Blog Post 10

Rhododendron: As I sat and looked at this life form, I noticed its strong base that gave rise to a mass of green. It almost looked like an oddly shaped green lollipop. Scattered throughout the sea of green pieces were small half spheres of color. These spheres varied in color from deep purple to a faint pink. As I moved closer to these magnificent masses of color, I began to see the outlines of individuals, trumpet-like individuals that formed a small portion of the sphere. In the center of the trumpets blaring out like a string of musical notes there were these peculiar one-sided cotton swabs. The one in the very center was the longest and largest. One the tips of the lesser cotton swabs was a bright yellow crumbly substance. Even more peculiar was the fact that the center one didn’t have the crumbly substance at all, but instead a sticky light green surface on the end.

American Goldfinch: A flash of yellow! A rollercoaster with invisible tracks! A creature that is hard to pin down and get a good look at. Black structures with white stripes that allow for graceful and devious flight don’t seem real. They are shaped like a boomerang placed upon the yellow and black ball of fluff’s back, though this boomerang doesn’t seem particularly interested in coming back to me. A noise that seems almost equal to a dog’s squeaky chew toy being played with emerges from a thick and sharp yellow mouth.

The dance of the Red- winged black bird

The ebb and flow of one bird with another. One the leader and the other the follower. Switching roles. Back and forth. A dangerous salsa. Costumes of black with red. One sashays and the other repeats the step. A choreography that has malice laced within it.

Final Reflection:

1) How has your perception of your observation site changed through the quarter?

Discovery Park went from being an unknown and mysterious place to a place that I could probably navigate on my own in more ways than one. Not only do I have a greater knowledge on how to actually get around the park (it's pretty big) with all the different sections and trails, I now have a better understanding of the organisms that call Discovery Park home. When I first went to the park, I basically could identify nothing. I could differentiate the plants into only three categories: tree, shrub, and flower. Now I can identify different species of all of these categories and even if I cannot identify it I have what I have learned over this quarter to try and discover its identity. The first journal we did was a bit frustrating because there was so much around me and I had absolutely no idea what everything was. Now going to Discovery Park and observing the plants and animals can be much more enjoyable.

At the beginning of this quarter, the area that I chose to get to know for ten weeks seemed drab and like a patch of gloomy brown land. Now that spring has come out in full force I can truly see the life that is surging through the park. Everywhere I look now there is something exciting and new happening. Discovery Park has become a place that I can go to and enjoy.

2) How has your sense of the Puget Sound Region changed through the quarter?

At the beginning of the quarter I thought I had at least some idea about the Puget Sound Region and all the things that inhabit it, but I soon found out that I was very wrong. I have learned so much about the Natural History of the Puget Sound that I had never been exposed to before. Most of my previous knowledge came from exploring different places in this area with my family and learning as much as my dad could teach me. However, he was more of an animal guy, so the history behind how all of this was formed was unknown to me. I knew a small amount about ice ages and what they entailed, but I had no idea that it was an ice sheet that made the Puget Sound what it is today. It was an ice sheet that shaped the hills and the valleys and determined the Puget Sound's future.

To know many of the intricate details of this area has built a great sense of appreciation for where I live. I listen to every bird that sings a song to me. I try to identify every tree that I walk by. To know the species that are common in the Puget Sound is remarkable. Before I didn’t even know they existed. This quarter has given me a better understanding of the greatness of the Puget Sound and has made me want to explore it even more than I did before.  


3) What does it mean to intimately know a natural place? (Think about this question in terms of the process and the outcome. Also think about it in terms of scale—you have done close observation of one site, as well as developed broader appreciation on field trips around the Puget Sound).

To know a natural place intimately is to know the species that reside there, to know its beginnings, and to know how it changes over the seasons. We have gotten just a small taste of this during the quarter.
To get to know a place intimately is a difficult process. You have to learn how it was formed and how this formation affects the current state of it. You have to start at the bottom. Learn the basics in order to build your knowledge seems unrelated to your goal at first, but once you have gained this knowledge you can better see where it is leading.
Getting to know our sit spots proved to be more of a challenge than I first believed it to be. Finding all the small details and discovering everything you can about a place is harder than it sounds. There are so many parts to a place that you do not realize are there when you are not paying attention and once you start paying attention it all flows in at once.
Getting to know a larger place is not as intimate. I can not get up close and personal with every aspect of the place. I cannot go out and discover for myself what is fantastic about the area. Taking field trips to other places around the Puget Sound sort of grounded what I was learning in something real. I could witness the things we had talked about in lecture for myself. This has made me all the more hungry to get to know the Puget Sound in general even more intimately.

Final Phenological Observations

Week 1

Week 9

I have truly watched Discovery Park transform over this quarter. From a drab and brown barely inhabited space to a lush green environment buzzing with life. It amazes me how many more birds are out and about now that it is full force spring. In the beginning it seemed like barely any life inhabited Discovery Park, aside from some big evergreens and the bare bones of big leaf maples. After a few weeks when the weather started getting less and less harsh, the small plants that had hidden away during winter were started to poke green stalks through the ground. It was nearly impossible to identify them because all I could see was masses of green that all seemed pretty much the same, but as I advanced my knowledge and the plants began to bloom I could start to see some identifying features. I could see the small red flowers of the red flower currant, the bright pink and in your face flower of the salmonberry. I could smell the cucumber smell of the leaves of the Indian plum. I could see the miniscule details that set apart one plant from another. Then when we got into learning about birds it at first seemed impossible to see birds let alone identify them by call, but just today I could distinctly hear an American Robin's "Cheer up! Cheerily!", the Song Sparrow's distinct call that is beckoned so triumphantly, the White-Crowned Sparrow declaring exactly what type of bird it was in its call "I am a White Crowned Sparrow!".

 

Today I saw some extraordinary things. First we saw a pair of uncommon at this time of year birds, Cedar Waxwings. I did not know what they were at first, but the way they flew through the air really caught my attention. They flew like rollercoasters from tree to tree. I would never have been able to identify them unless I had my binoculars. Even when I looked at one with my binoculars, I could not identify them, though this made it possible to see the distinguishing features that I would use later to figure it out. The bird had a tan head with a tuft on the back and a distinct circle of black around the eye. The body faded into a darker gray. When I looked at the Waxwing, I did not see the most distinct feature that gave the waxwing its name, the bright and colorful waxy feathers that adorned its wing. I tried to commit as much as I could about the bird to memory so I could look it up later. When I googled tan tuft dark body bird and I saw the picture of the Cedar Waxwing I instantly knew it was the bird I saw.

 

Another exciting event that happened was a sighting of Hummingbird mating displays. This was something I had never seen before, but that had been described in class. At first I heard a loud chirping sound, so I looked around to see what bird was making this call, but it was not a call at all. It was the sound of the Hummingbirds wings as it ascended from its fast paced descent. The Hummingbird (I believe this was a Anna's Hummingbird, but I did not get my binoculars in time to identify it) hovered in the air for a little bit and then dove towards the ground in what seemed like a death defying stunt. Then at the last second the bird pulled up and made the loud chirp with its wings. I did not see another spectator Hummingbird around, but I am sure there was a female hiding in a tree enjoying the show somewhere.

 

I also found another type of mushroom on my trek through the woods. Although it seemed similar to the mushroom that I found last time, it was growing on a different substrate (dead leaves instead of wood chips), it had a smooth topped cap, and it had squiggly gills.   

The biggest change from the last few weeks I have been there is that the plants are shedding their flowers in exchange for growing their fruiting bodies. The Scotchbroom and Lupine had little pea pod shaped fruit that was hairy and visibly held the seeds that would be spread by animals eating the fruit or the fruit dropping to the ground, drying, and then blowing in the wind. The Oceanspray I saw had long since dried its flowers up and the Thimbleberry (that had no flowers at all when I first learned what it was) was shedding its white flowers that resemble Salmonberry flowers in shape.

 

Growth and development after the long winter has given way to reproduction of as many offspring as possible. Now that some plants no longer need the bugs and other pollinators to do their job, they have shed the one thing that drew them in. Now they have grown another thing that is a key strategy in them increasing their fitness. It has been quite the pleasure to see this park transform and come to life over just nine short weeks. I am sure I will return to Discovery Park to explore its many wonders in the future.



Birds.

This last weekend we visited the Nisqually Delta and Paradise on Mount Rainier.
At the Nisqually Delta we observed a lot of birds and their behavior.

The Birds we saw:

• Yellow Warbler
• Swallow (2-3 species flying overhead)
• Sharp-shinned Hawk (overhead with the Swallows)
• Brown-headed Cow Bird - female and male
• Wilson's Warbler
• Canada Geese
• Cinnamon Teal
• American Robin
• Song Sparrow
• Red-Winged Black Bird- two males fighting over territory
• Mallards
• European Starling
• Bald Eagle
• Northern Shoveler
• Cliff Swallow
• Tree Swallow
• Violet-green Swallow
• Northern Pintail Duck
• Common Yellow throat
• Gold Finch
• Savannah Sparrow
• Coot
• Dowitcher
• Wilson's Phaleropes
• Yellow Leg
• Green-winged Teal
• Blue Grouse
• Raven

I closely observed the bald eagle, the Cow bird, and the Dowitcher.

The bald eagle we spotted was perched upon the tallest tree in the area. We put the scope on him and could see so closely that we could see his eye. It was amazing to see all the detail of this huge bird. It was obviously a juvenile because it did not have the white cap that is distinctive of Bald Eagles. After looking at the bird for a few minutes he took to flight and swooped around. He then disappeared off into the distance.

The cow birds were at first in a female and male pair pecking at the ground, but then another male came over and joined them. He began pecking along side the pair. Then the original bird flared up and spread his wings and ran toward the other male. Then they both casually went back to pecking. After awhile, the original male repeated the aggressive act. This cycle continued for awhile until the new male began to fight back and show the same display of aggression. It seemed like no one really one because eventually the female just flew away and ignored them all.

The Dowitcher was very interesting. We went bird watching at a pond on the Nisqually Delta and at the very front of the pond closest to us there was a group of about eight pecking into the water with their long bills searching for food. Our teacher told us that it was very unique to see the birds this close and in such a large group. They were very interesting birds that almost looked like Kiwis or Dodo birds. They had long legs that lifted their bodies above the water and long bills that dug deep into the water and could reach the bottom. They had light brown bodies that were a little strangely shaped.

BUGS!!

May 6, 2013 3:30 pm
Discovery Park (North side)
87 degree day (much cooler under the canopy), no clouds

This week was about insects. While this is not my favorite topic (they give me the creepy crawlies) trying to find bugs in my area was a great adventure. However, only one of my pictures came out clear and all the rest are blurry.
The first bug that I encountered was well... dead. This made it very nice to observe its physical features... and not so nice to observe its behavior. The insect was huge. He was a little less than an inch in length with 3 pairs of very long legs. When I saw him his legs were crossed, so it was difficult to see what they looked like in detail. The reason I first spotted the bug was because of a big yellow dot on its back. The body type led me to believe that it was part of the Hymenoptera, it looked like some type of wasp in particular. However, the long antennae through me for a loop. I don't think I have ever seen a bee with such long ones and they look very Lepidoptera-like to me.




















The next insect I encountered was a bubble bee, also part of the Hymenoptera. It seems crazy that such a big bug can fly around so easily. Bumble bees don't seem very aerodynamic. At first this giant ball of black and yellow fluff was flying from plant to plat (probably pollinating and getting some food). But then, something very strange happened. As I was following him throughout the woods, it landed on some dirt and began to dig into it. I thought maybe there could have been a nest there, but there didn't seem to be an opening for one. After observing the bumble bee digging for awhile, he just flew away.

Many other bees (not able to identify) were buzzing around and pollinating the many different plants in my area. They would nestle themselves up into the plant for awhile and then move onto the next plant to continue its job. After buzzing around a small area for a little bit they would fly away either back to their nest or to their next destination of plants. I stumbled upon a bee hive (thank goodness I didn't actually stumble upon it) that was inside a log. I saw a few bees buzzing around it and saw one of the bees go inside of it.

As I walked along the trail, there were spider webs everywhere. These bugs are Arachnids. They were in small plants, in the nooks and crannies of trees, pretty much anywhere they could find a spot. Some webs were organized, like the typical web you think of, and some were disorganized. When the webs were inspected further, I could see that the spider was hiding in the back, staying very still, waiting for any prey to get caught in their trap. There were many different sizes and colors of spiders. Mostly I saw small black spiders in the webs I saw along the trail. Some spiders either were hidden so well that I couldn't find them or they had abandoned their web for a better location.

I found a large bug crawling along the leaves of a plant. It was pretty big (1/4 inch) and it had a light green body with brownish spotty wings. I tried to capture pictures of it for several minutes, but my subject was unwilling to pose and continued its crawling ways going from the top of the leaf to the bottom and back. Even when I offered it a stick to sit on, it did not want to pose and instead decided I was his next target of crawling, so I put him back on his leaf. I did some internet research and it seems to be a true bug or part of the order Insecta. The internet identified it as Banasa dimidiata.

After searching the woods for about an hour or so, I saw a meadow below me and thought that it would be the perfect location to find different kinds of bugs than I was seeing in the woods. At first it was hard to locate any bugs at all because they were all hiding in the tall grass in the meadow, but once I decided to search through the Scotch Broom I knew I would have more luck. Bees were abundant there, more pollination. Some beetles (Coleoptera) were hanging out on the leaves. On one flower I found three different species of bugs. At first I spotted the flower because of the Lady bug that was hanging out on the stem near the flower. Its bright right wings caught my attention immediately. Then upon further inspection, I found an Earwig (Dermaptera) inside of the flower. Its hind end with what look like pincers was sticking out of the side of the flower and its antennae were sticking out the other end of the flower.  It seemed to be about a half inch in length and was a brown-red color. Then below the flower was a greyish white spider that was bigger than the spiders I had been seeing in the woods. I didn't get a great look at it because I don't think he wanted to be found by me.

Total bugs I observed:

• Weird Hymenoptera 1
• Hymenoptera 2 - Bumble bee
• Hymenoptera 3- Variety of bees
• Arachnid 1 - small black
• Arachnid 2- bigger and greyish white
• Insecta 1- Banasa dimidiate
• Coleoptera 1- small black
• Coleoptera 2- bigger also black
• Dermaptera
• Lepidoptera 1- small white butterfly?
• Lepidoptera 2- small brown moth?
• Diptera 1 - black fly (house fly?)
• Diptera 2- Gnats

Weekend Field Trip

This past weekend our class went on a field trip to the Olympic National Park. We stayed at NatureBridge on Lake Crescent and explored the forest there. We also took a drive to explore the tide pools on Sunday as well. It was a beautiful place and we unexpectedly had very nice (sprinkling a little) weather that made the trip even better. My favorite part was the short hike to Marymere Falls. Any chance I can get to see a waterfall I will take.














Before we went on the trip Bob Paine visited our class and gave a talk on predation, disturbance, competition, and facilitation. We witnessed a lot of these things on our field trip in both the forest and in the tide pools.
In the Olympic National Forest:
Competition

• Western Hemlocks will wait for years for Douglas Firs to fall down in order to take over



Really Big Douglas Fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii)

• In a large old growth forest filled with a variety of plants and animals, there will always be a competition for resources between different species and between organisms of the same species.

• These mushrooms and moss are competing for the space available on this fallen log

Facilitation

• Dragon Skin Lichen- Fungi and algae together
• Fix nitrogen and then fall from the trees and decompose and become part of the soil

• Bacteria in the roots of trees fix nitrogen in exchange for nutrients- Can link many trees together



Moss Covering the bark of a Big Leaf Maple (Acer macrophyllum)

• Moss lives on the bark of trees
• Good and bad for the tree

Disturbances

• Logging
• Logging left stumps behind
• Logging roads destroy a section of forest
• The Beginning of succession has begun on the logging road we found. Ferns, grasses, and other small shrubs have begun to grow on it





This tree fell across Barnes Creek and the root mass was quickly
utilized by Elder Berry, Bleeding Heart, and Salmonberry.

• Trees falling down can take other trees with them and destroy some shrubs underneath them, but once they are on the forest floor they are utilized as nurse logs and many species of plants thrive off of them

• Fires are a natural occurrence in forests. Some trees are built to withstand them, but fires can clear a pretty substantial space in forests 

  

  This tree's inside dead wood was burnt by a fire and even though the
  tree is hollow at the bottom, this tree is still surviving

• Dead wood that falls into streams and rivers can disrupt the flow of the river. However, it was discovered that dead wood falling into the rivers was an important event and they need to be left in there

Logs at the base of Marymere falls on
Barnes Creek

 
 

Predation

• There is a food web in all ecosystems. I'm not sure what the food web is in this forest, but we were told to beware of hungry mountain lions, so I think we know what the top of the food web is.

• This deer eats lots of grass and is eaten by mountain lions and other things that are further up on the food chain

The next day we went to the tide pools. It was incredible the amount of diversity that was present in these micro ecosystems. Climbing on all the rocks to make it to best tide pools and to make it to the big star fish at the edge of the rocks was tough, I even fell once. Discovering all the small creatures hidden under rocks and hiding beneath the seaweed was worth it. We even got to see a dead octopus that had washed up on the rocks.

Predation

• There is predation all over the place in the tide pools: animals eat seaweed, other animals eat those animals, even bigger animals eat those animals and so on
• We witnessed a Hermit Crab eating a snail out of its shell



This shell had holes pecked
into the top and bottom of it

• Empty shells were everywhere, having been mollusks that were eaten by the Seagulls and other predators when the tide was going down

• Other types of crabs are also big predators in the tide pools like this little guy, but birds also prey on these crabs

Competition

• In the tide pools, there is competition for space that will be in the less harsh conditions when the tide goes down. Minimizing exposure to the sun and the wind is ideal for most creatures and also a space in the pools left behind by the tides going down is a hot commodity
• Space on the rocks are heavily competed for. Muscles and different kind of barnacles are edge to edge trying to claim their space

  

  Muscles Packed tightly together

Facilitation

• Seaweed will attach to whatever surface it can find a secure home on, including muscle shells. I am sure this is much to the muscles chagrin, but I don't think it has much of a choice.  

Disturbances

• I saw the scarring of the barnacles that were taken off the rocks by some way or another
• There were empty patches of rock that some sort of disturbance (waves, animal, etc.) created

A line of Barnacles has been created by a repeat
disturbance on the surface of the rock



 

• This is a valley where a variety of creatures (barnacles, giant star fish, giant green sea anemones, and many types of seaweed) have chosen in order to get away from the harsh elements during low tide exposure... to get a spot in here would be a very big competition as well
  
   

Other cool things:

We found a leopard nudibranch
and identified it

It may be hard to see, but this
is a tidepool sculpin at the bottom
of this picture. It was amazing to
see a fish living is such a small
amount of water.





We found a (sadly) dead octopus

April 18, 2013
Discovery Park
Breaks in the clouds

Spring has sprung. An amazing amount of colors have emerged from all the drab brown and sea of green. I thought that my site was beautiful before, but now the variety that has blossomed really have made it extraordinary. Yellows and whites were the first colors to bloom, but now there are purples and reds all specifically designed to attract a certain kind of pollinator to them. It is hard to imagine the evolutionary changes that must have happened in order to make this scene so grand and rich. Plants that were before difficult to identify are now distinct. Their serrated simple leaves no longer blend together. My favorite part of this day was the sheer amount of bird calls I have begun to notice. During our UBNA class time our TAs pointed out the different songs each bird makes and how distinct they are. The most distinct in that area is the red winged black bird with its aggressive short short long short bird call. Unfortunately there are no red winged blackbirds in my area of Discovery Park, so I am still not able to identify many birds, but I will get there! The most enjoyable wildflower, that I have yet to identify have a kind of scattered pattern to their leaves and rounded edges. The flowers are simple, small, and purple with a yellow center. Another plant that is at my sight that I have previously described is Red Dead Nettle. It has a very distinct layering effect that all nettles have (but its not poisonous) and it has shading of purple on he base of the leaves and green on the tips. It is always exciting to identify something that you previously would have no idea what it is.

During this quarter we have also been using iNaturalist as well as a blog to document our discoveries. I try my best to identify everything with the most precision possible, but I am sure I have many mistakes. Since this site is open to the natural history community and other adventurers alike, one person was kind enough to point out my mistake and help me correctly identify it. Previously I thought that a bunch of mushrooms I saw in a log were Artist's bracket, but she let me know that the mushrooms I saw were actually Turkey Tail. They have more color on top than the Artist's bracket even though their shape and basic coloration are similar.

Hello again!
This week we had the incredible pleasure of exploring Ravenna Park. I had no idea so much nature was just a few blocks away from me. I will definitely have to return here again even after this class is over.
The coolest thing ever happened while we were there. At first, we began hearing owls hoot and our TAs knew it was the Barred Owl because of its very distinct call " Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?". I was jazzed by the fact that we were even hearing an owl during the day time. When we continued along our journey into Ravenna Park, we saw another group looking up into the trees and they told us that they could see the owl. Low and behold there it was! If you bent down a little and looked really hard you could see the owl held up in a tree not too far from us. We thought it couldn't get any better than this! And then it got better! The owl seemed to be too close for comfort for a group of crows guarding a nest or some sort of site of importance to them. The crows began to go after the owl and it was forced to abandon ship (or abandon tree) and it dipped down right in front of us. It was possibly the greatest sighting I have had in nature ever.
Also, I really enjoyed our class time out in Ravenna Park because we were able to get up close and personal with the trees and other plants that we have been talking about in class and we also were able to learn how to identify them!
Douglas Fir- Cones have "rat butts" on them, not a true fir, conical needles
Red Cedar- Scaly leaves and bark that can be stripped off and has a reddish tint, flat leaves
Big Leaf Maple- 3-5 lobed leaves, flower hangs from the tree kind of looks like a bunch of green grapes
Red Alder- small cones, broadleaf tree, yellow catkins hang from tree
Salmon Berry- a distinct pink flower and serrated, compound leaves
Redflower Currant- red to pink small flowers in bunches and 5- lobed leaves
Salal- waxy leaves that don't tear easily
Skunk Cabbage- smells like a skunk, big leaves surrounding a yellow flower
Sword Fern-tapered end
Lady Fern- has the shape of a lady leaves are small at the beginning get bigger and then get small again at the end
Licorice Fern- Seen growing on stumps, fallen trees, etc.
Knowing a little more about how to identify these plants made it all the more exciting to get back out to Discovery Park and begin identifying in my area.

April 12, 2013 8:30 am
Discovery Park South side
Weather: Overcast
This week I went to Discovery Park in the morning (8:30 am) to log my observations. The forested area was abuzz with bird calls, way more than last week when I went in the evening. I'm not sure if that is due to the time I went or if the birds are becoming more active as it gets farther into spring, perhaps a combination of the two. I could hear a variety of different calls from the sweet and soft to the loud and aggressive. I decided to branch out in my area a little more to see if I could find even more species than I did last time and boy was that a good decision. I saw a few of the birds that had been singing away all morning, but I had difficulty identifying them. Though due to their small size, shape, and brown coloring I assume they are in the Sparrow family. The robin decided today was a good day to pose for a picture or two. I couldn't get too close otherwise it would fly away, but I could see its reddish orange belly, yellow beak, and how the rest of its body was shades of brown.

Also, the first time I visited the site most of it was green with a small amount of brown on the ground. The second time I went the wildflowers had just begun to bloom. Not all the flowers had bloomed, but this had signaled the true beginning of spring. The best part of this was that it became a lot easer to identify the plants that were all around me. Seeing purples, reds, and yellows set them apart from one another in the sea of green. Now, I am just waiting for all the other flowers, bushes, and trees to bloom so I can identify everything in my little patch of the planet. One of the plants I was unable to identify had light purple flowers just about to peak out and simple leaves with a serrated edge. At the nodes where the leaves were protruding from the stem there were these spikey leaves that were purple with a green edge.
The most frustrating find of the day was a tree that had leaves that looked just like a fern. At first I thought it was a fern because the first one I encountered was a baby, but the woody bark made me question that. Then I saw a bigger one that had the same leaves, but was a tree. The leaves were compound and with around 13 leaflets (6 pairs and one on the end). After I got home, I googled and googled and looked on iNaturalist and I could not for the life of me pin down exactly what this tree was. The only tree I could find was a Mimosa tree, but it didn't seem to fit the bill completely.
One of the best things I saw was a hole in the ground. I nearly stepped right in it on my way to photograph some yellow flowers hiding up on  a hill. Previously our teacher, Tim Billo had told us that there are mountain beavers in Discovery Park and I believe that this was a sign that the mountain beavers are there. I am hoping in my future visits the beaver will poke his little head out and say hello. It will be my mission next time to find a mountain beaver, I will have to delve farther into that forest in order to do it!

Possibly Mountain Beaver Hole (Fingers Crossed)

 

I was able to identify so many more trees this time out. It was so exciting to see the rat butts on the Douglas fir cones and know exactly which tree it was, to see the big leaf maples all over the place when I had no idea what they were before, to feel the scaly leaves from the red cedar. All day at school I want to identify the trees on campus. It takes me so much longer to walk to school now than it did before I took Environment 280.

Douglas Fir Cone

Red Cedar leaf




Big Leaf Maple Flower



 Also, I saw two of the plants the we witnessed on our walk through Ravenna Park. No skunk cabbage, salal, or salmon berry though. Maybe next time!

 

 

 

 

 

Tall Oregon Grape

 

 

 

Redflower Currant

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In addition to our normal observations this week we had the task of following Clare Walker Leslie's instructions for beginning sketching in her book The Art of Sketching, Chapter 2 entitled "Beginning Exercises and Basic Techniques". She has many different exercises to get you started on your sketches of the plants and animals you see out in nature. I followed her first eight exercises and read through her advise to get me started on my very first sketches of nature ever. Here are my sketches, including the eight exercises that she outlined and four other sketches.

 

 
I found that I did a lot better sketching than I thought I would.  Following her steps seemed strange at first, but then when I was done the end product benefited greatly from it.
 
Well that's all for now folks! More next week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My experience with nature

Now I'm going to take a little time to tell you more about myself and my previous experiences with nature.
I have always loved the outdoors. From before I can even remember I have been collecting shells from the beach and exploring the tide pools. My family loved to go to the coast whether it be in Washington or Oregon and we always found some great places to explore. We frequented beaches, forests, anywhere we could go to see some nature. My dad would point out different animal and plant species along our way on our adventures and I begun to get as excited about seeing all these things as he was. He was a biology major (specific for fisheries) at the University of Washington and loved to share his knowledge with us kids as much as he could. Now that I am a biology major at UW just like my dad, I love nature even more because of the knowledge I have acquired.

The most infuriating part of our local adventures into nature was when we were in the car and my dad would try to point out wildlife along the way. I could never see what he had spotted. Deer, birds, small animals. I had the hardest time see what he saw. It happened so much that it began to be a family joke. Instead of giving up I tried harder and harder to see all these animals. This ignited my love for animals and for being in nature in general. Every sighting I made excited me to my core. Now, I love going to the beach, the zoo, on hikes, anywhere I can experience the outdoors.

One of my favorite memories from my childhood was when my dad and I went fishing on the Green River. My dad had made me my own fishing pole complete with purple and gold decorations. It was only a kids size fishing pole, so there was a low expectation of me catching anything.

The best place to fish was out in the middle on a little island, but I was too small to make it out there on my own so my dad had to backpack me out into the river. It was the most amazing thing. The water was clear, the trees were rustling in the wind, and my dad and I were just enjoying our day on the river together.

All of a sudden my pole bent down pretty quickly. I did everything I was told to do when a fish was on. My dad saw what was happening and immediately thought that my hook and line were snagged on a rock. He took over in order to get it off, but then realized that there was indeed a fish on. The fish jolted upstream and into the sun and we could see it shining in all its glory underneath the water.
He gave me back the pole to reel it in, but it was such a big fish that I couldn't handle it on my own. My dad reeled in my fish and I have never been more proud. That was the day I caught my first and last steelhead salmon.

All of these experiences when I was younger are what inspired my love for biology and for nature in general.

Week 1

April 3, 2013
Where: Discovery Park near the South parking lot
When: 5:30 pm
Weather: Overcast, but dry
Temperature: 60 degrees

The spot I have chosen to observe this quarter is a beautiful place in Discovery Park that was not quite into the forested area, but still had some trees present. I could hear the water off in the distance, which I knew was there because I had gotten lost in my search for the South Parking lot of Discovery Park and found the beach part of the park. My very first discovery was a bumble bee that seemed to not be doing so well. However, this allowed for close examination and some awesome pictures.

 

Description of  the 1 meter square area around me

There is come moss layering the ground around me with grass speckled throughout. There is a variety of heights of grasses. A lot of dead leaves are on the ground as well with some brown patches of grass as well. The bumble bee has begun the recovery process and is now attempting to make its way to safety. It is fighting its way through tall and short grasses as well as clover. It seems there are several different species of grasses, but I am not able to identify them quite yet. These are some of the grasses/small plants in my area.

 P.S. Gnats have begun to invade my 1 meter square area. Not. Cool.

A few trees around me have been planted by humans as made obvious by the sticks that are holding them up. However, some look to be very old. I attempted to identify them with my National Audubon Society Field Guide to the Pacific Northwest, but failed. The trees are generally spread out in this area and the grass and small plants dominate most of it.

 



 

Description of the 50 meter square area around me

When I expanded my area from 1 meter square to 50 meters square this included more of the forested area and even more of the grassy area. As I spread my search out farther I began to find more variety of plants as well as insects and animals.

I found:

• English Ivy
• Himalayan Blackberry bushes
• Dandelions
• Pacific Madrone
• A bunny
• It was black and pretty big, but sadly no picture was captured.
• A very well behaved mosquito: it sat on a tree for awhile and pictures were attempted, but were unsuccessful.
• Western Red Cedar
• Douglas Fir
• Possibly a Red Alder

There were so many kinds of trees even in this small area. There were evergreen trees, but there were also flowering trees nearby.

I also encountered very wild golden retrievers that attempted to lick me to death. There are a lot of trails in discovery park so a few dogs were spotted and these puppies decided to come and say hello. Hopefully all the wild life I was trying to observe wasn't scared off by them!

Many birds could be heard, but only one was identifies, a Robin. The others were small birds, most likely from the Sparrow Family (Possibly a Dark-eyed Junco in the mix), that could not be seen very well.

 

At the end of my observation time, the bunny was reencountered and it brought a brown companion with it. This time pictures were captured. The black bunny posed for pictures for quite a long time while the brown bunny was a bit more shy and hid in the bushes farther back.

 

Also, many crows were around being annoying. Stupid crows.

In my further wanderings of the area a few more plants were found.

A great example of moss was found on a Douglas fir.

 

Also I found some lichen inhabiting that tree and a piece that fell off.

Then I found a sword fern.















I will show you much more next week and I will also sharpen my identifying skills up by then so I can be more accurate next time!