Nature Journals I - Entry 8

This week at the Fort Worth Nature Center felt a lot more intense than the first time we went out. Instead of bamboo, we were working in a field that was completely overrun with privet. Before this class, I did not even know what privet was, but now it is easy to recognize. It grows in thick clusters and spreads everywhere, creating these dense walls of shrubs that block everything else. It looked like the privet was taking over the entire area.

Our job was to cut it all down, and we spent about two hours out there doing that. At first, it just looked like we were clearing random bushes, but once we got deeper into it, I started to see how much it was affecting the environment. The privet was crowding out other plants and making it hard for anything else to grow. In the pictures, you can see how thick the piles got after we cut everything down. There are branches stacked on top of each other, forming these huge piles that will eventually be burned. It was kind of crazy to see how much we removed from just one section.

The first picture really shows the difference. That area is now cleared out, and you can actually see through the space instead of just looking at a wall of vegetation. There is more light hitting the ground, and you can notice the grass and smaller plants starting to come through. There are also larger trees in the area, probably oaks, based on the wide, spreading branches, that were being crowded by the privet before. Now they stand out more, and the whole space feels more open. This made me realize how much of an impact we can have on the environment when we are actively involved in it.