Murphy and I bundled up and headed to the bike path near my house. The weather was beautiful: sunny and around 45 degrees.
My Location!
Near the bike path, there is a lake that people often use to fish, and this was the spot I chose to explore. This place is very special to me because I stumbled upon it a couple winters ago after we had a really big snow storm. I took Murphy out to sit by the water, and it was such a peaceful experience that I wanted to go back and visit to see how it was doing. I will refer to the spot as Miry Run!
KEY DIFFERENCES
SIZE
The first key difference difference was the fact that Miry Run is surrounded on two sides by neighborhoods and the other side by a street which most likely has an extreme impact on the biodiversity that can thrive there. While people go to Miry Run’s pond to fish, the species population is heavily effected by run-off pollutants (car oil, salt, litter) from the street, as well as pesticides/fertilizers, sewage from the neighborhoods entering the soil and contaminating the water’s quality. It is clear that my spot in Burlington is also negatively impacted by pollutants but it is located in a much larger woodland area that’s security is protected by UVM in a way that my spot at home is not regulated. Miry Run was just the pond and a small forested area but nothing close to the size of Centennial woods.
TREE SPECIES (POND)
All of the leaves were already fallen off the trees, so I had to look through and identify what I could, and found large Red Oak leaves and small goose-foot shaped Red Maple leaves.
As learned in class, Red Maple thrive best in nutrient poor areas which can also indicator of the poor water quality. All of the tree species at my Centennial spot are indicators of well-drained soil (Yellow Birch, Northern Red Oak, Eastern White Pine), which was also indicated by the tree species at the pond.
TREE SPECIES ON THE BIKE PATH (NOTABLE MENTIONS)
Basswood
Spruce
River Birch
Eastern White Pine
Unlike my spot in Centennial, the bike path had a lot more diversity in tree species, including a species of birch I was unfamiliar with before further research, called River Birch. It was clear that most of these trees were not naturally occurring
HONORABLE HARVEST
While I didn’t leave a gift at Miry Run, I did take the time to stand and observe the people as they were fishing and watch as they participated in an activity that brought them peace, as walking my dog did for me. I took a couple of minutes to sit with Murphy and appreciate the beautiful natural area before continuing on with our walk.
Murphy posing on the bike path