59: From the Perimeter



B U R N S V I L L E,  M N

Heading south, back toward the Twin Cities, the chances of a quality recording plummet.  The concentration of humanity and their machines leave very few pockets of natural sounds.   Nonetheless, other aspects of nature preservation gain importance as I approach the metropolis.

On the south shore of the Minnesota River in Burnsville, ninety five acres of land once known as The Nature Conservancy’s Black Dog Preserve has been donated to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service expanding the Minnesota River National Wildlife Refuge.  The acreage contains remnants of wet and mesic black soil prairie and a calcareous fen, a rare wetland characterized by calcium-rich groundwater.  This refuge is also a stopover site for numerous migratory birds in the spring and fall including ducks, geese and double-crested cormorants.  These pockets of refuge, small as they are, in a growingly urbanized world serve as nice mitigations.

Unfortunately, three impediments kept me from fully engaging this property: gates, floods, and time.  Though on a map, I had pinpointed the property, corporate America’s security gates blocked the access points I’d chosen.  And with limited time and flooded alternate routes, swinging around to other entrance points wasn’t an option.  So, in effect, I visited Black Dog only from its perimeter. 

Still though, the worth of the property is clearly evident.  A healthy and vibrant forest along its edge provided important habitat in an otherwise urban area.  Its most noticeable residents – the birds – tried their best to drown out the jets overhead and the distant vehicle noises. 

To salvage some meaningful experience from Black Dog, even at just its perimeter, I use the opportunity to test myself.  Could I pick a few trees at random and use my newly acquired training to identify the species?  Standing in a forest scrolling through a dichotomous key on my phone is a new skill I’ve acquired – a blending of technology and a love of nature. 

One of the trees is an Eastern Cottonwood.  My last interaction with cottonwoods came in Arizona.  Ten miles from Mexico, at The Nature Conservancy’s Patagonia Preserve, I stood in awe underneath one of the state’s largest cottonwoods.  Here in Minnesota – the geographic opposite of Arizona – it’s nice to connect the experiences.  But that’s exactly what this quest to visit one hundred Nature Conservancy properties does; it connects nature’s surprises in meaningful ways.  Today in Minnesota, savannas and cottonwoods are the connectors and The Nature Conservancy is the intermediary. 


LEARN MORE ABOUT TNC’S WORK AT BLACK DOG HERE.
Location: Black Dog Preserve, Burnsville, MN

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