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!



The beginning of a 10 week journey

This quarter I have been charged with the duty of finding a spot where an abundance of natural history can be discovered. I will be blogging about all of my discoveries in this spot as the quarter progresses. Yay, Environment 280!!! Wish me luck in my observations. Here goes nothing.