Exploring Through the Lens of Habitat

The enlivening of spring across the landscape plays out in a wild procession: frog symphonies, bird choruses, wildflower effusions. While we are often captivated by the “when” of this procession, each change is also an invitation to think about the “where” of spring on the landscape.

Where are those Wood Frogs clacking? Where should we look to see an uprising of spring wildflowers on the forest floor?

One way to more deeply explore the “where” of nature’s dance—during spring or anytime—is through the lens of habitat.

We use the term habitat to refer to a particular part of the landscape that can be consistently identified through its physical characteristics and the community of organisms it supports. A Hemlock forest, for instance. Or a vernal pool.

When you know what habitat you are visiting, it can open up worlds previously unseen and unimagined. For example, take that vernal pool. Perhaps you stumbled upon it as a small, muddy depression on a summer’s walk. But if you know you’re beside a vernal pool, your sphere of appreciation may deepen to include the fingernail clams or fairy shrimp eggs resting in a drought-resistant state until water returns and the surrounding forest that is home to the salamanders and Wood Frogs that journey to this pool to mate for a few weeks in March and April.

Interested in exploring habitats? After decades of original, place-based research, the Farmscape Ecology Program and Hudsonia Ltd. have recently created a companion for such a journey: From the Hudson to the Taconics: An Ecological and Cultural Field Guide to the Habitats of Columbia County, New York, published by Black Dome Press.

This richly illustrated guide invites readers to get to know 36 distinct habitats—not only through the community of organisms and relationships that define them, but also in sharing the human histories and perspectives that have shaped them, recommendations for stewarding them, and interactive activities that might deepen one’s experience and appreciation of them.

To help guide your exploration, the book includes a map of public areas in Columbia County and a table of habitats that can be found at each, also available at: hvfarmscape.org/publicareas