Niquette Bay State Park

The last day of Landscape Natural History was today! Like I wrote before, it is bittersweet. We turned in our field journals and went to Niquette Bay State Park for our field final quiz. In the quiz, we had to identify trees (including ash, white pine, hemlock, sugar maple, red maple, hophornbeam, etc.), identify and sketch wildflowers (bloodroot, trout lilies, hepatica, spring beauties, dutchman's breeches), and then compare the area to to the natural communities that we observed earlier in the semester at Sunny Hollow and Lone Rock Point.

Trout lily

Sugar maple leaves unfurling

Wild ginger, which has a true ginger scent.

Dutchman's breeches

Sharp-lobed hepatica. Some have a blue/purple tinge.

Stinking Benjamin

American beech buds

Tree Planting

It's a beautiful and sunny 70-degree day here in Burlington, and today I helped plant trees along a riparian buffer zone in Williston. The tree planting was for a one-credit river restoration course that I am taking, but other Rubenstein students joined us as well and we worked with a woman from the Friends of the Winooski River organization. We spent the morning planting trees along one side of Allen Brook, and we staked burlap mats around each tree to help protect the trees a little bit from the thick growth of goldenrod. We stopped for a lunch break, and then moved to the other side of the brook. We were planting dogwood, elm, and cottonwood trees, among others. I really enjoyed being outside getting my hands dirty, and it made me excited for the River Ecology course I will be taking this coming fall in Idaho.

Here's a web page about the stream buffer restoration in the town of Williston:
http://www.town.williston.vt.us/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={680175A4-7E7B-4D06-99FD-7073C999FDE1}&DE={51A92870-1B1F-4C62-A930-8D8EB1D5677B}

The stream buffer restoration effort, spearheaded by the Town of Williston. Photo is from the Williston, Vermont website: http://www.town.williston.vt.us/vertical/Sites/%7BF506B13C-605B-4878-8062-87E5927E49F0%7D/uploads/Picture_085(1).jpg

Welcoming Spring at Shelburne Pond

Today was the second-to-last class for landscape natural history, which is bittersweet. I am sad that the semester is coming to an end, but I'm also excited about what I've learned in this class, and how much more I notice and can identify in a landscape. I also feel privileged that I have been able to closely observe and examine the changing of the seasons. Yesterday during a meeting with the Outing Club, we were asked, "What is your favorite part about nature?" Like many people at the meeting, I had a lot of trouble coming up with an answer. There are so many things I love about nature: discovering new places, plants and animals; connecting with people; having fun. How could I ever define such a huge part of my life in one sentence (and really, why would I ever want to)? But I finally decided to say that my favorite part about nature is returning to places that I have been before, and not only noticing how the landscape has changed, but how I have grown and changed as a person, too. Most of my fondest memories take place in some type of outdoor setting, and I know that spending time outdoors will continue to be one of my biggest priorities. I feel incredibly fortunate that I've been able to have the experiences and opportunities that I've had in nature, and to currently be surrounded by such a contagiously enthusiastic and eager community of individuals who are interested in constantly learning more about the world around them.

During class today, we went to Shelburne Pond (check out this link for more information), a beautiful natural area owned by UVM and the Nature Conservancy. It was a bluebird day and we learned to use wildflower books to identify spring ephemerals. By the way, what is a spring ephemeral? Well, I was wondering that, too. Check out this link for information! http://www.bbg.org/gardening/article/native_spring_ephemerals

Tree/shrub/wildflower list: 

• Butternut tree! (this was an exciting find)
• Barberry (invasive)
• Bitternut hickory
• Buckthorn (Invasive common buckthorn, rhamnus cathartica. An interesting fact about this is that  the berries serve as an extremely powerful laxative, to the point where humans' reaction to it is too severe. Birds, however, eat the berries in order to gain energy for migration, and unfortunately fall prey to its laxative effects as well.) 
• Hemlock
• Red cedar
• White cedar
• Honeysuckle
• White pine
• American Elm
• Ironwood
• Black cherry
• Beech
• Paper birch
• Pussy willow

Natural communities: limestone bluff cedar pine forest, dwarf shrub bog, rich northern hardwood forest

Here's a link to an article about a fish die-off that occurred at Shelburne Pond during 2009: http://www.wcax.com/story/10816981/massive-fish-die-off-in-shelburne-pond

Also, happy Earth Week! Earth Day was on Monday (4/22) , and Arbor Day is this Friday (4/26). So if the beautiful spring weather isn't enough to get you outdoors, find meaning in these two important holidays and get out there. Lace up your hiking boots, grab friends or family, and volunteer to plant trees or pick up litter in your community. Go hiking, biking, or try your hand at identifying wildflowers. Whatever you do, just get outside!

Sharp-lobed hepatica

A furled trillium--the beginnings of new life in spring

A tiny worm inches its way along a newly unfurled trillium. The little details of this scene signal spring.

A candid scene of the landscape natural history class. As usual, we are all going our different ways, discovering little details of the landscape to share with each other. This is one of the many strengths of the class: the idea that we all have little pieces of knowledge and information that we can weave together.

Showing off the bloodroot! A bloodroot flower only blooms for a couple of days. There is something so exciting about seeing and identifying flowers that arrive and leave in such a short period of time! 

The shoreline of Shelburne Pond. Although this pond is only about 25 feet deep at its maximum depth, the area shares many characteristics of Lone Rock Point which is on Lake Champlain. This is because of the Champlain thrust fault, which can be observed at Lone Rock Point. The limestone bluff cedar pine forest natural community can be found at both Lone Rock Point and Shelburne Pond. In this photo, notice the large amount of white cedar growing along the water's edge. This is the signature species of this natural community. 

Butternut tree bark

Butternut tree

Spring is in the Air

Here is a photo of the Burlington waterfront at sunset that I took around this time last year.

Quotes about the landscape

I am reading a short excerpt of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard for one of my classes, and there are some wonderful quotes about exploring the landscape and nature.

• "Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle, curved tunnels of leaf miners on the face of a leaf. We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what's going on here."
• "Some unwonted, taught pride diverts us from our original intent, which is to explore the neighborhood, view the landscape, to discover at least where it is that we have been so startlingly set down, if we can't learn why."

The enchanted Michigan woods during early summer

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