User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
Location: Duck Pond at the Queen Elizabeth Park Disc Golf Course in Vancouver BC
Date and Time: March 20, 2021 11:30
Weather: Overcast, not raining, ground is quite wet because of the overnight rain, around 10 degrees Celsius
For my project I have selected the duck pond at the disc golf course in Queen Elizabeth park in the heart of Vancouver. Queen Elizabeth is a large city park in the middle of residential Vancouver. The disc golf course is located at the Eastern edge of the park. The final hole of the disc golf course includes a tee shot over one half of the duck pond. The pond and its immediate surrounding area take up a space of around 50 meters by 50 meters. One side of the pond receives high human traffic as there is a walking path that lines the side of the pond for disc golfers to walk from the tee to the basket target. It is also not uncommon for people to wade into the pond on that same side when their discs land in the water. The other side of the pond does not receive the same level of human traffic. scrubby bushes and small trees line this side of the pond. The land surrounding the pond is very flat and covered in moss and grass. A few water lilies and other water plants can be seen surrounding the edge of the pond away from the areas of high human traffic.
Figure 1. Field Notes. Top of page is a side view of the topography of the pond while the bottom half is a top down view of the pond and the surrounding vegetation.
Figure 2. Field notes on vegetation. Rose hip plants appear to be a good study subject.
Figure 3. Field notes on observed birds.
The most notable vegetation includes the scrubby bushes and small deciduous trees lining the pond as well as three large evergreen trees, short moss and grass surrounding the pond area, and water plants in the pond. There were no noticeable signs of mammals in the area but plenty of birds could be seen including seagulls flying overhead, a crow in an evergreen tree, a small finch in the bushes, and mallard ducks, American wigeons, and Bufflehead ducks in the pond. There was also goose feces in the grass surrounding the pond.
The most likely subject targets were the wild roses growing around the edge of the pond. There are many vertical rose plants consisting of one tall shoot with no branching. These plants ranged from under 50 centimeters to well over 2 meters in height. These plants have many buds forming on the upper portions of the shoots. These buds are likely vegetative buds which will form into leaves or branched shoots. Despite the difference in size, the taller rose plants appeared to have a similar number of buds as the shorter plants. The buds on the taller plants were only located on the upper portion of the shoots leaving the bottom portions bare. The linear nature of these plants make them a good candidate for easily collecting fully objective data.
Figure 4. Close up on wild rose plant buds.
Figure 5. Dead rose hips from the previous year still attached to the plant.
Based off of my initial observations the three study ideas that I have come up with are:
- What impact does the level of human traffic have on the species and density of grass and moss?
- What impact does water plant density have on the water fowl distribution on the pond?
- Is there a correlation between height of wild rose plants and the number of buds forming? Is there an optimal distance range from the tip of the shoot for the buds to form regardless of plant height?
