The nearly 200 acres
of private and public land that make up the Rock Point Area are an exemplary
model of an “Urban Wild" within the city limits of Burlington. This term
applies to lands that “provide habitat for rare and endangered plant and animal
communities, wetlands and other riparian systems, floodplain, unique geological
and hydrological features, important wildlife habitat and travel corridors,
areas important for scientific research and education, scenic vistas, trails,
passive recreation, sustainable forest communities, and cultural features” (Meals,
Don, and Wayne Gross. Burlington Conservation Board Memorandum – January 30,
2002). Moreover, you will find that the historic land use of the property
directly ties in to the plants and animals that are found here today. Its
conservation as an urban wild into the future will make this a key spot for
providing needed habitat within the Burlington city matrix.
What makes the Rock Point
Area so special ecologically? This page will guide you
through the various natural communities, rare and endangered plant species, and
wildlife that are found nowhere else in the Burlington city limits (for
instance, did you know there have been moose sightings in Burlington at Rock Point?).
The map below shows the various natural communities of Rock Point. By exploring
each of these natural communities and understanding how they differ, you will
be able to understand what lives where and why, and it will help you when you
are looking for that particular bird, wildflower, or tree that interests you.
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| (Prepared by Carex Consultants, May 1996) |
The concept of a
natural community is simple but elegant. In Vermont, the book Wetland,
Woodland, Wildland is the foremost authority on our natural communities,
and it is the basis for the following descriptions. As defined by WWW, natural communities are "interacting
assemblage of organisms, their physical environment, and the natural processes
that affect them." Essentially, natural communities recognize that there
is a pattern to how plants, animals,
and other organisms are found, and it is due to a number of factors, including
water, soils, and climate. Some associations are more rare than others, and
knowing where these are can aid in identifying and monitoring the rare,
threatened, and endangered species within them.
Mesic
Maple-Ash-Hickory-Oak Forest
Most of the forests in
the Rock Point Area consist of Mesic Maple-Ash-Hickory-Oak Forest
- show in dark blue in the above
map, labeled as “Mesic Oak-Hickory Northern Hardwood”. This community is
quite uncommon in in Vermont, and is found mostly in the Champlain Valley and along
the Connecticut River. It is similar to our common Northern Hardwood Forest,
but contains many more species that are found more commonly in the central and
southern Appalachian Mountains; the term "mesic" refers to the warmer
climate and intermediate wetness of the site.
The dominant tree
species in the forest are sugar maple, red maple, white oak, red oak, white
ash, and shagbark hickory. Due to the abundance of these mast-producing trees,
the forests are very important for wildlife ranging in size from squirrel to
moose. The shagbark hickory (Carya ovata),
is crucial habitat for the tiny endangered Indiana bat (Myotis sodalis). The bats roost under the flaking, peeling bark of
older trees, shown in the photo below. A few particularly beautiful large
shagbarks exist on the eastern edge of the Arms Grant Property, just south of
the Alliance Church.
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| Shagbark Hickory (Wikimedia commons) |
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| Indiana Bat (Wikimedia commons) |
Animals within this
community:
Wild turkeys have been heard and seen
throughout this forest type due to the high quantity of mast-producing trees
like oak and hickory. A suite of forest-dwelling songbirds like Eastern Wood-pewee*,
Red-eyed Vireo, Black-throated Blue Warbler*, and Scarlet Tanager* can also be found
- look for most of these birds starting in early May. White-tailed deer, mice, chipmunks, and
squirrels are also very common.
(*Part of “The Birder’s Dozen” that represents twelve
of the 39 Responsibility Birds that the Audubon Vermont Forest Bird Initiative
is working to protect. These birds use different forested natural communities
in a variety of ways for feeding and breeding.)
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| Eastern Wood-Pewee (Wikimedia Commons) |
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| Red-eyed Vireo (Wikimedia Commons) |
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| Scarlet Tanager (Wikimedia Commons) |
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| Black-throated Blue Warbler (Wikimedia Commons) |
Plants within this community:
The understory of these forests is
not as abundant as the Transition Hardwood Forest, with its enriched soils (see
below for more information). Red oaks, white oaks, and hickories produce acorns
and nuts in abundance. A rare hickory for Vermont found here includes pignut
hickory (Carya glabra). Uncommon
herbaceous plants that can be found here are tick trefoil (Desmodium) and large-flowered trillium (Trilluim grandifolium), which will begin flowering in late-April to
early-May. In the particularly wet areas on the Arms Grant property, there are
some excellent places to see skunk cabbage (Symplcarpus foetidu) and false hellebore (Veratrum viride).
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Large-flowered Trillium (Wikimedia Commons)
|
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| Skunk Cabbage with last season's flower (left), current flower (middle) and current leaf (right). (Ryan Morra) |
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| False Hellebore (Teage O'Connor) |
White Pine - Transition Hardwood Forest
The White
Pine-Transition Hardwood Forest is the other common forest type at Rock
Point. Human influence of this forest plays heavily into its current
composition. It is a variant of the Mesic Maple-Ash-Hickory-Oak Forest
described above, and is described in WWW as the “Transition Hardwoods
Limestone Forest.” It is similar to a Rich Northern
Hardwood forest, but with a far greater proportion of red oaks in the
overstory. You will see much sugar maple, beech and ash alongside the red oak.
Due to land use history on Rock Point, white pines are far more prominent than
would have occurred without the influence of intensive logging.
Laurel Broughton quoted John Hopkins, Jr. (the
son of Bishop Hopkins who purchased the much of the Rock Point property in
1841) as saying “we had found that the choppers… had felled all the timber on
the southern exposure of a hill near the Lake.” Currently there are scattered
large white pine trees up to only 150 years old, synchronous with Hopkins’ account
and one particularly large white oak at the boundary of the diocese and the
Arms Grant parcel that is over 200 years old, and likely marks the property
line. Most of the trees were clearcut by the mid-1800s, after which the land
was used for agriculture into the early 1900s. Since these woods are now in a
relatively young stage, the white pines still make-up a large part of the
forest composition.
Animals
within this community:
These
forests are great communities for bird watching, as the same species described
in the Mesic
Maple-Ash-Hickory-Oak Forest can also be found here. The common
early spring migrants – Eastern Phoebe, House Finch, American Goldfinch, and Tufted Titmouse – can be
easily viewed at the feeders around the Rock Point Conference Center buildings.
Look to the edges of openings with the old fields and marshes for viewing other
common early migrants like the Song Sparrow and the Red-winged Blackbird, respectively.
Plants within
this community:
These forests are a
great place to learn many of the common spring ephemeral wildflowers of
Vermont. These include some of the most conspicuous early flowering plants like
trout lily (Erythronium americanum), blood root (Sanguinaria Canadensis),
anemone (Anemone riparia), Canada mayflower (Maianthemum canadense), and red trillium/wakerobin (Trillium erectum).
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| Trout Lily (Wikimedia commons) |
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| Bloodroot flower emerging from inside leaf (Ryan Morra) |
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| Red-flowered Trillium (Wikimedia Commons) |
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| Canada mayflower (Wikimedia Commons) |
Limestone-Enriched
Communities: Limestone Bluff Cedar-Pine Forest and Temperate Calcareous
Outcrop Community
One of the most unique
features of Rock Point's natural communities is the calcium-enriched
bedrock upon which they are founded (see the Geology page of this website for
more). The limestone and dolostone rock just at the surface supplies ample
amounts of calcium to the soils above, that in turn allows for a unique set of
plants to take root. Along the edge of the Rock Point peninsula, the Limestone
Bluff Cedar-Pine Forest is the dominant community, with northern white-cedar (Thuja occidentalis) being the most
common tree, along with white and red pines. Botanists come from throughout New
England to view this unusual and beautiful community, the approximate location of which is shown on the map below:
You can explore a GigaPan Photo of the Limestone Bluff Forest here:
Animals within this community:
This natural community is an
excellent place for further study. An educational opportunity would include
documenting songbirds and mammals found along any part of this forest. Due the
rarity of this natural community, there is little information on the presence
or abundance of any particular species.
Plants within this community:
The cool air from the lakeside
creates a moist microclimate in which some rare herbaceous plants grow, such as
walking fern (Asplenium rhizophyllum)
and purple clematis (Clematis
occidentalis). Within the Temperate Calcareous Outcrop Community scattered throughout the Arms Grant Property you will find rare and beautiful plants
like the yellow lady slipper (Cypripedium
calceolus var. pubescens) and square goldenrod (Solidago squarrosa).
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| The rare and Vermont-threatened Yellow Lady's Slipper (Wikimedia Commons) |
Rich
Site Indicator Plants in this Community:
There
are several plants that anyone working in the woods should know – these plants
are indicators that the soils below are rich in calcium, an essential nutrient
for plant health. If you are working in your sugarbush, for instance, you will
want to look for these plants to indicate a potentially highly productive
forest. Rich site indicator plants that can be found on Rock Point include the
very handsome maidenhair fern (Adiantum
pedatum), the basswood tree (Tilia americana),
and herbaceous plants like Dutchman’s breeches (Dicentra cucullaria), large-flowered trillium (Trillium grandiflorum), hepatica
(Hepatica acutiloba), wild ginger (Asarum
canadense), and meadow rue (Thalictrum
diocicum).
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| Maidenhair Fern (Ryan Morra) |
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| Dutchman's Breeches (Wikimedia Commons) |
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| Wild Ginger - look for small flower underneath leaves in spring (Wikimedia Commons) |
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| Hepatica in early flower - final week of March - look for last year's browned, leathery leaves still at the base in early springtime. (Ryan Morra) |
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| Meadow Rue in early stages of development (Ryan Morra) |
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| Meadow Rue with flowers (Wikimedia Commons) |
There are also a number of wetland areas at Rock Point - see the next page for details on the location of these and the plants and animals that can be found therein.
Wildflowers at Rock Point
With so many wildflowers at Rock Point, there is excellent potential to record the first date of flowering for each species of flower - called a "phenology." This can also be combined with information on the bud burst of trees and arrival of spring migrant birds to see if climate change is having a marked affect on them. In addition to the Calcareous Outcrop Communities located on the map above in this page, the following map marks the location of other particularly enriched soils that are good for viewing our rich-site indicator species as well as areas where specific rare flowers may be found (within a 50-ft radius of any particular point).
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