Week 3

Sunday, 5:50pm, 4/21. 54 degrees, Sunny with clouds.

“It’s unsafe to go in the tall grass alone.” Those were the words of Professor Oak in the original versions of Poke’mon.I was reflecting on the Poke’mon games I used to play as a kid for a number of reasons this week. First off, the most noticeable difference in UBNA this week was the height of the grass. The grasses and rushes around my journaling spot and elsewhere are much taller. I probably wouldn’t have noticed this difference if I hadn’t returned to the same spot every week. It rained a lot this past week, so it makes sense that the grass is taller. The plants are growing, the environment is changing.

As corny as it sounds, Poke’mon helped me become a naturalist in a way. Besides the battling aspect of the game, you explore the world identifying different species and looking for new ones. The types are like our version of genus’s. iNaturalist is kind of like the Poke’dex. I remember wanting to get out of the classroom and explore so much as a ten year old kid.

It’s nice being back in UBNA now that I have better knowledge of the wildlife here. Thanks to my time with the TA’s, Tessa and Oli, I have corrected some species I wrongly identified, such as Queen Anne’s Lace and the Yellow Flag Iris. I saw a lot of the same birds this week that I’d seen before, such as the Canadian Goose, Mallards, and the Red WInged Blackbirds. I noticed four different Red Winged Blackbirds today, apparently, they’re kind of territorial. I saw a new bird today on the path behind my spot that looked like a gray jay or a chickadee, but I can’t be sure. I was only able to do a quick sketch of it before it flew away. I also saw a Barrow’s Goldeneye in fishing in Lake Washington. 

Overall, it was nice to spend the afternoon in UBNA today. I feel much more comfortable here now because the plants seem less foreign, and I can spend time focusing on the ones I don’t know, or looking for birds or changes in the plants I know. 

Happy Earth Day! (though, everyday should really be an earth day)

Photos of UBNA

I'll try to incorporate my photos with my blog posts better in the future. I have been taking photos though and would like to share some.

Cattails, typha latifolia, on a sunny day. Lake washington behind. In the foreground is some kind of grass that's dominate in the area, though I haven't been able to pin down an ID on it yet.

One of the few plants I didn't have to look up, the Himalayan Blackberry, rubus armeniacus. I've pulled many of these out of parks with Earthcorp.  

This looked like a Cow Parsnip, heracleum sphondylium,  to me. Not positive though, I just went off the shape of the flower. It looked kind of dead. The National Audubon Society says it blooms May-July.

Waterfowl flocking. I definitely noticed some Mallards,  anas platyrhynchos.

This conifer was growing on the east edge of UBNA and seemed kind of out of place. I thought it might be a douglas fir because the bristles were on all sides of the stems, but it could be a Nolbe Fir or something else...

Sketching Plants

I originally had some technical difficulties uploading my weekly blog posts with images from my iPhone, so I decided to try two separate posts. Here it goes...

This is the plant I attempted to sketch. I identified it as Lady's Ttesses, spiranthes romanzoffiana, using the Cascades & Olympics Field Guide. I could easily be wrong, I don't have much experience in plant ID. The guide says the Tresses like moist places and is between 2"-10" which checks out. 

First and second sketch attempts. Tried to sketch from memory and using the single line.

Third and fourth attempts. Tried using shading and diagrams to capture the unique aspects of the plant.

My final attempt, with as much detail as I could capture.

Week 2

Sunday, 3pm, 4/14. Sunny with clouds. 52 degrees.

I’d say I now have a much better idea of why all the ENVIRO students are doing this journal project. We’re documenting our observations of the natural world. It’s important for us to spend a lot of time in one place because it takes time for the detail to sink in.

This is my second week at my spot and I feel like I’ve only noticed a few more species. However, this is about as good as the weather gets in the spring in Seattle, so I can dedicate more tine to this journal entry. My goal in this post is to describe my surroundings in great detail and to practice sketching plants (in order to fully observe them). 

My spot is just off the outer loop trail of UBNA. If you were to walk counterclockwise around the loop, the second bench facing Lake Washington is a good landmark for my spot. Short grass surrounds the bench and three rocks lie in front of it. There’s a small trail about 20m long that leads through the Bluebunch Wheatgrass down to Lake Washington. There are many Broad-Leafed Cattails along the waters edge. To the right of the bench there is a small pond, which drains into Lake Washington via a small creek. The plant diversity along the creek is greater than much of the rest of the diversity around the rest of my spot which is dominated by grass, so many of my species ID’s will come from the creek-side. Both Scouring Rush and Giant Horsetails grow near along the creek-side. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of Himalayan Blackberry bushes around the water-proximal zones of my spot. Based on what I’ve heard about the history of this park, I imagine there was once a lot more [blackberry], but it’s still sad to see an invasive species thrive. I haven’t noticed any mammals yet and the only insects I’ve seen are small gnats. Fortunately, there are many birds in this park and even though I’ve only seen a few species, including the Red-Winged Blackbird two weeks in a row, I can hear many more [bird species]. 

With the exception of the weather it doesn’t appear much has changed here in the past week. Perhaps I’ll try to come at different times of the day in future weeks to see it that makes a difference in which bird species  I see... That’s all for now, time to sketch!

iNaturalist

I'm going to begin cataloging all the species I identify on the site iNaturalist. Here's a link to my observation page: http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/smith329

I'll primarily be using my iPhone 3GS to photograph the species so I can't promise phenomenal images. My plan is to repost the better images on this blog along with some catchy descriptions. For now though, here's a picture of the boulder that marks my observation spot. As mentioned before, I'm pretty positive it's granite transported from the last glaciation in the region 12,000ish years ago. The white stripe is either a dike (volcanic origin) or a calcite vein (caused by weathering processes).

First Post

4/7/13, 4pm, 46 degrees, raining

Today I sat in the rain. I suppose that’s not that uncommon for Pacific Northwest (PNW) folk though... I’m not the best at introductions or beginnings, so here it goes...

I love nature and probably always will. I can be a very skeptical and unsure person but I’m pretty sure of this. I don’t believe it’s any coincidence either. But how I came to appreciate the outdoors probably better told inside because I’m currently sick and sitting in a downpour isn’t helping...

(typed later)

Looking back, my love for nature did not come from one particular event, but a sequence of many. As a child in elementary school, I’d go sledding on snow-days in Indiana and search for frogs in the woods by our house during summer vacation. I remember fantasizing about going on long journeys into the wild from a very young age. When I moved out to Washington, I had many more chances to go camping with my family and close friends. Some of our favorite spots near Seattle are Lake Kachees and Iron Creek. A significant journey my family took in 2005 was to visit the Canadian Rockies. We went around Lake Okanagan, up to Jasper and down to Banff. The mountains and the forests seemed to create a harmonious balance. After my senior year of high school, we journeyed to Glacier National Park, just south of the Canadian Rockies. By that time, I had become an outdoor enthusiast. I wanted to hike the mountain trails in the summer and ski down the slopes in the winter. In college, quickly took interest in geology because it valued field work to collect data. Understanding how some of the most marvelous features came to be has become one of my goals. My most recent great adventure was a trip I took around Iceland in the summer of 2011. If the Grand Canyon is the Mecca of sedimentary rocks, Iceland is the Mecca of igneous rocks. Of course, I’ve had many other great experiences with nature that are just as significant to me, but these select journeys come to mind when I reflect on how I came to appreciate the natural world.

~ ~ ~

So how did I find myself here? I’m here because of an assignment I have for a course I’m in, ENVIRO 280: Natural History. My professor believes we might gain some further appreciation for nature by journaling in a natural area. I think he could be right, but it remains to be seen. Currently I’m wet and I have to be out here to complete my homework.

Why did I choose Union Bay Natural Area (UBNA)? My background is in geology. I love mountains and the rocks they’re made of, so I typically find myself at higher altitudes. Swamps, being the geographic low, generally are more confusing to me. Oddly enough, the abundant mess of life here makes me feel smaller than standing on top of a mountain.

I had never been to UBNA before today which is a shame. As a Seattle local, I’ve experienced many of the parks the city has to offer but as I mentioned before, swamps make me feel a bit out of place. I spent some time wandering around the park before settling on a spot to journal in. My spot is roughly 20m from the shoreline of Lake Washington, so I have a good view of the cat tails, water and 520 bridge. Roughly 10m behind my spot is a creek which feeds the lake. Many shrubberies cover the creek giving it a shady swampy feel. Mostly I chose my spot because of the granitic boulder I saw. A boulder of this size (3 cubic feet) is too burdensome to move, so I figured it must be a remanent from the last glaciation. Having a giant rock in my journaling spot makes me feel slightly more at home.

I find myself here because I try to be a person who’s open to new experiences and I’ve heard swamps can be rather mystical. But for now, I’m leaving.