Oliver Park
Today I visited Oliver Park in Capital Hill. It's situated between SW 29th St and Grand Blvd (aka SW 36th St) with parking on the latter street. I was initially attracted to the area from the huge swaths of plains coreopsis that blanketed sections of the park. What's interesting to me is that it seems relatively neglected and so is overgrown by a mixture of more aggressive native plants and invasive grasses like Johnson Grass. I was pleasantly surprised to find some isolated Clasping Coneflower. A central feature of the park is a pond. It doesn't smell the best but is home to a few different aquatic plants such as sedges, cattails, ludwigia, and long leaf pondweed. It featured in island near the center that was home to several birds. In fact this place had a lot of birds living there. I need to get a better camera in order to help ID them more easily. You'd think that a place without a lot of trees wouldn't have a lot of birds but it seems like the water and tall grass here provides the perfect environment for them. It makes me wonder how birds native to prairie environments used to live surviving among the grasses.
Anyways those are some of my initial thoughts. I noticed that there aren't any concerted efforts to watch this park so I'm going to make that my focus over the growing season. Here's hoping I document some good stuff.
