Previous Show on the Cedar Island Trail
Vocabulary
- Forest Canopy – The upper layer of the forest habitat, made up of the crowns or tops of the trees.
- Forest Understory – plants growing beneath the forest canopy but above the ground or forest floor.
- Iridescent – showing luminous colors that seem to change when viewed from different angles.
- Fish Weir – A manmade structure built of stone, reeds or wooden posts placed in the water to capture fish as they swim along with the current. Tidal fish weirs are typically low solid walls made of stones. The fish swim across the top in high tide and get trapped behind the wall when the tide goes out.
- Glacial Erratic – a rock deposited by a glacier, which is different in size and type than the rocks typically found in the area.
- Moraine – A large mass of rocks and sediment carried and deposited by a moving glacier.
Fun Facts
- The Cedar Island Trail used to be a road that made a land connection to Cedar Island. This road would sometimes get washed out by storms or by tides.
- Serviceberry bushes, also called Shad Bushes, derived their names from the way they were used as indicators:
- When the ground was frozen in winter, the bodies of deceased people could not be buried. When the Serviceberry flowers bloomed in spring, this was a signal that the ground was soft enough to make graves for the deceased and have a burial service.
- Likewise, when the bushes were flowering in spring this was an indication that the Shad fish were running and it was time to go fishing.
- Dead trees that have fallen and those that are still standing create different types of habitats for animals and insects.