It was very cathartic coming home and visiting the park I grew up spending time in. I was very luckily to live so close to such a beautiful natural area that truly fostered and encouraged my love for wildlife. It was also really amazing to see visit Sligo Creek with my newfound knowledge of ecological systems. Looking around, I could suddenly identify pieces, patterns and processes I had been exposed to my entire life but never truly understood.
Ecology of Sligo Creek
Just like Crescent Woods, Sligo Creek rests next to a more developed, neighborhood area and a densely travelled roadway. Additionally, as the name suggests, Sligo Creek has a creek running through the entirety of the park. Similarly, to Crescent Woods, the creek shore bed is sandy and contains large rock formations and exposed tree roots.
One difference I noticed between Sligo and Crescent is phenological progress. Sligo Creek has significantly more green leaves left on the trees and shrubs than Crescent currently does. However, Sligo does not have as many colors as Crescent Woods does; leaves are mostly green, not vibrantly red or orange. Another difference I noticed was the increased size and species diversity in Sligo Creek as opposed to Crescent Woods. Crescent does not have much of an understory, but Sligo has tons of trees and shrubs making up different levels of the forest. Even the overstory contains trees of a wide array of heights and thicknesses. Additionally, there also seems to be more species diversity in Sligo than Crescent. Species are also more widely dispersed here, whereas in Crescent, trees of the same species tended to clump together.
Both Crescent Woods and Sligo Creek Park have invasives, but Sligo Creek seems to have significantly more. Crescent woods mostly has buckthorn to worry about, but Sligo Creek’s list is extensive. Here is a list of invasive I saw during my time at the park:
- Norway Maple
- Wine Berry
- English Ivy
- Amur Honeysuckle
Also, Sligo Creek contains small pockets of Eastern white pines that remind me of areas of EWP in Crescent Woods
Common Native Species in Sligo Creek
- Red Maple
- River Birch
- American Beech
- Red Oak
- White Oak
