First blog post!
My place is Red Rocks Park. It’s located in South Burlington and takes about fifteen minutes to get there by bus – I took the 2 from the UVM Medical Center to Pearl Street and then the 5 to almost the end of the line. It got me feeling really good at public transport. Once you get to the parking lot, you need to walk about a quarter mile to actually get to the trailhead. Then, take the left pathway up about 100 yards until you see a large boulder that marks the central point of the area.
I chose this place because I wanted to investigate how that proximity to Lake Champlain impacted the natural systems within Red Rocks Park.
The park itself is made up of primarily maples, ashes, hickories, and oaks. However, my chosen area seemed to have more pines than usual. When I looked at the ground in other areas of the park, it was covered in acorns. Here, though, the forest floor was made up of mostly pine needles, downed trees, and few fallen leaves from sporadic oaks and maples. There were also a few young hemlocks farther away from the trail.
We also spotted this little guy eating an acorn.
