Periods of sun and
rain, mid 60s, calm winds
As is usually the case on
Sundays in the fall, we are out traveling from baseball field to baseball field
following our grandkids as they pursue the endeavor they love most at this time
of life. After an early game for
elder grandson Ty (they won!), we travel south to Chester and watch the
semi-final game of a tourney that younger grandson Ry is playing in.
I figure this will be a tough
day to find a shot of the day and to find something to write about, but as it
turns out, there is always something waiting to spark our interest. Today, it is the stark contrast between
two habitats separated by a little two lane road.
On the one side (left in the photo above) is a pristine
grassland with a small pond surrounded by reeds, cattails and fragmites. On the other is a developed
recreational area owned and operated by a private concern. The question is and always will be,
what are the beneficial effects of the complex as compared to the habitat it
replaced.
I simply don’t know enough
about what was here before these rather exquisite baseball fields were built,
but it’s obviously not the habitat that the Great blue heron seen here was enjoying
across the road. What was here
before the diamonds? Were any
species forced out of the area because of the development here?
We are presently facing a
complicated situation north of us in an area known as the Shawangunk Grasslands
National Wildlife Refuge. We know
that there are a number of threatened species which use the refuge throughout
the year, and we also know that the town of Shawangunk is proposing to develop
a recreational site such as we see here (only bigger) adjacent to the
refuge. What effect will it
have? Do we want to wait and see
and then be reactive or do we stop the development now and be proactive. There are a lot of folks like me who
would rather see the safe route taken and leave well enough alone.
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