Ground Truthing in the Fishing Brook Range

The sequence of images below show progressively closer views of a small mountain in the Adirondacks. In images three and four I've outlined an area of special interest; an area that I know to be a dense spruce thicket. I know that because on a recent Saturday (Oct. 2014) I was there; trying to bushwhack to the top.

Viewing my route in Google Earth, and applying my newly gained knowledge, it's relatively easy to differentiate among the different types of cover found along this ridge. There are thickets comprised mostly of stunted and densely packed Spruce and there are areas where mature deciduous trees dominate. Images three and four clarify the distinction with outlines around the dense thickets. Outside of the outline you can make out individual trees. Inside there are thousands of small trees, mostly spruce, jammed together in a nearly impenetrable thicket.

Image 1: The Fishing Brook Range. The pink line is the boundary between Forest Preserve and private land. The distant marker is the summit of Fishing Brook Mountain. (Source: Google Earth)

Image 2: The contrast between thickets and the more open deciduous forests starts to be visible. The tops of individual trees can be seen in the more open areas. (Source: Google Earth)

Image 3: The dense cover areas have a distinctive look when compared with the surrounding forest. (Source: Google Earth)

Image 4: A closer view from a slightly different angle. A practical route along the ridge would stay to the left and avoid the thicket areas such as the one marked by the outline. (Source: Google Earth)

Ole 3400

I had set off to try to reach the top of the unnamed 3400 foot peak south east of where the Northville Lake Placid Trail (NLPT) reaches its' high point near Long Lake. The trail crosses a ridge at just over 3000 feet and it’s a pleasant 3.5 mile walk to this height of land (south from Rte 28N). I've hiked in this area many times and I've been intrigued by the ridge that runs from the trail to the summit of Fishing Brook Mountain. Getting to the height of land by trail is easy. But from there it's a 4.5 mile bushwhack to the summit of Fishing Brook Mountain. Along the way are several smaller peaks and a couple high elevation ponds that I'd like to see close up. This is wild and little visited country.

Image 5: Along the ridge on a previous outing. October 2013.

Image 6: Spruce thicket along the ridge.

My recent hike was a test of the feasibility of making a longer trip along the ridge. And a test run turned out to be a wise thing to do. I didn't make it to the top of even the first peak along the ridge. Just a mile from where I left the trail I was turned back by rough terrain, the limited daylight of a late October day, and those spruce thickets previously mentioned and shown in image six. 

I did keep a GPS track of my hike and when I overlaid the route I followed on the satellite image the areas to avoid became visible. The spruce thickets look different than the areas where the forest is more open. I might have guessed at these distinctions before the trip but now I have no doubt. If it looks like the areas outlined in images three and four, go around. And this is not too surprising. In the Adirondacks, the ecological transition zone between 3000 and 3500 feet tends to be a particularly difficult place to travel. A lesson that I relearn every few years.

As for Fishing Brook Mountain, making the summit by following the ridge is rather serious undertaking. A much more feasible route would be to stay at a lower elevation in deciduous forests on north side of the ridge. Image seven shows the area as seen from the south. The red line on the left is the NLPT and the light red lines delineate the boundary between Forest Preserve and private lands. Based on my ground truthing the lighter green areas are deciduous forests while the darker greens are conifer dominated forests.

Image 7: The area as it would appear if viewed from from an airplane flying south of the ridge line  Route 28N is visible along the top of the image. Long Lake is off image to the left; Newcomb to the right. (Source: Google Earth)

Satellites and Sensors

Digital images like the ones we view in Google Earth are actually a form of sensor-gathered data. A digital camera contains a light sensitive sensor divided into a grid of cells organized into rows and columns (commonly called pixels). When an image is made the sensor assigns a number to each cell. These numbers represent the color and intensity of the light striking each cell and those numbers are saved to a file. When you view the image the numbers are converted back to the appropriate colors for display. Modern image sensors have millions of cells and can differentiate among millions of distinct colors.

Larger sensors record values for more cells and this is one of the factors that determines the quality of a digital image. Generally speaking, more expensive cameras contain larger sensors and produce higher quality images. But sensor size is not the only factor that determines image quality. The lens system of the camera focuses the light on the sensor so lens quality imposes a limit on the amount of detail that a sensor can resolve. For satellite imagery the number of pixels in the sensor, and the quality of the lens, are main limiting factors on the level of detail we can see in the final images.

Ecological Succession and Environmental History

For the purpose of picking better hiking routes we can analyze the data simply by viewing the imagery in Google Earth (or other similar systems). Combined with a bit of on-the-ground experience it's relatively easy to see differences in the types of ground cover and terrain. But what about more subtle distinctions? What if I wanted to differentiate among the ecological communities present in an area? The distinctions between communities can be subtle and it oftentimes comes down to recognizing species assemblages that we are not going to visible in satellite imagery. We can make broad assessments from satellite gathered data; the communities present in a spruce thicket will be different from communities found in deciduous forest. But recognizing the more subtle distinctions requires additional data and commonly that data has to come from poking around on the ground.

My interest is in ecological succession and how ecological communities change over time. At any given place, the assemblage of species present will be governed by soil, climate, topography and disruption. You don't find flamingos in the Adirondacks but you do find different types of trees on north facing slopes as compare to south facing slopes just a short distance away. Over time the communities present at a location will reach an equilibrium but even that climax state shifts over time in response to changes in the larger environment. On top of this, very few locations in the Adirondacks are at the equilibrium state because of disruptive events that include logging, fires, storms and disease outbreaks. The Adirondack forests we see today are not what existed 250 years ago.

The north side of Fishing Brook Mountain bears forests at varying stages of succession aligned with the effects of disruptive events that have occurred in the last 120 years. Most of the ridge has been logged, some places more than once. There have been fires of varying sizes. There have been storms such as the hurricane of 1950, the derecho storm in 1995, and the ice storm of 1998. And currently the forests are being altered by non-native diseases and insects. In particular, Beech Bark Disease has killed the majority of large American Beech trees previously present in this area.

The variable matrix of forest stages present on this ridge became evident to me as I struggled along the ridge on my hike. In places I would break out of the dense thickets into open areas with a low cover comprised mainly of ferns and a canopy dominated by large Yellow Birch (Betula alleghaniensis).  Neither of these community types are likely to be climax communities and the pattern of occurrence seemed unnatural as well. Teasing out the sequence of events and transitions that led to the current pattern is in the realm of environmental history. To me these little patches have an interesting story to tell. This is a topic I plan to return in upcoming posts.

Note:

There are several recognized communities that include Yellow Birch but the stands on this ridge are most likely the result of some past disturbance.

 

Moreau Lake - East of the Hudson -StoneWall Trail

The Hudson River splits Moreau Lake State Park (MLSP) into two sections. The main body of the park --where Moreau Lake is located-- is west of the Hudson River. However, a good sized chunk of park lies east of the river and coming from Saratoga Springs you must cross the Hudson to get there. Confusing the issue is that the Hudson makes a 90 degree turn and flows northeast through the park. So a hiker viewing the Hudson from the Palmertown Ridge is looking west toward the section of the park that is east of the river.

Moreau Lake State Park; The eastern section is on the left in this image of the park trail map.

To reach this eastern section of the park from Saratoga Springs take route 9N to Corinth. Cross the river and drive north for a half mile to the intersection with Call Street.  Turn right onto Call Street. About three miles from that intersection you'll see Hawk Road on the right (one sign says Hawk Street but it is Hawk Road). The first half mile of Hawk Road is paved but you'll quickly reach a steel gate where a sign reads; "Trailhead Parking Straight Ahead". From there it's about a mile on a one lane dirt road to the large parking area. As of October 2014 the road was passable for normal passenger cars with just a couple of rough spots.

The Stonewall trail --with Blue Markers-- leaves the west side of the parking lot (on your right as you drive into the lot). A second blue marked trail leaves the lot on the opposite northeast side. That trail is not seen on park maps that I have but it's a nice addition to the trail system. It makes possible a very pleasant loop hike of about 2.5 miles. The far point of the loop is near the Hudson at a spot where some 19th century building foundations remain. Making the "loop" is a bit confusing because, as mentioned, not all of the trails appear on the current trail maps. Even so, it's easy country to navigate and the continuation of Hawk Road (abandoned) crosses the trail at a couple of points making it possible to return to the parking area by that route.

Through the trees - the Spier Falls reservoir (Hudson River) 

This "Hawk Road Trail" (a name I just made up) also reaches the Hudson; but at a point further downstream just above the Spier Falls dam. From there the trail/road continues to the power line right-of-way leaving the power station at Spier Falls. The trail runs along the right-of-way as part of the canoe portage route around the Spier Falls dam. Canoeists approaching the dam from above leave the water and climb up to the road, follow a short stretch to Hawk Road to the right of way, and return to the water walking downhill under the power line. At that point you are on the upper section of a second reservoir backed up behind the Sherman Island dam about 3 miles further downstream. The hiking trail continues along the east bank of this reservoir for a couple more miles, but the transition between the two sections is heavily overgrown and serious tick precautions will be needed to get through unscathed.

Also worth mentioning is that this entire area is open to hunting and I ran into two hunters on my recent outing there. They politely handled their guns in a way that was safety aware but you should wear bright colors if you hike during hunting season.

As with the better known trails on the west side of the river, these trails offer a wealth of natural and human history to consider as you walk. I got a clear look at a male Red Bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus). This species is distinctive and common in many eastern forests, but MLSP is a bit north of its' historic range. Which begs the question of whether this species is expanding its' range northward. And if so, why? Birds are able to respond to changing environmental conditions at a faster rate than many animals and plants (flying comes in real handy). So shifts in bird ranges can serve as an early indicator of changing ecological conditions. If the normal range of the Red Bellied Woodpecker is shifting northward it could be in response to a warming climate. But to make that assertion we need to know the natural history of this species for this area. Has the Red Bellied Woodpecker been present here in the past? If not, when did it arrive and what environmental/ecological changes make the area attractive now?

A less positive indicator of changing environmental conditions is seen in the extensive infestations of Asiatic Bittersweet (AB) along the section of Hawk Road that runs above Spier Falls dam. That AB is present here is hardly surprising. I had previously spotted AB from my canoe; at a place along the river/reservoir bank just below this section of trail. This area has been extensively altered by human activity and once it is present AB thrives where people disturb the forest and create forest edges. AB is common along a half mile stretch of the old road above the dam but I did not spot in the wilder forest areas. It would be interesting to survey the surrounding forest to determine the extent to which it has spread.

Asiatic Bittersweet along the (abandoned) section of Hawk Road near Spier Falls Dam.
Asiatic Bittersweet grows in dense stands that crowd out other vegetation and its' bulk can pull down trees. There is a similar native species; American Bittersweet. The two are easy to tell apart in the fall when the berries are present. If the berries grow all along a stem, it is the Asiatic variety. American Bittersweet has berries only at the ends of stems. Complicating matters is that the two varieties hybridize easily.

To round out my recent day of hiking I took a bush-whacking side excursion from the Hawk Road parking area down to the point where Bennie Brook flows into the Hudson (about 3/4 of a mile). Two things stand out from this little adventure. First, don't try to walk along the edge of the reservoir. It is really tough going and the dreaded deer (black legged) ticks --that carry Lyme disease-- are definitely present. The second point is that I did find something interesting along way; a very large White Oak, diameter 47 inches at chest height. This is probably the largest tree (by this measure) that I've seen anywhere in Moreau Lake State Park. And, because White Oaks are long lived, it could be the oldest as well. White Oaks can live to be 300+ years old and I'd love to know if this tree is really old, having somehow escaped logging, fires and other mishaps. Or is it a younger tree, maybe in the 150 year range, that just happened to grow under particularly favorable conditions. So many questions so little time.

Moreau Lake State Park: A Little Known Gem

I've been fond of hiking for a long time and I've acquired more than a few trail guides along the way. Which has led me to wonder whether the authors of these guides ever regret giving the world directions to their favorite places (assuming that their favorite places are actually included in their books). It’s with this thought in mind that I start this post by saying that the hiking trails of Moreau Lake State Park are a hidden gem.

Moreau Lake State Park (MLSP) is well known to locals as a place for swimming and camping but I’d not given it much thought as a hiking destination. I knew that the park had been expanded in recent years, and a friend had mentioned that the trails were interesting, but it was canoeing on the Hudson River above the Spier Falls Dam that led to my "discovery". There are a series of dams on the Hudson between Corinth and Glens Falls and the reservoir behind the Spier Falls Dam is a favorite place for an afternoon outing. From the water you can’t help but notice the forested ridge rising above the east bank of the river. The ridge is is part of a range of Adirondack mountains known historically as the Palmertown Range. I finally got out for a solid hike in the park in late July (2014) and I've since been back a half dozen times.

You can start your outings in MLSP near the lake (there is an entrance fee for the picnicking and swimming area) but the trails accessible from Spier Falls Road provide a quieter (and free) place to start. There are three official trail-heads, and numerous bushwhacking options, but all options begin with a climb of 500-800 feet to the top of the ridge. The "ridge" is actually a small plateau roughly four miles long and a mile across (the entire park covers over 4000 acres). Once on top there are numerous trails to choose from; anything from a short loop taking in a couple of views (2-3 miles) to a grand tour covering 8 or more miles. Obtaining a map of the park trails is recommended. The trails are well marked but the intersections can be confusing and there are few signs to guide your way.

Image from Google Maps showing the location and terrain of the Park. The park includes significant areas northwest of the Hudson not represented in this map as public land (the light green shade) .

Image from Google Earth showing the trails

Some maps name this section of the ridge Grant Mountain but it would take some searching to find the summit. The ridge top area lies at an elevation of between 1000 and 1250 feet with numerous steep sided glacial cuts and small rocky ridges imparting an unexpected ruggedness to the terrain. Examination of a topographic map of the area shows that the Palmertown Range is part of the of the larger Adirondack uplift. Grant Mountain is defined by a glacial cirque and escarpment on the east side and by the gorge cut by the Hudson River on the west. You can see this clearly using the “terrain” (topographic) view in Google Maps (https://goo.gl/maps/AOaPa).

The map above (from Google Earth) shows the Moreau Lake State Park trail system with two of the west side trail-heads marked. As a point of reference, Northway (I-87) exit 17 is seen on the right side of the map. Spier Falls Road runs along the Hudson River between the two marked trail heads and a 3rd trail-head is found where the yellow trail intersects the green park boundary line in the upper right part of the image. Spier Falls Dam creates the prominent widening of Hudson in the center left of the image. The colored lines show most (but not all) of the trails in MLSP and you can download the trails file from the park website. The file is in the KML format that can be opened using Google Earth. To get some idea of the scale, from the trail-head marker on the left to the point where yellow joins orange on the right is about 4.5 miles.

There are several places along the yellow trail with good views of the Hudson River and the southeastern Adirondacks and an excellent view of Moreau Lake (and east toward Vermont) can be had at the point where the red trail joins the light blue trail. But the views are just icing for me; the ridge top area holds an intriguing and attractive landscape. The terrain is varied and it is overlaid with a matrix of past human activities and the effects of those activities. Much of the forest appears to be 100 year old (approximately) second growth but the effects of more recent logging or fire are seen in some areas. A few abandoned carriage roads can be found but I've seen no sign of pastures or structures.

The most common ecological communities of the ridge top area are the Appalachian Oak-Pine, Beech-Maple and Hemlock Northern Hardwood Forest types. At smaller scales perhaps a half-dozen additional community types present (see the notes at the end). Interesting, from an ecological perspective is that the central section is poorly drained with numerous small marshes and seasonal wet spots. These wet areas are interspersed with dry, rocky, ridges -with thin soil- where Chestnut Oaks are the dominant tree species. This combination is found around the edges of the Adirondacks uplands but it is uncommon in the interior of the range.

Over the coming weeks I'll add posts describing the natural and environmental history of this fascinating area but for now some photos will have to suffice.

Fungus seen along the trail. If anyone can ID this please leave a comment.

The Hudson just north of the Spier Falls Dam. The boat launch is located at roughly the lower left corner of the picture.

A small marsh.

Moreau Lake and the view looking east.

Looking northwest from a view point on the yellow trail.

Looking west across the southern Adirondacks; also from the yellow trail.

Spier Falls Dam on the Hudson seen from a view point on the yellow trail.

1.Ecological Communities of New York State (Edinger et al. 2014) - The definitive guide to ecological communities in New York State from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation web site. http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/97703.html

2. Moreau Lake State Park Master Plan Chapter Two The Moreau Lake State Park Master Plan (from the Office of Parks and Recreation) contains a detailed assessment of the the natural heritage of the park. The entire plan (comprised of several chapters) can be found on the park website.

A Busy Summer of Hikes and Water Trips - Kayaderosseras Creek and Cedar River Flow

One of the worst things you can do with a blog is to allow months to go by without posting anything new. That, unfortunately, is exactly what I've done. It's not that I've lost interest in the projects described in earlier posts. It's that summers are short in this neck of the woods and I've been getting out a lot. Many of those outings have been related to the project (at least that's what I tell myself) but some have been just for fun. This leaves less time for writing then I have in the winter (winter is coming!). But setting this aside, I'll return with a a recap of a couple of recent outings.

For starters I purchased a small kayak. Elle and I have a canoe but it's a two person boat and I often end up going solo. It's an inexpensive kayak -a Perception Sport- great for noodling around. I've been out on Cedar River Flow, the Hudson River and the Kayaderosseras Creek. It's not a boat I'd use for whitewater or on a big lake if the wind was blowing but it's great for low-key day trips.

A point worth noting is the need to clean your boat before moving it among different bodies of water. My first outings in the kayak were on the Kayaderosseras Creek -a lowland creek in Saratoga County. I then put the boat on the Cedar River Flow in the central Adirondacks. To prevent the inadvertent spread of aquatic invasive species I cleaned the kayak thoroughly between those outings. New York State now requires that boats be cleaned before entry into many bodies of water and the State has created an enforcement and education program. You can learn more about it here. Take this seriously. There are several aquatic invasives that, once they gain a foothold, cause immense damage and are nearly impossible to get rid. Keeping them out is the only real solution.

A family of Common Mergansers on the Kayaderosseras Creek near Grey's Crossing (early July 2014). Severe bank erosion is common along the lower Kayaderosseras. Also common are invasive plants such as Japanese Knotweed. A local group --Friends of the Kayaderosseras-- are attempting to control the spread of Knotweed. A couple of methods have been tried but Knotweed is really really hard to kill. A recent post to the group's website details plans to simply cut the Knotweed down repeatedly until its' root energy stores are exhausted (or they are).

Issues aside, the Kayaderosseras from Grey's Crossing to Saratoga Lake has a surprisingly wild feel. Bird life is abundant and at appropriate water levels it's a fun, easy, paddle.  

The Driscoll Road launch site. The water level pictured here is ideal for a relaxed float downstream with enough flow that you don't have to get out and pull through shallow sections. Care is needed during wet weather. The Kayaderossas drains a large watershed and it can rise quickly to levels that are much less relaxed. For several miles below Grey's Crossing the route pass through Saratoga Spa State Park (on one or both sides). The site pictured here is an official launch site on state land with Parking on Driscoll Road. This site requires some effort to get down to the water and a carry of a couple of hundred yards from the parking lot but otherwise this is a good put in or take out point.  

Japanese Knotweed (Fallopia japonica) on the bank of the Kayaderosseras Creek.  

Cedar River Flow

Cedar River Flow is large lake formed by a dam on the Cedar River. The main body of the flow is over three miles long with numerous  bays and extensive wild marshes. Boats with motors are allowed but the launch is suitable only for boats you can carry or wheel to the water by hand (limiting the size of both the boats and their motors). Mostly it's a canoe and kayak paradise. The far end (the south end) of the Flow features extensive marshes where the Cedar River flow into the lake. You can paddle up the Cedar River for several miles (or many miles for the more determined) and the hardest part is finding the actual river channel through the marsh.

In late June (2014) I watched two Osprey pull fish out of the lake. Osprey are pretty common in the Adirondacks and when you see them they are a large and impressive bird. On this day a Bald Eagle flew in to check out the fishing and I was able to see the Osprey and the Eagle in flight within a couple of hundred yards of each other. From this I learned from that Bald Eagles are really big birds. The Eagle's wingspan is only a little larger than an Osprey but the Eagle is a much larger and heavier bird. In general, Cedar River Flow is a great place to view Adirondack birds. Along with the Osprey and the Eagle there were Loons, Waxwings, an American Bittern, Great Blue Herons, Canada Geese (nesting), Turkey's (on the road in) and many other common birds.

An absolutely gorgeous day. Late June 2014.

Beaver Dam on Payne Brook. A second source of inflow into Cedar River Flow

At the upper end of the lake I navigated up a narrow channel thinking it was the Cedar River. It was a dead end but worth the trip anyway.

The view from a well used (and probably illegal) camping spot that sits on a small knoll above the Cedar River.  

Leanto on the Cedar River. About 1.5 miles upstream from where the river flows into the lake. 

The river past the leanto leads deeper into the Moose River Plains. The "plains" are a glacial out wash zone characterized by sandy soils and relatively raw glacial features. The Cedar River has a mostly sandy bottom and it cuts through small ridges where only a foot or two of top soil overlay extensive deposits of sand and gravel.

Little Hoover Dam

Elle and I got out yesterday for a few hours of walking in Lincoln Mountain State Forest. This area is less than 30 minutes from our home and it's both bigger (1000 acres) and wilder than the Hemlock Forest (though it is equally wet and swampy). Lincoln "Mountain" is a bit of a misnomer. The mountain tops out at 1000 feet and it's really just a bump on the Adirondack upslope that lies to the northwest of Saratoga Springs.

The area is crisscrossed with old roads and stone walls and 100 years ago most of it would have been cleared of trees and in active use for various types of agriculture. There are a few places where the trees appear to be older; protected we guess by the general swampiness of the area. There are several small swampy ponds in the area, and seen yesterday (4/20/2014), one was looking particularly pond like (Image One). Image Two, a screen capture of Google Earth imagery from July 2013, shows the swamp with very little open water.

Image One

Image Two

One of our favorite places at Lincoln Mountain is the outlet of this pond/swamp. The main outlet flows from the lower right in Image Two. We walked over to take a look and found just a trickle of water. That seemed odd. Following it upstream for a short distance revealed the reason; one of the larger beaver dams that I've seen. It's difficult to convey the extent of this dam in pictures and I highlighted the "face" of the dam in Image Four. The dam is at least 75 feet long and 4 to 5 feet high in the center. 

Image 5 shows the water backed up behind the dam. The striking thing about this dam is its' height. The dam is four to five feet high in the center. Also, this dam is not the porous structure that you commonly see. Very little water is flowing through the dam. This is clearly a multi-year effort and it could even be multi-generational. As of April 2014 the dam looks pretty solid, but, there's a lot of water backed up behind it and if it were to fail all at once a lot of water going somewhere in a hurry.

 Large beaver dam

The face of the dam is highlighted in yellow

Water backed up behind the dam

Spring, Robins and Oriental Bittersweet

Got out into the forest yesterday (April 6) and the end of a long cold winter is finally here. I had not walked in the forest for a couple of months so I was out just to enjoy the "spring like" conditions (48f with a brisk breeze; snow and ice remaining where ever it has shelter from the sun). Happily, as often happens, I noticed two interesting things during this stroll.

The first was watching Robins feeding on the berries of Oriental Bittersweet. If you've read any of my other posts you know that Oriental Bittersweet has had visible effects on the forest in these here parts and during yesterday's walk I saw an effect I had not previously considered. As I walked I was checking birds to see what species were about on an early spring day and I notice that a group of American Robins were feeding on Oriental Bittersweet berries.

Robins' eating berries is hardly news. My Peterson Eastern Birds guide even notes this as a common "winter" behavior. But, the thing is, Robins were prominently present in Saratoga Springs throughout the winter this year and it was a very tough winter. I saw Robins near my house all winter long and, for much of the winter, a group of 10 or so roosted a large Yew bush just outside my back door. The bush had acquired a canopy of ice and snow which apparently provided some shelter from the wind and cold. I also saw Robins outside my office window (on the other side of town) throughout the winter; usually in a cluster of ornamental crab apple trees.

My Perterson Guides (one from the 50s and a 4th Edition published in 1980) both show Saratoga Springs as outside of the Robin winter range (though only by 100 miles or so). So the question is; does the presence of overwintering Robins represent an extension of their winter range or is it more a case the representation seen in these books being off by what at the scale of the maps is is small amount? The bonus question is, assuming that Robins are extending their winter range, what role are non-native plant species playing in this development? Oriental Bittersweet is present in significant quantities throughout the city as are other non-native trees and shrubs (ornamentals) that bear fruits and berries. Have these human alterations allowed the Robin to extend its' winter range by providing additional food sources? This is a specific example of the larger questions I have about the role humans are playing in altering ecological communities at regional scales.

Flooded hardwood forest area at the south end of the Hemlock Forest; April 6th, 2014

The second "interesting" thing I noted was related to my absolute favorite species present in the Hemlock Forest. As I walked into the woods I wondered if Deer Ticks (Black Legged Ticks) would be active at this point in early spring. I commonly take precautions against ticks such as spraying my pants with tick repellent but I left the house without thinking about ticks. This seemed safe if only because the grasses and plants where they tend to wait for potential meals are mostly still frozen or semi-frozen. However, habits being what they are I periodically checked my clothes for unwanted guests. Nearing the end of the walk I noticed a small black spot on my pant leg. Thinking that it was probably dirt I picked it off and lo and behold it started scurrying across my finger tip. Spring is really here. The Deer Ticks are on the prowl.

My First TriCorder

It's not quite a tricorder, yet, at least not as I remember them from Star Trek. But the smartphone in my pocket is an amazing device and the "possible" is evolving and expanding at a fantastic rate. I'm convinced that the combination of GPS, sensors and recording technologies into common devices will change the way we learn about our world.

A few months ago I wrote about the accuracy of the four GPS capable devices I had access to. The results of those tests can be found here. Not surprisingly I found that my two hand-held GPS units were significantly more accurate than the smartphone I was using at that time. Especially when the GPS handhelds were given a minute to average out accuracy limiting discrepancies that are inherent in the global positioning system.

I recently upgraded my phone to a Google Nexus 5 - a top of the line Android-based smartphone. Informal tests of the GPS capabilities of this phone show it to be as good or better than my GPS handhelds. The phone consistently produces results that are accurate in the 3 to 5 meter range. That's the standard for uncorrected GPS and more accurate fixes require correction and averaging of some kind. Previous generations of smartphones did not generally apply these corrections but it appears that the newest ones do. In short, my new phone consistently out performs all the other GPS devices I've previously used including the dedicated GPS handhelds.

But it's really the full range of capabilities that the phone incorporates, and the potential for those capabilities to be integrated, that makes this so exciting and intriguing. Michael Goodchild wrote about the potential of "citizens as sensors" in 2007. He identified several roadblocks to the usefulness of citizen sensors that mostly come down to questions of reliability. For research purposes accuracy is important, but the ability to quantify the level of accuracy is essential. Smartphones can record the data you want to get as well as data that says how accurate the data should be. Several of the GPS apps for my phone show the accuracy of the fix in real time and you can watch the accuracy change in response to satellites going in and out of view.

This blog and the Hemlock Forest research project are coalescing around this idea of "citizen sensoring". It's also March 1st today so the end of this colder than average winter is in sight or, at least, that's the thought we keep in mind to retain our sanity. Spring IS coming and I need to prepare for the spring-time phase of my project field work.

Citizen Sensor resources include:
Academic Biology and its Discontents
Citizen Sensors Improve World Health
Smart Citizen Fab Lab <== open source sensor hardware
Smart Citizen KickStarter
More on open source sensor kits

Citizen Science Data Management Guide


This Post: Resources and References
Goodchild, M.F. (2007). "Citizens as sensors: the world of volunteered geography". GeoJournal 69 (4): 211–221. doi:10.1007/s10708-007-9111-y
GPS Accuracy Comparison (http://dataliterate.blogspot.com/2013/11/gps-accuracy.html)

Spatial Data: Pattern and Process

The topic for this post comes from an article I've just read titled; Data Science and Prediction. In the article Vassant Dhar provides a brief overview of data science and new thinking about the relationship between theory and evidence. Dhar states the idea nicely saying that data science is different because it rests on the premise that the data can reveal the interesting questions. Traditional data analysis works the other way around starting with theory and looking to data for evidence to support or dispute the theory. Data science look for patterns in data and then ask if there are interesting questions those patterns might answer. This approach is not entirely new. The history of science is full of stories where an unexpected pattern in data led to new discoveries. What is new is that we now have a lot more data to analyze. Anyway, it's a good article, well worth reading.

The broad topics discussed in the article; data science and "big data" are of great interest to me. In fact, these topics are the central themes of my other blog. That's right, I have a second blog and it is called Pattern and Process.

Pattern and Process can into being first and it is intended for a different audience. Still, if you are reading this you might find it interesting. It's all about the technical issues and concerns that go along with research methods designed to find patterns in data; especially data that has a geographic or spatial context.

While I'm on the topic of influences and resources, I've also been reading In Search of Swampland by Ralph Tiner. This book provides a surprisingly readable introduction to the hydrology and biology of swamps (let's be honest, it's not the most exciting of topics). Central to the discussion is that swamps come in many

different varieties. This led the broad use of the term wetland to categorize lands where the presence of water changes both the form and the function of the place. This would be one of those rather dry academic subjects if it weren't for the regulatory protection of wetlands by governments at various levels. I'm sure I'll return to this topic at some point, there are marked wetlands in various parts of the Hemlock Forest, but for now the book is highly recommended.

One more book that will provide insight into the topic(s) of this blog is Forest Forensics, A Field Guide to Reading the Forested Landscape by Tom Wessels. Read this book and a walk through a forest in the northeastern United States will never be the same. Many forested areas in the northeastern U.S. were cleared land in the middle of the 1800s. This book helps you recognize and interpret clues that can tell the history of of how the land was used in the past and when that use was abandoned.





References:
Dhar Vassant, Data Science and Prediction, Communications of the ACM, 12/2013, Vol. 56 No. 12

Pattern and Process ( http://dataliterate.blogspot.com/ )

Tiner, Ralph; In Search of Swampland, Second Edition; Rutgers University Press, 2005

Wessels, Tom; Forest Forensics, A Field Guide to Reading Forested Landscapes, Countryman Press; September 20, 2010