Week 8 - Field Trip #2!

Saturday May 25th
8AM - 8PM
Mostly sunny. Sometimes it felt 55 degrees, sometimes 75. Dry heat!

Instead of blogging about Yesler Swamp this week, I'll be blogging about our class adventure to the east cascades! More specifically, we went to Ellensburg, WA and mostly stopped at places along canyon road which runs along the Yakima river. I have family that lives in eastern Washington and we would always take I-90 to I-82 and be on our way, but one time I remember my dad and I took canyon road for some reason and I really enjoyed it. The way the road curves along with the river full of people fishing and floating downstream was a really fun sight for me. To get the chance to go back and learn some natural history of the area was really a treat.

We departed Wallace Hall a little after 8 AM in three 12 passenger vans. Our first stop real stop (after Carl's Jr. where we saw what we think to be a Golden eagle) was at a site next to the Yakima river. We walked across a bouncy suspension bridge and immediately started seeing many neat looking plants and birds. We got lucky with the day we came because it looked as though it had just rained a day or two before we arrived due to the soil being softer than usual, so many of the plants had just recently bloomed. I've mostly only got pictures from one of the places we stopped at, but this stop we saw a lot of tall sagebrush. There were also many species that I wouldn't normally associate with the east cascades like cottonwoods because they require a lot of water and the place we were at only gets about 20 or less inches of rain per year because of the rain shadow it is in. We were right along the river though, so that supply of water keeps these plants going. In general it was much more green than I had expected. We also saw many animals at this stop. The first thing we saw was a big black beetle that was much bigger than anything you would typically find over here. After crossing the bridge and some train tracks we observed birds for a few minutes. We spotted swallows, cowbirds, lazuli buntings, yellow breasted chat, waxwings, turkey vultures, ravens, goldfinches, and I'm sure more that I am forgetting. The lazuli buntings were my favorite. They weren't too shy or scarce and their coloring was really beautiful. The turkey vultures were fun to observe. They really didn't do much other than soar around, but with their wingspan being as big as it is really makes them seem so majestic. The shyest birds were the yellow breasted chats. We could hear them and we stopped for awhile and tried playing back their song to get them to come out but we really didn't have a whole lot of luck. As we were getting ready to head back to the vans me and a small group got lucky and finally did get a good look at one through binoculars for about 5-10 seconds before he disappeared into the brush again. Other than birds, we saw a garter snake and four llamas. One of my classmates was able to go off the beaten path and find the garter snake and I'm really glad he did because it was so cool to see it up close. The llamas on the other hand were just being walked by a few people - the trip was already going to be memorable, but people walking llamas put the icing on the cake. After eating we took off to spot number 2.

 

Garter snake! I never held it and I can't say that I regret that decision.

Our 2nd stop was probably my favorite because the diversity of living things amazed me so much. I've been in many car rides in eastern Washington and all these hills look exactly the same. Some sage brush, some tumbleweed, nothing exciting. I was so wrong! It helped that everything was in bloom, but it was still very impressive. The ground is all lithosol kind of soil which is a rocky volcanic kind of soil that some plants apparently do very well in. I was also impressed by how much difference there was simply at the small site we were at. On the slope of the hill there was much more stiff sagebrush and other plants, some of which were tall and forced you to move around them. On top of the hill, it was all flat and had many more wildflowers and things like that. We didn't walk any further than 100 yards from the road, but the changes due to slope were still very noticeable. For this section I'll list the pictures and try to do some descriptions.

 Here are a bunch of caterpillars! These little nests they had were all over the place and each one had quite a few caterpillars on them.

 Here is what I believe to be Sulfur Buckwheat. It was relatively common at this site and gave the hillside a nice color.

 This is the stiff sagebrush I believe. It is much shorter than the tall sagebrush we saw at our first stop. One thing I forgot to mention is that the leaves on sagebrush really have interesting smells - mostly minty.

 This is some Old man's beard. I don't know if it was named that because it is suppose to feel like an old man's beard, but it does indeed feel very soft. It feels like how I would imagine a cloud to feel like if that helps or makes any sense.

 Here is some scat just for fun! A deer maybe? I don't know my scat very well.

 Here are two pictures side by side of bitterroot. It's latin name is lewisia rediviva, named after Meriwether Lewis because he liked it so much. I heard they were edible so I was excited to try one until I heard they had to be cooked. These were mostly located on the upper plateau of the hillside and about half had bloomed and half looked close to blooming.

 Here is an unfocused picture of wild onion.

 This is what the top of the hill looked like. Very flat and not much growing any higher than your ankle.

 Horned lizard! Someone spotted him and the same classmate that grabbed the snake was able to catch this guy for everyone to see. I always think of lizards as being more salamander shaped and skinny, but this guy was pretty round. For the most part the lizard was calm and let people pass him around pretty easily.

The last stop of the trip was along a smallish creek that ended at a cool waterfall! This stop was fun because we got to see these ponderosa pines that we've been hearing so much about in class. One of our TA's is very knowledgeable of ponderosa pines and was able to share some cool facts about them with us. He told us that based on the size of the bark chunks and how far away they are from each other can tell you roughly how old the trees are. For each tree he could give a rough estimate of how old the tree was which was pretty cool. He also showed us that the ones that get a lot of sunlight have bark that smells like vanilla. This was true! We also saw a very tall ponderosa pine snag that he really enjoyed because it's trees like that in which a new kind of niche is created for many animals. There were also Douglas firs at this stop which is rare for eastern Washington but with the right conditions seems to have worked out for them.

 Here is a picture from atop the waterfall at the valley of ponderosa pines and cottonwoods.

 This is just a neat picture from next to the top of the waterfall. I don't think we were suppose to hike to the edges of cliffs, but it was worth it!

After that stop we made our way back home. This field trip was super fun and I can't wait for more chances to get over the mountains and see what the east side of the state has to offer.

Week 7

Monday May 20th
6:00 - 7:00 PM
Sunny 70 degrees

Honestly, today didn't feel a whole lot different than last week. The theme last week was that there seemed to be more growth in general from the grasses and shrubs, and this week was more of the same. The Nootka Rose I took a picture of last week was fully in bloom as I had expected. There had been a good amount of trail work since last week. The fallen tree I observed last week had been thrown to the side of the trail, and another part of the trail near the lake had been worked on quite a bit so that I no longer had to duck under overhanging branches. At the lake I spotted three great blue herons - all of which were startled by my presence and flew away while making their prehistoric sounding call. One of them kept doing it's call longer than usual, and I wonder if it didn't notice that all the herons had already indeed saw me or if it just didn't want to be split up from the others. I also noticed that it seemed like there were a lot more yellow pond lilies in the little inlet. There were a couple mallards sorting through them, and in the distance there was a log with about 5 or 6 turtles on it - some of which looked to be about the size of your average computer monitor. 

 Here is a part of the trail that was cleared out quite a bit. Now that I'm looking at this picture I'm wondering what exactly the green plant-like layer over the water is.

 

Here is the nice view at the end of the trail. The herons I startled are in one of the trees off in the distance, and the log with turtles is also on the other side of this inlet. Notice all the lily pads. They are definitely more abundant and greener than in previous weeks.

The main assignment this week was to observe and try to identify mushrooms and lichens. Luckily, the mushrooms at my site seemed like the biggest difference from last week. The growth of mushrooms really took off and there were probably 3 times as many mushrooms today than there were last week. Most of them are the same specie, but their abundance in the area they were in was quite fascinating. I didn't find all the species that I have found in the past though, so I'll pull up some repeat photos from earlier weeks as well as photos I took today.

 Here is the first mushroom I came across. I missed the mushroom lecture, but after getting some notes from a friend I can attempt to identify. It looks like the surface may be rivulose which describes the pattern of channels you can see in the right picture. It also has a convex cap and the stem has a central location. It is growing out of soil with bark on top of it and there is a so-so amount of sunlight able to reach it - much more than other parts of the swamp. My best guess for this mushroom would be Lactarius.

 

Here is a picture from a previous week. If I would have known what to look for when identifying mushrooms I would have taken a look at it's gills. Since I didn't though I just have a rough guess that it's a fly amantia from the help of my field guide, but like I said, not too confident.

 

This mushroom was pretty similar to the first one, except it was a little more stiff and the cap was very smooth. Also, it was a slightly different tint, but the color wasn't super different. This was growing in the same habitat as the first mushroom as well. One very interesting thing was that in the picture on the left you can see that the two mushrooms both have been damaged. I'm guessing that maybe an animal ate it! I'll guess that this one is a Tricholoma based on it's smooth cap and stout stem.

 

Here is a picture of a big growth of mushrooms all together next to my foot to give a size reference. No other mushrooms were clumped together quite like these ones.

 

Lastly for the mushrooms, here is a picture of the overall abundance of mushrooms in this spot. All of which have moderate sunlight and not a whole lot of plants crowding them. They also are all growing out of soil with bark on top.

 

Now I'll show some lichens. This is one from a previous week that I wanted to include because I couldn't find anymore examples quite this large today. Not only is there the fruiticose lichen (hangs from trees) but on the left side you can see some crustose lichen (crust-like)

 

Here is some more crustose lichen from the swamp. This lichen reminds me of Gerry oak trees because the shape of the edge of the leaf on Gerry oak's look similar to the edges of this lichen.



Week 6

Sunday May 12
5:00 - 6:00 PM
Partly cloudy about 70 degrees Fahrenheit

Another dry day! It has been sunny and warm for at least a week now so parts of the swamp away from the lake are a little more drier than usual. The first thing I noticed once I got to the swamp was that the Nootka rose had flowered. The large pink flowers now provide even more useful information of identification. Once into the swamp, I was again surprised by how much growth had taken place. Each week it seems like the trail is getting narrower and narrower due to the plant growth. About halfway down the trail to the lake there is some kind of grass that had really grown a lot that I wouldn't be able to see over if I was much shorter. This is a good example of the different kinds of niches you can find just within this small space.
Further down the trail I got to the skunk cabbage and it was about the only thing that didn't seem to have grown a whole lot - if at all. As I walked up to the skunk cabbage which is just a couple feet from the lake, something jumped into the water. I'm assuming it was a frog, and from now on I'm going to try being extra sneaky when I make my way around that corner. After all that, the last stretch of trail to the lake was very different than it had been before. There was a tree knocked over and in the way, and there were a ton of flies. This is the latest I've come to Yesler Swamp and it has been nice and warm out, so maybe this is a prime spot for these little flies that fly in packs and zig-zag every which way.

 Here is the Nootka Rose in full bloom!

 

 This is the same Nootka Rose. Next week there should be flowers all over!

 

Here is one of two fallen trees over the path. The base was in very loose watery soil, so it isn't too surprising.

The main assignment this week was to closely observe birds. The birds I saw and can identify were American crows, mallards, great blue heron, gadwalls, song sparrows, and American robins. One bird that I couldn't identify I tried following as long as I could. The bird was a little smaller than a robin but bigger than a sparrow and was a solid brown color with a solid white breast. It had a distinct song that I tried to remember but failed at doing so. It was standing on the top of a shrub very close to the trail and singing it's song loudly and with a consistent gap of about 5 seconds between finishing it's song and starting it again. I was close enough to it that I didn't need binoculars and I was surprised it didn't fly away immediately, but it must be used to people walking by on the trail and not hanging around very long. I tried unzipping my backpack to get my guidebook to identify it, and as soon as he heard the zipper he flew down away from the trail and on to the ground where I couldn't see him but I could still hear him. After about a minute he stopped his song and I never heard from him anymore.
The other bird I followed were a pair of mallards. The whole time I observed them (about 10-15 minutes) they were just swimming around the little cove of water and occasionally skimming their beaks across the water and picking at lily pads now and then. That's literally what they did the whole time. They never got much more than 6 feet a part either - they just hung together eating and drinking.

This sign is at the beginning of the trail. It's a cinnamon teal! I haven't actually seen one at the swamp yet, but I hope I do soon.

Week 5

Sunday May 5th
4:45 - 5:30 PM
70's sunny light breeze

My first super sunny and warm day in the swamp! I hadn't planned on going today, but I finished up all my homework early and I had to get out and enjoy this great weather.

When I got to Yesler Swamp, the first thing I noticed was that the grass at the entrance had been mowed. That isn't the most exciting thing, but it used to be about up to my thighs and that seemed pretty cool to me. Maybe that stuff is the invasive reed canary grass and they're trying to keep it in check. Anyways, once I walked into the swamp my feet were finally met by a trail of nice dry bark, rather than the normal soggy ground. I could hear some little kids playing and yelling from across the swamp, so that took away much chance to see anything big and cool like herons, but I did luck out and see a few turtles basking in the sun. A kayaker had also made his way over near the turtles. Seeing that kayaker made me think about renting a canoe and taking it over to the swamp to get a new perspective sometime, but we'll see. Some other things I noticed were two small flowers I hadn't remembered seeing. Both of them have unique looking leafs on them so I thought they would be easy to identify but I don't think my field guide has them - it wouldn't be the first time I was wrong though. I also visited my skunk cabbage and tried to crudely measure the size of the leafs so that I'll have an idea if they're getting bigger.

 Here is the pink flowering plant with unique leafs. It also had very hairy stems.

 This is the yellow flowering plant I couldn't identify. Once again, pretty unique leaf shape.

 

Skunk cabbage next to my size 13 feet. Leaf on the left looks to be bigger!

 

 

The main assignment this week was to observe insects. I have a suspicion that I might have had better luck when it was a little wetter because when I think of insects I think of them as being in cold, wet, dark places. Regardless, I was able to uncover a few. Some of them I knew, like pill bugs, but then there were others I didn't know so well. The first of which was a kind of worm. It didn't look like the right size to be an earthworm, and I didn't feel as though it moved like one either. This worm was very skinny and long, relative to it's skinniness. When it moved across the ground it wasn't as methodical like when an earthworm brings it's back-end forward then jets it's front-end forward. Instead it was more chaotic and seemed to have some horizontal motion. It was hard to observe it for long without grabbing it, because when left to it's own devices it would immediately burrow down into the soil. The other insect I saw was something that is similar to the centipedes. I say centipede rather than millipede due to the fact that this insect had just one leg segments rather than two. This insect was a light orange color and it had two 'feelers' sticking out of it's front-end. This insect didn't want to burrow as much as the worm, but it was a little quick and always would try to hide under something. In the upcoming weeks, I'll make it a habit to always check a small spot or two for insects and continue to find more!

Here is the light orange colored millipede-like insect I saw. You can really see the two 'feelers' if you make the picture bigger.

 

Week 4 - Field Trip!

Saturday & Sunday April 27-28
8AM 4/27 - 6:30PM 4/28
Variable weather. Some light rain. Mostly in the 50's

I didn't get a chance to make it over to Yesler Swamp this week because I was too busy having a blast in the Olympic National Forest! This post will be 'log-like' so that I don't have to tell friends and family the same story over and over - I can just send them here! I'll definitely touch on some important natural history aspects though.

Day 1
We made our way down to Wallace Hall and loaded into 6 vans at 8AM to begin our journey west. After taking the Edmonds-Kingston ferry we took our first pit-stop on the Jamestown S'Klallam reservation. There was a beach there and on it we spotted a killdeer. It was a little bird with funny little legs that moved very quickly as it ran around the beach. We also spotted someone doing some kind of shellfish farming. That was my first 'I'm not quite in Seattle anymore' moment. Another interesting thing we learned at the reservation was that it had just recently been given back to the tribe from the US Government, and that they were having a hard time regaining their past culture. One specific thing that demonstrated that was the amount of totem poles located on the reservation. Totem poles were never a part of their past culture, but many of the younger people of the tribe did not know that when they went ahead with putting these up because their culture has been suppressed so much.

After that stop, we went the rest of the way to NatureBridge. NatureBridge is an organization that is set up for educational field trips like what we were doing. It's located on the shores of Lake Crescent on a piece of land that jets out into the lake. The water of Lake Crescent is very nutrient free, and apparently someone drowned in it and their body was found many years later well preserved and soapy-like. Aside from that weird story, the lake really is beautiful, has very clear water, and with the forest as a backdrop makes for a postcard-esque sight. There was a light rain when we got there, but the first thing we did once we arrived was eat lunch, and by the time we were done it had stopped raining! It was hard being patient and eating lunch because we had been traveling for so long and we had arrived and I wanted to go explore immediately. The food was important though, because I was in for a busy day.

Lake Crescent

After lunch we made our way into the forest as one large group. The first thing that really jumped out at me was how much moss there was. There was literally more moss than I had seen in my entire life. I was also surprised by the size of the trees. So many of them were so big that it just wasn't something I was used to seeing. The majority of the trees at the start were Western Red-cedar, Douglas Fir, Western Hemlock, Grand Fir, Bigleaf Maple, and some Vine Maple's. The maples especially were covered in so much moss that it was a wonder that they were able to stand up with all the weight.

Shortly after heading out as one big group we split into two and my group was led by James, our lead TA. James stressed what it means to be an "old growth forest" and made clear that age isn't the only characteristic involved. For a forest to be old growth there much be a variety of tree ages and there must be big snags, fallen dead wood, and multiple layers of canopy. We also learned that when a place is dominated by sword fern that it is likely very nitrogen rich soil, as opposed to when a place is dominated by salal it's likely to be nitrogen poor soil. One of the last and coolest things we saw in James's group was the largest grand fir in the world! Seeing that really drove home the point of the uniqueness and utterly amazing piece of land we have right here near home.

Later on in the day we split up into even smaller groups and had the option to go on different hikes. I opted for the most physically challenging one in hopes of seeing a change in foliage as we ascended and hopefully a good view! On this hike I noticed an increase in salal meaning the soil was less nitrogen rich in this drier sloped landscape. There were some madrone trees as we got higher up, and there were shrubs called manzanita that looked a lot like madrone yet isn't very closely related at all. We also may have seen Silver Fir near the top, and Tim (my professor) took some to analyze closer later on, but I never heard what his conclusion was. At one point during the hike we came to somewhat of a clearing where they weren't as many plants growing. We noticed that on some of the trees that were standing there were burn scars from fire damage. This was a good example of disturbance, seeing that a fire must have come through and destroyed all the salal and understory, leaving just the big trees alive. We didn't quite make it to the top because we had to get back for a great pasta dinner, but we made it far enough to get an amazing view and to see all those interesting things along the way.

A few hours after dinner we had a fun lecture from Tim about the history of the Olympic Peninsula and some of the first explorers that came out to it. Then once it was dark a group of us went out and tried calling an owl, but didn't have any luck. Too make up for it, a few of us went down to the lake to stargaze which us city folk don't get to do enough of. We brought flashlights and when we shined them over the lake we could see quite a few bats flying around. Normally the thought of bats creeps me out a bit, but they were all just doing their thing so it didn't really bother me. After about 30 minutes of stargazing I made my way back to the cabins for some much needed sleep.

 

Day 2

I woke up at 6:20 to go on a quick birding adventure before 7:15 breakfast. I didn't take good notes, but I remember we saw plenty of American Robin's. We saw a few other species as well, but the only other one I can remember is the Barn Sparrow that was perched above the door of the dining hall. After breakfast we got to venture out with a little less structure as the first day in the sense that we weren't solely trying to identify plants and looking at species interactions. Instead it was more of a hike, but after a day of identifying plants it was hard not to subconsciously do that as you walked. I decided to hike to the waterfall because I heard it was really beautiful and not too difficult of a hike, which was nice because I was feeling pretty tired. On the way to the waterfall the small group I was with spotted either a downy woodpecker or a brown creeper, but I'm not sure which. It fit the description of a brown creeper because it would hop onto a tree trunk and make its way up the tree, but it didn't have a curved beak. After taking the best picture of it that we could, Ross (TA) said he thinks it was a downy woodpecker but it didn't have any red coloring on it, so I don't know about that either. Anyways, the waterfall was indeed amazing, and on the hike back we ran into Ross and a few others that were looking at an American Dipper in the stream. I was surprised at how much this bird looked like a stone in the water and was amazed that they were even able to spot it.

The waterfall! The never ending noise a waterfall makes is mesmerizing.

 

At around 9:30 it was time to leave NatureBridge and go see a very low tide to the north of us at Tongue Point. There were many other people checking out the tide pools as well because this was indeed a great spot for that. The number of species we saw and were able to identify was probably upwards of 25, containing things like barnacles, star fish, anemones, sea grasses, crabs, mussels, sea urchins, and even a dead octopus! It was interesting to see where different things were located probably due to the topography of the land and how the waves crashed along the different facing slopes. Also, I don't think I've ever seen a sea urchin in a tide pool before so that was really neat. The bright colors of the sea stars and sea urchins aren't something you see everyday out in nature, so overall that was a really fun experience.

 

We ate lunch looking out over the tide pool, then piled into the vans once more and took off up into higher elevations of Olympic National Park. Unfortunately, we started to run out of time and gas so we didn't make it up quite high enough to be in a different vegetation zone. Another negative thing was that it was really foggy so we were robbed of some really amazing views. It was a fun car ride though, and after we got as high as we decided to go, it was just a long coast down the mountain to the gas station. Then it was onward to Seattle and the end of the field trip.

 

I wasn't able to go into great detail about each specie we came across in this post, but here's a list of the ones I was able to write down, excluding all the cool stuff we saw at the tide pools:

trillium

red alder

western red cedar

vanilla leaf

sword/licorice/lady ferns

dull/tall Oregon grape

vine maple

bigleaf maple

pacific yew

salal

douglas fir

grand fir

devils club

baldhip rose

fairy slipper orchid

oceanspray

pin cherry

madrone

red & evergreen huckleberry

silver fir

manzanita

millipede

orange peel fungi

stinging nettle

twin flower (linnea borealis)

monkey flower

stairstepper moss

Plus much more!