The Oakland County Parks (OCP) Natural Resources team is working diligently year-round to promote healthy ecosystems in our communities. This includes surveying, monitoring and – when appropriate – taking strategic action to protect natural spaces and sensitive species across the county. Here are some highlights of the important work OCP Natural Resources staff focused on this spring and summer:
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Cold misty rain was falling, sections of the trails were slippery, and mosquitos were ferociously feasting on any exposed flesh they could find. Before you get discouraged, it was atypical to encounter so many mosquitos; however, at times they even swarmed the lens of my camera, which allowed for some interesting photos. Certainly not my favorite conditions for hiking and exploring nature’s way, but I trudged on ignoring the fact that I had become an involuntary blood donor. I think the mosquitos were equally pleased that I kept hiking.
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One need not travel far to embrace nature’s way and come home with a smile. That’s what I did this morning to beat the heat and possible storms expected later in the afternoon. As for the words “this morning,” I am referring back to Wednesday, August 9 – a day when the afternoon temperatures flirted with the 90-degree mark. With those thoughts in mind, I armed myself with a mug of iced coffee, my camera, and a notepad and headed off to the 2.2-mile-long River Loop Trail of Independence Oaks County Park expecting to be the only trail user. I could not have been more wrong. I probably encountered two dozen people on my intentionally slow-paced trek and suspect they had the same idea to hike early to beat the afternoon heat.
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Medical professionals write prescriptions for ailments and illnesses. That fact is very well known. But did you know land managers write prescriptions for igniting fires in our fields, woodlands and marshes? Today’s Wilder Side of Oakland County nature blog was inspired by a resident asking me why there was a fire at Independence Oaks County Park a few weeks ago and “the fire department never showed up.” I was tempted to simply say, “They had a prescription to burn,” but instead I explained the fire situation they witnessed in an abbreviated version of today’s blog. I was a bit surprised by the question since the contractor’s fire suppression equipment was on site, just not the local fire department, which in this case would have been Independence Township Fire Department.
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Not all Oakland County geese spend their days grazing out in the open on lawns, golf courses, the greens of schools and college campuses, and along the shorelines of our multi-sport lakes. Nor do all geese exhibit aggressive behavior when a human meanders too close to a nesting site that’s hidden in office-plaza shrubbery or along a popular and well-traversed trail. Some are more reclusive and head to secluded swamps and woodland ponds when it’s nesting time. This is their story and brings to mind the first sentence of Aldo Leopold’s classic book of nature essays, A Sand County Almanac (Leopold, 1949): “There are some who can live with wild things, and some who cannot.” I look to the woodland geese as wild things.
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