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!