Week 9

Date: Sunday, December 6th, 2015

2-3PM

Weather: Partly cloudy

Temperature: 45°

My site has changed quite a bit from when I first saw it. In early October, it still had a lot of vegetation and green going on. The foliage was dense and lush, with shrubs seeming to grow on top of each other, competing for sunlight. Over time, most the shrubs lost this fighting spirit and shed their leaves. The shrubs that did retain their leaves became less vibrant and vivacious. Everything seemed to shrink in the cold as if it was trying to hide. The birds also became quieter. Not much chirping was to be heard, especially on dark, rainy days. It’s as if during the fall, the forest gradually falls asleep until it reaches the deep slumber of winter. Now, the forest is mostly bare. The trees, given that they are mostly deciduous big leaf maples and red alders, stand tall and naked. Their leaves are completely gone. If you look up, the canopy looks like a huge wooden spider web. The only widespread vegetation that remains are islands of sword fern, big shrubs of salmonberry, and the invasive species, English holly and English ivy. Lichens and some other epiphytes such as moss and licorice fern still prosper on the tree trunks, especially on those of big leaf maples. Currently, the female holly trees are yielding their red berries, bringing some Christmas spirit to the forest. Light penetrates straight through the bare canopy onto the forest floor, and sounds carry much easier through the open forest. The leaves from red alder and big leaf maple lay decomposing into mush onto the forest floor, replenishing the soil with nutrients. 

(October 2nd, October 14th, November 17th, December 6th)

1)     How has your perception of your observation site changed through the quarter? Think about how it has changed phenologically, and how your relationship to it has changed accordingly. 

When I first started going to my observation site, I wasn’t very impressed. I didn’t find anything strikingly interesting about it. The same old trees, the same old plants. I remember on my second visit for the journal assignment, I was actually pretty annoyed that I had chosen this spot because I couldn’t find any birds or animals or plants that struck me as interesting. But as my knowledge expanded and the journals required more exploration of my site, I really started to fall in love with it. The mushroom journal was the turning point for me. This journal assignment had me looking high and low for fungi. I was surprised to find some cool stuff since nothing had really popped out to me before. This was when I realized that my site was pretty dang cool—I just hadn’t been looking hard enough. It was just another one of those things that you get out of it what you put into it. I also remember wishing I had taken this class in the spring, thinking of all the cool flowers and birds and behavior I could have seen then. I was a little bitter about thinking I had taken it during the wrong quarter. Now, I’m grateful for having taken it during the fall. All the season changes are valuable to a naturalist, and as a beginner, I’m glad I took this class during a less busy season, as the activity of spring might have been overwhelming. Now I have the skills to go out in the spring and observe things for myself. It's a little sad to watch things dying off now that it's moving into winter, but it makes me that much more excited to come back in the spring!

2)     How has your sense of the Puget Sound Region changed through the quarter? Think about the body of knowledge we have explored, and the wealth of experiences we have had both locally and on travels around the region.

While traveling and telling people where I was from, I’d always be a little confused when they’d say “Seattle? What a beautiful place to live!” Especially when I’d hear this from people who live in Hawaii, a place I deemed so much more beautiful than my home region. Now, I understand. The Puget Sound Area is unique in its climate, fauna and geomorphology. We are a rare area where you can see a variety of beautiful places all relatively close to each other—lakes, beaches, forests, meadows, mountains, glaciers, and rivers. I learned a lot about the vegetation in this area. Before, I couldn’t tell you what any of the plants at my observation site were. Now, I can identify most of them from the knowledge I acquired throughout the course. The same goes for birds. Before, the only bird I knew was the chickadee, thanks to my grandmother who taught me to identify their call. Other than that, I didn’t know much, nor did I ever really notice birds outside—their calls were background noise and I never cared to look for them. Now, I know a little bit about the species around here and find them really cute and fascinating. The fact that they are ancestors of dinosaurs blows my mind. Some even look like little feathery dinosaurs! I really can’t get over it.

3)     What does it mean to intimately know a natural place? Think about this question in terms of the process of "doing natural history" and the outcome of repeated experience in nature. Also think about it in terms of scale—you have done close observation of one site, as well as developed broader appreciation of the range of interconnected ecosystems as one travels across this region). Is there as much to be gained (or more?) from close observation of nature in a city park, as compared to field trips to far flung places or inspiring view points in the mountains?

By intimately knowing a place, you are able to notice small changes, and appreciate the development as if you’re watching a child grow. I found that I became very fond of my observation site as I learned more about it and saw it change over time. You are able to see a process, instead of a result or a snapshot, which allows you to get a more thorough understanding of one particular natural area. You really get to know the dynamics of nature—how the seasons affect the species. Nonetheless, having a broad understanding of other places helps to understand the differences from region to region and gives you a general sense of the world. This general sense is important as it allows you to make connections between a place you know intimately and a place you know only vaguely, giving you a sense of the larger scale relationship between regions. That being said, intimately knowing a place facilitates your understanding of other less studied places and vice versa. I think this class had a good balance of field trips, as the Puget Sound area, our home, is the first place we should learn about in detail. Later, we will be able to use the keen observational skills we acquired at home and apply them to other regions.

4)     What do you feel are your most important personal outcomes from this class? What is the value to you of nature observation, and any other skills you have garnered? 

This class has given me invaluable skills that I plan to take with me through my life, even if I don’t plan to use them academically. Being out in nature and feeling like I am interacting and participating within it, instead of overlooking and exploiting it, has done a lot to make me mindful and appreciative of the world around me. I now have the skills to go out and understand the natural world on my own, without needing a teacher or text book to explain it to me—I merely use my own observational skills. This brings a real sense of independence knowing that this wealth of knowledge is available to me right outside my door, and I do not need any kind of curriculum to teach it to me. It’s the same concept in the cliché “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” This class taught me how to fish, and I plan to use these skills to educate myself during the spring this year and onwards throughout my life. When I say this class has changed my life, I really mean it. It really did nurture the love of nature I didn’t even know I had. Natural history is so strangely rewarding—I try to explain why I like it so much but I just can’t. It must be the innate predisposition we have to love this sort of thing that really makes a person take to it so much.

5) Has your overall perception of nature and natural history, and the place of humans in     nature, changed this quarter? 

Most the time, humans separate themselves from nature, not understanding that they are nature. We usually don’t see ourselves as part of an eco-system, we simply see nature as something put there for us to use to our advantage. I was like this before too. Caught up in the hustle and bustle of human affairs, I would never even really notice nature and just take it for granted. There wasn’t much interaction with nature beyond the occasional appreciation of aesthetic beauty. I’d say, “that’s some nice scenery,” like it was some kind of painting, but never really saw at is something I could interact with. I feel the human/nature distinction a lot less now that I see nature as interactive and more than just a nice view. Having just a little bit of knowledge in the field has allowed me to see nature as a fascinating process I can be there to witness and understand. It makes a game out of being outdoors: what’s this plant? What’s that bird? I’m able to observe the dynamics of the natural world around me, something us city dwellers with fast-paced lives get to do so little. While we're so used to spending our time in the human-centered world that humans have created for themselves, we can’t forget the natural world where it all started. Nature brings you back to your roots by drawing you from the clutches of civilization and allowing you time to ponder things you may not give thought to otherwise. It’s really no wonder why poets and artists look to nature for inspiration!

Week 8

The observations for this journal were collected over two different days.

Sunday, November 29^th, 2015

12-1 PM

Weather: Sunny

Temperature: 34°

I was looking forward to bird watching on this cold yet bright and sunny day. I excavated the binoculars buried deep in the drawer, put on some gloves, and head out. I was just going out to bird watch for fun and didn’t intend to use what I saw for my journal, but I got good enough observations and sketches that I later decided to use them.

Upon arrival I was welcomed by the pleasant sound of various chirps and songs, promising a good day of birding. Walking along the path, I heard a bit of chicka dee dee dee dee dee-ing, so I queued up the black-capped chickadee on YouTube and played it on my way towards my site. In the open space near my site, I found a variety of birds, including the chickadees I had called to my location. Resting and foraging for insects beneath and in the canopy of what, if I remember correctly, was a big alder, was a flock of American Robins. There was about 15 of them. The location makes sense, as this is one of the only open spaces in the forest, which robins prefer so they can forage on the ground.

American Robin in flight. The tail forms a trapezoid shape.  

I looked up and to the right to see the figure of a little bird buzzing around a little ways up in the trees. It buzzed up to the tree, then buzzed backwards, then buzzed back to the tree. Given the movement, I first thought hummingbird. Lifting my binocs, I was surprised to not see any shiny green body or long straw-like bill, but a plumper looking figure with a splash of grey and black and—what’s that? The bird buzzed away before I could tell.

It was only when I replayed the chickadee song, bringing the chickadees and other song birds that flock with them out of the foliage, that I got a good look at these birds and could see the distinct yellow patch on its head. Golden-crowned kinglets. A flock of about 6 of them came right up to this bush only about 3 feet in front of me and at eye-level, giving me a very good view of the yellow crown and black eye stripe. I was surprised to see a couple of these—males, I presume—with extremely bright orange crowns. They bounced around in the bush hyperactively.

These golden-crowned kinglets hopped around often, most of the time going upward on a branch as they surveyed it for insects.

While I was looking at the kinglets, I heard a repetitive agitated chirp to my right and turned to the other side of the trail where I located a song sparrow hopping along on the ground. I played the song sparrow song and it got even more agitated, increasing the volume and frequency of its chirps. It started hopping on logs and in bushes near the ground, looking around for the bird that had called. 

Song sparrow making it's high-pitched squeak of irritation. As it hopped, it
looked around for the other song sparrow it believed to be in the forest.

I walked closer to the robins and scared them off, so I tried a little later to call them back by playing the American robin alert call, a very short and agitated squeak. I had little luck. I heard one call back in the distance, and it got a little closer, but it didn’t seem like the whole flock would return so I gave up.

As I was about to conclude my birding session I heard a drumming very near to my right and looked up to see a woodpecker about midway up a tall tree, very visible and relatively close. With my binoculars, I could see some details. It climbed up the tree, pecking and probing at the wood looking for insects. I noticed that it rested its tail on the trunk as it climbed up to stabilize its body, typical of woodpeckers as they have to stay perched on the side of a tree for extended periods of time. Regrettably, I didn’t take notes, but from I recollect there was a small bit of red on the head and a black and white body which appeared to be spotted. When I lowered my binoculars, I saw another woodpecker in an adjacent tree, yet she looked browner and distinctly spotted. I say she because I would assume males would have the contrasting colors (black, white, red) and females would have the more inconspicuous coloring (brown, less contrast.) I thought the male was a hairy woodpecker, but the problem is that the other brown bird doesn’t look like a female hairy woodpecker. I was assuming this was the female counterpart to the black white and red male but after consulting the field guide, that is not the case. It was slightly smaller, so I considered it might be a juvenile, except juvenile hairy woodpeckers are not brown and spotted either. Either these were two different species of woodpeckers sharing close habitat (which seems unlikely—wouldn’t they be territorial?) or I identified the initial woodpecker wrong. I wish I had got a better look at both!

Thoroughly unimpressive sketch of the woodpecker I saw. Drawn from memory afterwards.

 Tuesday, December 1^st, 2015

3:30-4:15 PM

Weather: Overcast, damp, had previously rained but not currently raining

Temperature: 48°

I returned to my observation site to note phenological changes that I didn’t pay much attention to last time and to try my luck at birding in the damp weather. Not much has changed at my site since my last journal: the trees are barren, the ground covered in decomposing leaves (they seem to be decomposing much faster now and are compressing into the forest floor.) As for vegetation, all that seems to be left are ferns, tall Oregon grape, ivy, moss, salmonberry, and evergreen trees such as red cedar and shore pine (mostly saplings, evergreens don’t seem to favor this habitat.)

In this picture, you can see that ferns are some of the only green vegetation that remains this time of year.

In the denser portion of forest all I could find were song sparrows foraging on the ground and a few black-capped chickadees that responded to my calls. A little bored (I wanted to see something I was less familiar with,) I returned to the open area and looked for something else. I spotted another song sparrow foraging on the ground. Past the song-sparrow, I also saw a flicker of something camouflaged in the fallen and decomposing leaves, and when I lifted up my binoculars I saw something I am a little less familiar with, having seen less of them in class. I didn’t have sketching material and couldn’t snap a good picture so I jotted down some quick notes on my phone “black head and chest, brown back, greyish body, white tail feathers, ground forager, similar in size to a song sparrow.” When I later tried to identify it from my field guide, I at first thought it looked a lot like a chestnut-backed chickadee, but then thought about where I saw it foraging and decided that didn’t make much sense as chickadees generally forage in the canopy. Chickadees are also a lot smaller in comparison to the song sparrow. It wasn’t until I looked at the birds at the Burke museum that I realized that the bird I saw was a dark-eyed junco. I found a specimen that looked almost identical to the bird in my memory, and since juncos forage on the ground and are indeed similar in size to song sparrows, this makes sense.

I just realized yesterday that this class has been my only class this quarter to really change my life in that it opened me up to new things I didn't know I enjoyed. I never imagined I'd be into bird watching, but now, I find that when I'm walking around outside, particularly around campus, I'm keen to bird calls and will always take the time to stop, look up and see what's going on. It kind of makes a game out of being outdoors now that I think of it as less of just scenery and more something I can engage in.

Week 7

Date: Tuesday, November 17^th, 2015

3-4 PM

Weather: Rainy, windy, cloudy

Temperature: 48°

Having not been to my site in two weeks, I expected a lot of change. The trees are almost completely bare, with only a few leaves holding on at the top, I’m assuming because the lower leaves get knocked off by higher leaves that fall on them. I can now see clearly through the trees and a lot more light is penetrating the forest. I used to feel pretty hidden and tucked away beneath the canopy, but now, the forest feels a lot more open and exposed. Sounds carry much easier now that they don’t have to penetrate through foliage. The ground cover, which used to be a green carpet of cute little plants is now covered in decomposing leaves that will help restore nutrients to the soil. Speaking of the soil, I looked at it more closely and was surprised that it is actually really sandy, and doesn’t seem like the ideal soil for a forest to grow in. However, I don’t know much about that. The weather this visit was very extreme and there were a lot of fallen tree limbs littering the forest floor. I’m assuming the weather is also why there were no birds to be found, as they were probably hiding from the wind and rain.

A lot of fallen branches from the windy weather.

The current ground cover.

My site now that we're well into fall. 

Trees are very bare, with the last of the leaves concentrated near the top.

The evolution of my holly tree as it goes through the process of producing berries. The big cluster is now separating into individual berries. The first two pictures were taken earlier in the quarter.

Lichen appears to be brighter than before. It's probably just the contrast from the moist wood, but I also wonder if the lichen is thriving in this moister climate, giving it a glowing appearance?

It’s pretty cool to be actively observing the seasons change and how it affects the landscape! I’m really enjoying this opportunity, and plan to continue practicing natural history after this course.

Invertebrates

The only time I could get out to my site was on Tuesday during the stormy weather. Unfortunately I couldn’t stay long since I was getting drenched and the wind was making the forest pretty hazardous. I did manage to get the 5 invertebrates required. I would have liked to have stayed longer and search a bit more if the weather had allowed it. 

A "common black ground beetle" I found under a log. The order is Coleoptera, and I'm guessing this beetle is pterostichus melanarius, given the black shiny exoskeleton, the burrowing behavior and the grooved wings. In the insecta class.

Common woodlouse found under loose bark. It is in the class crustacea.

A slug I found. I found the class (gastropodia) and phylum (mollusca), but the order is hard to find, and I think the only way I'd find it is to actually identify this species of slug and then backtrack to find the order. I do see these slugs a lot so they must be pretty common.

Earthworm found among some fallen leaves. In the class Clitellata,

And now, a poem...

I scale my tapestry like a mountain climber

and then I bungee jump

When I get tired I sit proudly in the center

until I feel a bump

I think, it's a bad day for you, but a good day for me.

Then I cast another line, and go back to my spot 

With so much waiting I daydream a lot

Dream of being something cute and not spiky

not so thorny and angry and hunched

I'm all angles, too many angles 

Eight 45 degrees in all

A ninja star, or barbed wire

I bet you hate seeing me on your wall.

(It's a spider.)

Week 6

At our first stop of the day next to the Yakima river, the first thing I noticed were the columnar basalts in the mountain side. This stood out to me because I am also taking a geology course, and briefly discussed these formations, and now get to see a real life example. The columnar basalts we saw later in the day when we visited the Ponderosa forest were especially cool because they looked like man-made ancient ruins despite being natural formations.

These volcanic rocks also stood out to me, porous from gas bubbles
getting caught in the rock during the cooling process. 

In my geology course, I haven’t taken any field trips, so it’s interesting to see geological processes out in the field as opposed to in class where it doesn’t seem as tangible or relevant. 

These areas east of the Cascades had much different fauna than on the west side. Most simply put, things were mostly brown instead of green, due to the drier weather caused by the rain shadow effect of the cascades. Vegetation on the leeward side of the Cascades has adapted to drier weather and can survive on less moisture year round. The predominant plant in this area is sagebrush, both tall and stiff. They have fuzzy leaves for the purpose of retaining moisture on their leaf surface, as water will not easily slip off the surface if there is texture for it to hold on to (cohesion.)

       Tall Sagebrush. Note the fuzzy, lobed, trident-shaped leaves.

There was a lot of pale green (you can't
tell in the picture, but it's green) crustose
lichen growing on the rocks.

                                Cactus I found by the river.

Plant I'm seeking to identify. About 12 leaflets per leaf, and it produces an upright cluster of berries. Branching pattern alternate.

           

Plant with a red-brown stalk and an alternate branching pattern. The leaves look like elongated heart shapes. Leaf margins are finely toothed.

I noticed that on the east side, most species, especially deciduous species, grow almost exclusively on river banks, as they can only survive right next to the water source in this arid region. (See above picture.)

At our second stop, there were many grassy mounds that grew a different grass species than the land around them, implying a different soil. I have no idea why different soils would disperse in such a way to create mounds of a different soil type other than the underlying rocky soil of the lithosol zone. Stiff sagebrush was one of the only species growing here besides grasses, I’m assuming because the soil is too firm for roots to grow through it. I’m guessing the roots of stiff sagebrush are stiff as well to be able to penetrate through rocky soil. 

 The mounds grew the longer, more yellow grass.

The hard, rocky soil of the lithosol zone. 

Being a forest, our third stop had a lot of different fauna to check out. I noticed there was a lot of snowberry along the trail. There was also a lot of some kind of cattail. As for trees, black alders and ponderosa pines were common. 

Examples of trees that reproduce through cloning. The first picture is of a family of aspens, with the mama tree in the middle (in the background.) The second picture is a family of black alders.

The field had a lot of cattails and grasses that look like rye. 

An example of male and female catkins on one tree (Black Alder.)

Fairy Trumpet Lichen, growing from a fallen nurse log.

I noticed that a lot of trees such as black alders grow out of dead Ponderosa Pines, as if they are standing nurse logs.

It was interesting to see Douglas Fir, which towers over the other trees on the west side, be the understory of Ponderosa Pine in this area. I enjoy seeing how the roles of different trees and plants change in relativity to their environment.

A pretty deciduous plant I don't know the name of. Has a red stalk, alternating branches, and about 7 leaflets per leaf. The berries are red and not in clusters.

Because I don't go east of the Cascades often, I wasn't very familiar with the vegetation patterns in this area. All I really knew from my previous trips to eastern Washington was that everything was pretty brown and desert-looking. This field trip was a good opportunity to study this area of Washington in more detail.