Käyttäjän jillian_evans päiväkirja

I visited the Boston Public Garden and Boston Common today, and I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to do this nature walk. The weather was beautiful and extremely warm for a day in early November. I was able to find a few different kinds of animals, but I struggled to find insects. I paid close attention to flowers and soil to try to find some, but I was not able to see very many. This may be because of the change in seasons; less insects will be out in the fall than in the summer. I also saw many birds on this walk, but I was unable to capture pictures of most of them because they flew away. It is much more difficult to observe animals that are moving around than stationary plants and fungi. Finally, this nature walk made me think a lot about ecology, specifically the interactions between living things in an area. I observed these animals interact with their environment and one another in interesting ways, and it was fascinating to take a step back and appreciate the ecosystem in this way.

I walked around Webster Park this afternoon. It was a beautiful, cool fall day. The area I walked around was pretty wooded, and there was not really a trail to follow, so I just explored. Because of the theme of this walk, I paid much closer attention to the plants on this walk than on my previous walks. I noticed that there were so many different kinds of plants often growing in extremely close proximity to one another. I also noticed that the plants seemed to adapt to the environments around them. For example, I saw many plants growing around fallen trees and growing vertically toward the sun on steep hills. I also noticed that underneath some rocky cliffs with lots of shade, there seemed to be different plants growing than in some of the sunnier areas of the woods. I really enjoyed this walk and will definitely be returning to Webster Park in the future.

Today was a chilly day and very cloudy, but my walk was extremely enjoyable. I went in the early afternoon, and the Houghton Garden was quiet and cozy with all of the trees and growth around me. The area was not densely wooded, so I spent most of my time off the path just wandering through the garden. Even though I was specifically looking for fungi, I saw so many different kinds of plants and other organisms. I saw a lot of fungi and lichen which did not surprise me too much. Fungi thrive in environments with dead matter because they can decompose it; with it being fall, there are tons of leaves on the ground, providing a perfect source of matter for fungi to decompose. I can imagine the soil in the garden is extremely rich in organic matter because of all of the organisms living there, so fungi must thrive in that sort of environment. The fungi that I saw was always surrounded by other plants and organisms, which made me think about the important relationships between different species. This is a key aspect of biodiversity; the fungi rely on other organisms and those organisms rely on fungi in order to establish a successful ecosystem.

I took a walk in the mid-afternoon around the Chestnut Hill Reservoir. It was an ideal early fall day: cool but with the sun shining brightly and a light breeze. I have been around the reservoir before, but this time, I was focused on observing the various life around me, and I was shocked by how much there was. There were plants growing all around, from on the trees to in the gravel pathway to up from the edge of the water. There were lots of birds and insects flying around, many ducks in the water, and a few squirrels and chipmunks running around. My favorite part of the walk was getting off the path for a bit and exploring a lightly wooded area off the path. Overall, I was surprised by how much diversity I saw in such a small area so close to campus. I also noticed all of the ecological services that this area provides to us at BC and the community around us. Clearly the man-made reservoir provides the provisioning service of drinking water, but it also provides cultural services for recreation and supporting services for habitats, soil production, etc.