Roy H. Park Preserve - North

Meet at 9:00 a.m. at Cornell Cooperative Extension (615 Willow Ave Ithaca) to carpool, or at the Preserve’s new North parking lot on Irish Settlement Road at 9:30 a.m. (there are signs on the roadside). This diverse, scenic, and inviting 217-acre preserve is a short drive from Ithaca (near Dryden), and features the rugged headwaters of Six-Mile Creek, rolling meadows, open wetlands, mixed hardwood forest, wet hemlock woods with sphagnum moss and liverworts, numerous vernal pools, a large beaver pond fringed with cattails, and a Great Blue Heron rookery. We'll concentrate on inventorying plants for the new, North section of the Park Preserve, along a tributary of Six Mile Creek, where there's very little documentation for any flora, butterflies, or birds. Anyone wishing to check the wetter areas of the Preserve should bring appropriate shoes or boots. We should be finished by 1 p.m.