Mount Vernon, Iowa Nature Park's Journal

July 15, 2020

An ordinary place

How many species can you find in an ordinary place? This depends mostly on how close you are willing to look and how much you are willing to learn. We are lucky to have our little piece of nature in this small town, but it isn't anything special. A pond, some woods, some lawns, a planted prairie, and a small stream. Much of the area is landscaped or disturbed; many of the common species are not even native.

And yet, after a hundred or so hours of looking closely at the plants, animals and fungi living here, I am still surprised by the new and interesting things I find. There are plants I never noticed before, insects I never knew about, new dimensions in the way they interact and live together. These 25 acres have become an infinite world, measured not by area, but by the variety they contain.

Today I have reached my first milestone in exploring this world—500 different kinds of life pictured, named, and listed—but I have only begun to discover what lives in this place. Finding the next 500 species will not be as easy. I will rely more on the tools of the naturalists' trade: my insect net, identification keys, and especially a microscope. Looking closer, there are new worlds to explore and new discoveries to be made.

With so much to see and know, I am reminded, after all, that there is no ordinary place.

Posted on July 15, 2020 05:52 PM by isaacwinkler isaacwinkler | 0 comments | Leave a comment

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