Week One

Date: Friday, April 4, 2014

Time: 2:30-3:30 PM

Weather: Mostly sunny

Temperature: 54 degrees 

Location: Snohomish/Southwest County Park 

My observation site for the quarter is Snohomish County Park, often referred to as Southwest County Park. It is only about a mile or so away from my house and is primarily made up of forests, ravines and wetlands. The area was historically used for logging in the mid 1900s and further used for farming and residential homes. The 120 acre parcel of land that the park sits on remains largely untouched today and is known as the largest single parcel of open space within the Edmonds city limits. 

 This is a photo of the entrance of the trail that I took into the park. I imagine that much of the brush and the trees on the boundary of the trail will grow a great deal in the ten weeks of observation that await me. I will definitely have to take a repeats of this photograph as the quarter progresses. I’m so excited to get acquainted with my site, and to see what the quarter brings.

I couldn’t have imagined a more perfect day to begin this project. The sun was shining and the weather was fabulous for observing nature (and getting some exercise too). I only saw a couple other people on the trail I decided to walk on. I bet as the days get warmer, I will continue to see more and more people in the park. 

 This photo was taken from one of the three benches that I found in the park. It was a great place to sit and observe the natural world around me. In this spot I could hear two different kinds of birds chirping. Unfortunately I just could not physically spot them. For this reason, I think it would definitely be worth it to purchase or borrow a pair of binoculars. Another thing I could do for the following weeks is record the bird sounds I hear to try to identify the specific species.

 Lots of Common Ivy (Hedera helix) growing throughout the forest, along the trail, on trees and amongst many shrubs. You can also see evidence of Douglas-fir in this photograph above as well. There were many of this species throughout the park, one of the defining trees to me of the Pacific Northwest.

 
I'm not positive about this species to the left, but to me it looks a little like Stinging nettle. I tried not to get too close, but I'm hoping to get a better ID of this species in the upcoming weeks.

 This little guy in the photo to the right was right off the trail. I hope to be able to track the specific growth of this species over the 10 week quarter. I'm still waiting on my field guide to arrive in the mail, so it's been hard to identify all of the species that I saw in the park, but iNaturalist has been a big help. I'm still waiting to distinguish this one as well as the species I mentioned above.

  

I really enjoy photography, and wanted to depict the trail from a different perspective. To the right is just a photo I took for fun that shows the atmosphere of the park. Perfect for an afternoon run, right? You can get a feel in this photo of the diversity of life that exists off of this trail. You can see the blue skies in the background too!

 I can imagine that as the quarter progresses, the canopy pictured to the left will become very full, and allow less sunlight down into the forests. Will this effect some of the life that currently exists on the forest floor?

 Sunshine, natural history and running the trails. Couldn't ask for a better way to spent my Friday afternoon. I had to include a photo of myself to really illustrate what a wonderful time I had getting this project started.

 There were many informative signs in the park that gave a little background information from when a lot of logging was going on. This photo for example shows a sign explaining why there were notches in some of the trees throughout the park. The following picture is a closer shot of a notch.

With the help of iNaturalist, this can be identified as Pacific trillium. I found this pretty species about 10 ft off of the trail and there were only about two flowers bloomed. I imagine that even by next week there will be many more bloomed. It will be interesting to see if the species lasts throughout the quarter, especially if the canopy continues to grow and blocks more sunlight from reaching the ground.

 These next four species I also intend to ID, which I hope to then come back and edit in.

 

 

 As you can see in the photo above and to the right, there were many trees that fell in the event of storms most likely. There were about three different trees that had to be cut to clear the trail. Another two trees were still blocking the trail. This makes me wonder how often these trails need to be managed.