During my trip to the Highline, it was very windy which was unfortunate when it came to spotting pollinators in mid-flight. However, I was able to spot quite a few species hovering in and around the various plant-life on the sides of the walkway.I would have to say the most numerous or prevalent pollinator species seen that day were honeybees, carpenter bees and bumble bees. These species mostly hovered around flowering bushes that alternately sprung up along the walkway, so their presence was viewable throughout. I also saw smaller flies whose species I do not know the name of as well as a small bird species that gathered in groups underneath the bushes. Something that I also found interesting at the Highline was the sound of what I think was a grasshopper coming from a particular purple bush that was planted towards the end of the strip. On my past trips to the Highline, I only vaguely made note of the plant life around me in the routine of quickly walking by urban nature. This trip, I was able to actually able hear the life that existed in such a compact and yet densely inhabited space. Here are some of the pictures of my trip and the pollinators I was able to capture in their daily routine:
Carpenter bee
Honeybee
One of fly species
Before reading the Stalter article, I thought the Highline may be a good example of a rambunctious garden by Emma Marris’ definition, because she pushes us to see any and all plots of land where plant/ animal life exists as nature, whether its an open pasture or surrounded by the worlds highest skyscrapers. From my previous visits, I was prepared to blindly walk down the strip and acknowledge a static scene of plant-life. However after my visit and reading Richard Stalter article, I was made privy to just how much live existed at the Highline and how the fact that it was an urban garden potentially help to aid this biodiversity.
Originally, before the planned reconstruction of the Highline, it had sprouted various plant-life and become somewhat of a “pristine garden” due to its lack of human contact. However, what I got from Stalter’s article is that the fact that the Highline grew out of and into an urban area with the incorporation of human interaction has lead to its increased biodiversity. Seeds, soils and minerals spread by winds, humans and pollinators from across the local city area along with the changing environmental conditions has created a home for opportunistic plants as well as those that thrive best at certain parts of the Highline. What I found interesting and a testament to the affect of environmental conditions on certain species, was how at the 29th street section of the Highline, woody species thrived due to the shadiness of the area. All in all what I could conclude both from my visit and the Stalter article is that not only does nature exist in urban areas, but urban areas and human contact can actually be beneficial to nature in certain cases.
Here I am (second from the right) at the High Line
Richard Stalter’s piece changed my view of the rambunctious garden that Marris describes because it presented he case that nature should not be shut away from human contact and that such contact may be a boon to a natural environment. Rather than just appreciating the nature in the urban areas around us we should become a part of the natural community I helping it thrive.
