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)