Today we went to one of the best kept secret parks in NYC (and I hope it stays that way). We went on an Owl Prowl that turned out to be owl-less, but really fun. The park combines second growth forrest with ancient forrest. We saw many trees, old Oaks, Cherry trees, Sassafrass trees, Sugar Maples, Tulip trees, to name a few.
I have always wanted to be able to identify trees by their leaves, by their bark, by their shape. It's makes life as a birder a lot easier. It's so frustrating to hear, "It's in that tree, over there!", when you want to see a bird in a grove of 20 trees. It's so much nicer to say, "it's in the snag, to the left of the Serviceberry".
Sometimes we take a our NYC tree guide with us and try to identify the trees in the parks. I now know that most of the trees on my block are Little Leaf Lindens, or Black Locust trees. We also have male Ginkgos in front of the house. I go to the little park down the block with the guide book and identify the trees there. The Brooklyn Botanical Gardens is great fun, all the trees have name plates on them.
When I was learning to identify birds, before I went to bed each night, I studied my field guide. I would go through all the pictures in a section and really look at the field markings for each bird. I should do that for trees and for butterflies. There really is a lot to learn.
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