Nature Note #134: A Walk at Lincoln Meadows
After having an amazing weekend at Arisia 2015 in Boston where spending time with good friends and seeing amazing cosplay was the name of the game. One day after the end of the convention though, I decided to get out and see if I could do some woodland birding close to home. After all, even a nerd needs to get out and see the sunshine once in a while.
I had some setbacks before getting out the door though. I had left my winter jacket at the hotel (but I did get to borrow my dad's warm ski jacket) and a snafu at the bank nearly put a damper on the day, but when I got out there, it seemed perfect. I exited the car and looked out over the stubble and grass of the community gardens and saw no real signs of life. I snapped some photos as I went and noticed a shadow overhead. I looked up to find one, no! Two! Two Red-tailed Hawks (Buteo jamaicensis) soaring in the winter sunshine overhead.
These two beautiful adults treated me to a ten minute display of expert avian flight control. As they soared overhead, they looped over the nearby tree tops of Round Hill before swooping over the gardens below. Occasionally they would quickly flap their wings as if to right themselves and position them towards their area of interest. As they looped away, I walked further down the path towards the trails leading up and down nearby Round Hill. Three Blue Jays (Cyanocitta cristata) and a Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus) scolded one another as they cavorted along the forest edge while two Tufted Titmice (Baeolophus bicolor) twittered and cheered each others antics in the tree branches above me.
As I climbed Round Hill, I peered through the trees into the woods. I remembered from years past of seeing turkeys stalking through the woods and the flood of Red-breasted Nuthatches (Sitta canadensis) that filled the pines with their tooting in the fall of 2012. This was also the place where I had seen my first Lincoln's Sparrow (Melospiza lincolnii) and where my family and I had gone hiking in years past. While the view from the top was less than expected, I still enjoyed climbing the hill and exploring the forest beyond. In the past few months, I have found a new love and appreciation for trees, especially when I go out walking. It started after I read the chapter on trees in Lyanda Lynn Haupt's, Urban Bestiary and read about the special presence that trees have had throughout the ages and to the various writers she mentions throughout the chapter. Two books mentioned specifically that I really want to read are Ann Linnea's Keepers of the Trees:A Guide to Re-Greening North America and Colin Tudge's The Tree: A Natural History of What Trees Are, How They Live, and Why They Matter mainly because as I have developed this newly found love and interest in trees and their importance in the world.
I'm doing this for two reasons. In my line of work, the constant need to learn and improve is key as it not only better informs us and others, but also shows that the process of doing so provides a great benefit to those we want to inform and to ourselves in the appreciation of the natural world (TL;DR version: The more you learn, the more you can teach to others). The other reason is my life long love of reading. I love reading because it's how I learn and grow in terms of my knowledge base and interests, as well as experiencing different points of view of those various authors.
As I walked through the trees, I stood in awe of their vast height and range. Their wide trunks spread tall with stunted ribs of old branches lining all the way to the fuzzy green tops. I took some photos of the looming canopy above. I love the way the branches interact with one another and how they spread out as they grow towards the brightness above. I even experimented with spinning to change up the shots. Here's some of what I got.
What an amazing sight to behold! But as above, so below the trees, a miniature world lives underneath the towering spirits above. Some know them as princess or ground pine, but they are in fact, a type of primitive plant called a clubmoss (Lycopodium spp.). They spread out underneath pines and in mixed forests and even resemble young pines as well. They differ from their woody lookalikes because their branches are fleshy and give off short herring bone-like projections along those branches. Another obvious feature is that they always remain in their miniature forms throughout their lives and will never experience the grandeur of canopy life that the trees above are privileged to.
As I left the woods and headed back to the car, I noted the many stone walls lining the hill and surrounding woods and wondered how well they had lasted through the years. I always wonder how long structures we leave from the past will be noted and cataloged for the future. I cannot say however, what they will be, but I hope that somehow we are at least noted. Maybe we'll have more forests in the future. I certainly hope so.
I had some setbacks before getting out the door though. I had left my winter jacket at the hotel (but I did get to borrow my dad's warm ski jacket) and a snafu at the bank nearly put a damper on the day, but when I got out there, it seemed perfect. I exited the car and looked out over the stubble and grass of the community gardens and saw no real signs of life. I snapped some photos as I went and noticed a shadow overhead. I looked up to find one, no! Two! Two Red-tailed Hawks (Buteo jamaicensis) soaring in the winter sunshine overhead.
These two beautiful adults treated me to a ten minute display of expert avian flight control. As they soared overhead, they looped over the nearby tree tops of Round Hill before swooping over the gardens below. Occasionally they would quickly flap their wings as if to right themselves and position them towards their area of interest. As they looped away, I walked further down the path towards the trails leading up and down nearby Round Hill. Three Blue Jays (Cyanocitta cristata) and a Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus) scolded one another as they cavorted along the forest edge while two Tufted Titmice (Baeolophus bicolor) twittered and cheered each others antics in the tree branches above me.
As I climbed Round Hill, I peered through the trees into the woods. I remembered from years past of seeing turkeys stalking through the woods and the flood of Red-breasted Nuthatches (Sitta canadensis) that filled the pines with their tooting in the fall of 2012. This was also the place where I had seen my first Lincoln's Sparrow (Melospiza lincolnii) and where my family and I had gone hiking in years past. While the view from the top was less than expected, I still enjoyed climbing the hill and exploring the forest beyond. In the past few months, I have found a new love and appreciation for trees, especially when I go out walking. It started after I read the chapter on trees in Lyanda Lynn Haupt's, Urban Bestiary and read about the special presence that trees have had throughout the ages and to the various writers she mentions throughout the chapter. Two books mentioned specifically that I really want to read are Ann Linnea's Keepers of the Trees:A Guide to Re-Greening North America and Colin Tudge's The Tree: A Natural History of What Trees Are, How They Live, and Why They Matter mainly because as I have developed this newly found love and interest in trees and their importance in the world.
I'm doing this for two reasons. In my line of work, the constant need to learn and improve is key as it not only better informs us and others, but also shows that the process of doing so provides a great benefit to those we want to inform and to ourselves in the appreciation of the natural world (TL;DR version: The more you learn, the more you can teach to others). The other reason is my life long love of reading. I love reading because it's how I learn and grow in terms of my knowledge base and interests, as well as experiencing different points of view of those various authors.
As I walked through the trees, I stood in awe of their vast height and range. Their wide trunks spread tall with stunted ribs of old branches lining all the way to the fuzzy green tops. I took some photos of the looming canopy above. I love the way the branches interact with one another and how they spread out as they grow towards the brightness above. I even experimented with spinning to change up the shots. Here's some of what I got.
What an amazing sight to behold! But as above, so below the trees, a miniature world lives underneath the towering spirits above. Some know them as princess or ground pine, but they are in fact, a type of primitive plant called a clubmoss (Lycopodium spp.). They spread out underneath pines and in mixed forests and even resemble young pines as well. They differ from their woody lookalikes because their branches are fleshy and give off short herring bone-like projections along those branches. Another obvious feature is that they always remain in their miniature forms throughout their lives and will never experience the grandeur of canopy life that the trees above are privileged to.
As I left the woods and headed back to the car, I noted the many stone walls lining the hill and surrounding woods and wondered how well they had lasted through the years. I always wonder how long structures we leave from the past will be noted and cataloged for the future. I cannot say however, what they will be, but I hope that somehow we are at least noted. Maybe we'll have more forests in the future. I certainly hope so.
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