DESTINATION Generic 52 Photosets
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| no partners | | The local parks here (NYC and nearby) have continued to delight. Over the past weekends, I visited two I had not previously explored, the Pond Park near Little Neck Bay, and Francis Lewis Park at the foot of the Whitestone Bridge. Both parks run small, more like tiny. You would give their size in square feet, not acres or square miles. But for these quiet Saturday mornings, as the sun rose, with a nice breeze, and still in a spring time low humidity, both provided a pleasant place for a quite walk and interesting scenes.
Pond Park features a thick forest and a small pond. On my visit, the low angle of the sun created soft patterns of light and shadow across the trees and pond. Some large-winged birds graced the branches, but they scattered before I could get close enough to identify them. But still, it is good to know this little dot of a park, designated locally as a wildlife sanctuary, did seem to provide a habitat for the birds.
Francis Lewis Park offered a nice tree-dotted grassy meadow, with paved walkways, park benches and a playground area. The park borders the East River section between Queens and the Bronx, so does contain a very small beach. Small fits, the park measures barely 700 feet wide and long, but still pleasant. And the park offers a picturesque view of the Whitestone Bridge. Now the Whitestone Bridge lacks any strong notoriety (as does for example the Golden Gate Bridge), nor much stirring history (as the Brooklyn Bridge might), but nonetheless the bridge sits majestically as it spans the East River with its towers and suspension cables.
All in all then, I enjoyed the parks, even given their small size.
Now, I did (finally) break out of the local area and ventured north to Sterling Forest State Park,to a section of the Appalachian Trail. The mission, though, did not involve a hike, but volunteer trail maintenance duty. So no pictures, no pleasant walks, just maintaining the trail as a small effort to give back for all those who have maintained trails I travel.
Now, the section of the AT I cover includes a short leg under High Voltage power lines. Now this 300 foot section provides a lesson, or contrast, in balanced verses unbalanced, ecosystems. In terms of (mainly) balanced (an invasive disease is spreading into the trees), the preponderance of my maintenance coverage runs through fairly thick forest with a high canopy filtering the sunlight. The underbrush remains modest, consisting importantly of scattered young trees grabbing up the sunlight that does penetrate the high tree canopy, with decaying leaves and fallen trees both moderating underbrush growth and nurturing the ground. Those young trees and fertile soil stand ready to replace the tree cover, if a taller tree falls and opens up a splotch of sunlight.
The section under the High Voltage lines differs dramatically, and shows nature gone awry. To protect the power lines, all trees have been removed. Sunlight pours in, and no bed of leaves and fallen trees dampens the growth of underbrush. So every weed, vine, bush, grass, and scrub plant in the area has taken hold, in chaotic abundance. I visit for trail maintenance every three to six months, and on each visit spend a high percent of time cutting away the quickly growing underbrush in this short leg to prevent its overrunning the AT.
Now in trail maintenance, one should prune back trail-encroaching new trees carefully, to not inflict stress on the tree. But in the area under the power lines, the thick, mangled underbrush lacks new trees, but rather contains an ecosystem artificially out of balance. One could bemoan the impact of modern electric transmission technology on creating this imbalance, but only 300 feet of the trail is impacted, out of the almost 2 miles I cover. So for this 300 feet, the focus centers not on the balance of the ecosystem or the careful pruning of nascent trees or containment of invasive species, but on the unfortunately aggressive slashing back of wild undergrowth to maintain the continuity of the Appalachian Trail. |
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