Naturalist Essay By Meaghan Dries

For my nature walk I chose to go to Waterfall Glen, a forest preserve. I chose this place because I have walked, hiked, and biked through it many times before. The nature that I encountered is a bit more diverse than my every day activities. There are the usual prairie grasses and flowers along the walking paths that serve as homes to small animals like squirrels and chipmunks that one can occasionally see scurrying by. The walking paths also are surrounded by tall trees whose canopies filter the sun’s light creating shady areas. As I continued down the paths there are small ravines that drop into a creek where one can usually spot small frogs and fish in the water. Following the creek, I came upon the waterfall that the preserve is named for. It is a small water fall that is surrounded by rocks that have turned green from the algae and such. If you go during the right time of year there are usually ducks and geese that play and cool off in the water.

This experience with nature is much different than my day to day encounters. Usually I am on the go and do not pay attention to the nature that I cross paths with. But being in a forest preserve with nothing but time gave me the opportunity to pay attention to aspects of nature that I generally would overlook. I noticed more animals and their tracks on my walk than I would have noticed normally. I was surrounded by trees and plants on my walk which gave me a feeling of being immersed in nature. Usually I see trees and fields on an everyday basis but the same kind of immersion feeling never hits me. In my day to day life I do not think that I appreciate nature the same way as I do when I am camping or spending the day in a preserve. I realize that I tend to overlook or ignore that nature that I am accustomed to seeing and that I should make an effort to pay closer attention to the nature that surrounds me.

The writings by Muir and Kuo were stylistically different. Kuo’s article was much more scientific discussing how green space and trees can change and environment and the ways that people interact with each other and their environment. I found this to be true on my walk because there were many families and couples that seemed to be taking time out of their everyday lives to walk or bike together. The preserve seemed to be a good medium through which positive socialization can and does take place, and as Kuo points out this could be because of the invitingness of the green space and trees. Muir’s article on the other hand, seemed more like an archived play by play of his personal encounters with nature and all the different aspects that he attends to and notices. This was similar to my thoughts as I walked through the preserve because I found myself thinking about the plants, animals and scenery that I was encountering and paying closer attention to the details. The way the trees swayed in the wind, and the sounds of the water trickling down the rocks of the waterfall.