate charm in the North Woods than the moment when the soft, pale-green needles first begin to clothe the military sternness of the Larch. So fine is that foliage, and so oddly clustered in sparse tufts, that Tamarack has the distinction among our trees of giving the least shade. The northern sunlight reaches right to the bottom of a Tamarack grove."

And here is a photo of some tamarack trees at the bog at Conserve School in northern Wisconsin.

Franconia Ridge, New Hampshire

Evidence of Beaver Activity at Mud Pond in Williston

Paper Birch

Here's a photo of a paper birch. I love how furled the bark is.

Franconia Notch and Mount Washington, New Hampshire

I know these photos weren't taken in Burlington, but I wanted to share them anyways! A view of Mount Washington and the Franconia Notch area in New Hampshire.

Interesting Ice Patterns on Mount Mansfield

These photos were taken on February 23 near the peak of Mount Mansfield.