For my last blog post of the semester, I decided to track the nature I find around my own neighborhood. It is much more different than I realized in comparison to my last few phenology spots, so this is what I discovered!
Along my suburban sidewalks I find a lot of common planta growing through the cracks. This is Star-Of-Bethlehem, which I don’t see too often! They look like white shining stars when they bloom.
This is a common sidewalk weed I do see! The dandelion! They are cousins of the calendula, one of my favorite flowers that has bug repellent and medicinal properties. Dandelions grow like weeds in fairly disturbed areas, like the sidewalks in my neighborhood.
Here is a (not so) Red Maple. It has a ton of samaras on it. Red maple samaras are red, in contrast to those of sugar maple, which are green in spring. These samaras disperse in spring before the leaves are fully developed
This is the finished flower of Hyacinthus orientalis, the common hyacinth, which is a species of flowering plant in the family Asparagaceae, native to southwestern Asia, southern and central Turkey, and northwestern Syria. Much like a tulip or daffodil bulb, these perennials come up every early spring. They are special because of their sweet fragrance. Many of the plants I see around my neighborhood are nonnative, because it is a residential area in which many people landscape for aesthetics.
I watched this American Robin pull this worm right out of the ground! I wish I took a video of it, but I could only snap this photo before the worm was devoured. Robins, sparrows, and morning doves are the most common birds that I spot around me.
Here’s my common lilac in my year that I have been tracking for the past few months. What was a bunch of sticks in March is now a foliage filled bloomer with the most incredible scent. Another example of a nonnative, Common lilac is native of Europe, and was introduced and naturalized in the United States.
The Japanese Flowering Cherry, are found growing widely in my area for ornamental purposes. While beautiful, they aren’t native. This is a theme I see in almost all of the plants around me here, something different than the plants at Nature Study Woods in New Rochelle as well as Crescent Woods in Burlington.
