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.