Zach Puritz: Red Rock Blog site A UVM blog

While Zach was away for thanksgiving break he was tasked with finding a location to find in his home state of Virginia. Now while the capitol city of Virginia, Richmond, might seem like a place with little green in it there is a handful of locations with greenery in them. Such as Bryan park, a recreational park which has a few trails in and about the designated woods and happens to be a short walk from Zach’s house. So he choose to find a place in this spot. Now Bryan park isn’t very natural with most of it being recreational land, this means there are big open areas and signs of people’s interventions.

This doesn’t mean that the park is void of natural locations, just that Zach is unlikely to find locations void of people’s influence. But some of the influence of Bryan park is interesting. For starters back in the 1600s this location was prime spot for watermills due to its close proximity to a creek. That led to it being a frequented area for trade and making camps. It was used this way by union troops after the fire in Richmond. These old presences are still found in debre in the park.

Now as for Zach, he walked around for a while going on trails trying to find something that would work well enough when he spotted an interesting clearing surrounded by tall grass, and in the middle of this tall grass was a path. This intrigued him and he decided that no matter what he ended up finding he would talk about.

He walked down this path and came across a small campsite area with multiple fallen trees around it. He decided this would be his spot.

Though it wasn’t as purely natural as he had hoped, it was still interesting to say the least. The trees all having fallen into a big pile together and what seemed to be a new break told a story. Furthermore the location featured a small camp with a small rock bench and a fire-pit. It seemed like a nice spot and conveyed the history of the location in an interesting way. Ecology wise it wasn’t to uncommon to other places in Virginia, it contained some common ivy and honeysuckle.

Zach decided to leave a maple leaf he had actually taken from Vermont in this spot for his honorable harvest gift, then he forgot to take a picture. But if you were to go there today, he would ensure it’s probably there somewhere.

Zach has finally returned to his Phenology site after a brief absence and much has changed. The maple trees previously colorful with autumn leaves are now bare. The dense leafy forest now just a tangled web of branches and bristles. But even with this pre-winter display Zach still aimed to make it to his spot. And that’s exactly what he did, trudging through that mess of twigs to arrive at his secluded spot at the cliff.

Though Red Rock as a whole had changed, his spot had not as much. This is by far due to the generally coniferous makeup of his location. So he quickly was able to recognize his mossy clearing and enjoy what it had to offer. As he sat there he noticed many things, from the blue jays calling to the wind present coming over the cliff. He quite enjoyed his stay in one location and was able to pinpoint an outline of his location.

However, Zach does not just sit idly in one spot for very long. After 15 minutes he got up and got to work. He recalled something about a bird’s eye view and stayed true to that by climbing up a tree, so perhaps more of a squirrel eye view. He made sure to be cautious and careful while in the tree and not to hurt either himself or it. But once he made it up there he got a nice look down at his spot and a fairly nice view of the lake as well.

Afterwards he got down and looked at the species he previously looked at. He was now able to identify that the ferns which grew throughout his site were deer ferns, and saw that that the eastern red cedar now had flowering blue cedar seeds which were sprawled all on the cedar trees.

Overall his trip back to his site was interesting, but not much different than before. Perhaps in the colder times to come they will change even more. But as for when he last life his site, it’s still just as gorgeous as his first time there.

Hello, and welcome to Zach’s Red Rock blog. Here he will talk about his experience over the coming months at his phenology spot in Red Rock Park.

Now you might ask, “Why did he pick Red Rock park?”. Well Zach first heard about Red Rock from his Trek group leader when asking about cool locations around Burlington. He heard of the tall cliffs, the nice lake overlooks and the significant rocks that were in the area and he was intrigued. Furthermore as an avid rock climber he was interested in its topology and geology. So he decided to choose it as his Phenology site.

The trip to get there was long. He took a total of 2 busses and walked for 40 minutes just to get there. While most the trip to Red Rock Park was mainly urban South Burlington other portions were very beautiful fall settings which were pleasant to walk through. It goes to show that even before getting to your location you will have an experience.

All of these combined made for a magnificent Phenology spot and a very nice place to return to over these next few months. Zach is very excited to return and see what changes may have arisen.