Waking up early on the very last day of summer vacation to walk around a park would not be ideal to most college students.  However, for the BioBlitz in Central Park many Macaulay students were more than excited.  Having gone to Central Park many times, just for fun, I was ecstatic to hear that our class was picked to explore the wildlife of the park.  Studying the plant life, watching the animals in their natural habitats, and exploring parts of Central Park I had never seen before sounded like a perfect way to spend my last day of summer vacation.  Especially since we had the opportunity to be in the park before most New Yorkers were even awake.  With this excitement and motivation to find wildlife I never knew existed in Central Park, I set off to the train station at 4:30 a.m.

The trip to the park was less than enjoyable, having to deal with the usual annoyances of waiting for trains that do not run too often before the morning rush hour, but after about two hours of riding and waiting for our trains, we made it to the West 97^th Street entrance to Central Park.  The first nervous thought I had was that I would end up not seeing much of the park, since we were a little late.  Thankfully we ran into the director of the BioBlitz, and she helped us find a group to join in on.  I ended up in a group that was searching for birds.  We started walking down a path where we saw a group of cardinals, a few morning doves, and some robins.  Already five minutes in and we were learning something new!  The director explained to us that there are two robins in the world.  The ones we saw were not actually robins; they were thrushes.  The Europeans named them robins when they came to America because of their resemblance to the European robin.  We also learned that the morning dove was a relative of the pigeon, which explained why they were moving their neck in pecking motions.  Sadly, this was the highlight of our Central Park adventure.

Once we found the rest of our group, we set off on a mostly uphill journey.  At first, the trip was not that uneventful.  We saw a few other birds, but they were so fast that by the time we moved our binoculars to our eyes, they were gone.  Beautiful flowers were out and blooming on almost every bush we walked by.  We passed a couple of calming waterfalls and very cute bridges.  A turtle even graced us with its presence as we walked across one of the bridges.  This was the experience I was hoping for.  Seeing different animals in the park that we do not usually come across and finding new areas of the park that I didn’t know existed.  However, this did not last long.  After we passed the friendly turtle, we barely saw anything new.  Aside from the geese swimming in a line across a pond, there was nothing new and exciting in our part of the park.  Even all of the plants began to look the same.  Our guide began telling us, about once every half hour, that because of the weather it would be a quiet day.

Overall, the BioBlitz was not a complete let down.  I still experienced some of the purposes of the event, despite the weather and travel issues.  I would have loved to see more of Central Park and its inhabitants during this event.  However, what it made me realize is that there is more to Central Park than meets the eye.  It is not just a place to hang out on the weekend or where tourist must go when they visit New York City.  It is a place for many of New York’s organisms to call home, and we got to take a little look into that.  It has changed my outlook on not only Central Park, but also New York as a whole.