User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
The study site I have chosen is a forest that shapes its way down into a groomed lawn which is my backyard. The area is roughly half an acre of lawn and 2 acres of forest. The forest is mostly comprised of very tall pine trees, spruce and cedar trees and very few arbutus trees (mostly cedar trees however). There is also a lot of fern and cedar shrubs masking the grounds between the trees. The study area I have chosen is on the out skirts of town. It is an estate residence so the traffic passing through is minimal and all housing is about 2.5 acres apart. There is more frequent wildlife passing than human. The area is all relatively flat with a couple bumps and a slight incline from the house to the lawn up to the forest. I visited this site at 11:00 am, Friday morning on June the 15th 2018. The temperature was 16 degrees Celsius with blue skies and very minimal partial clouding. It was a beautiful day.
The first thing I couldn’t help but to notice was the obvious passing of wildlife. I did choose this area not only because it is my backyard, but also because over the years I have seen multiple forms of wildlife step outside of the forest, out of their world, and into our world. I have seen multiple species of bird, squires, quails, mice, dear and even black bears since I have lived here. So, the obvious question I have would be: How does having human activity incorporated into the forest affect certain activity of animals in the surrounding area? Another question that interest my curiosity would be to why are the number of arbutus trees in the forest so limited and why are they found so deep into the forest? My last and final question would be: is the dominant type of bird species around my backyard (robins) due to the resources the forest provides?
