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.