Week Seven

Date: Thursday May 29, 2014  

Time: 6:00-8:00

Weather: Cloudy

Temperature: Low 60s 

Location: Snohomish/Southwest County Park 

The main focus of this week's journal entry was to identify lichen and fungi species. A lecture that was given by Noelle Machnicki helped prepare students with a little background on the major groups of fungi as well as the three main forms of lichens and identification tips to help in the field. All of the pictures that I have provided below are also on iNaturalist and I am hoping that they will soon be better identified.    

  

 The photo to the right is a hard, crustose lichen that I found growing on the trunk of a living tree just off of the main trail in Southwest County Park. When touched, this lichen gave off a tiny bit of moisture, but not enough to really collect, or wipe off. The bright red color on the top of the lichen made it very noticeable from off of the trail.

 The photo to the left is of another hard, crustose lichen that was growing on a down nurse log. I thought it was really interesting that Noelle mentioned what great decomposers fungi can be. It makes sense for this lichen to be growing on a decomposing log, and over time as Noelle said, the lichen will pull apart the lignin in the wood. That's crazy!

 To the right is a photo of another hard, crustose lichen that looked similar to me to the first picture, especially in the coloring.  The creamy white base color beneath the reddish, brown rusty color.This species was also growing on a live tree trunk and gave off a small amount of moisture when rubbed.

The photo to the left was taken on the forest floor just off of the main trail. The white-yellow lichen in the center of the photo that looks kind of like hair I believe could be categorized as fruticose lichen. The leaf like lichen in the background on the dead branches would be more like the foliose form within the ascomycota clade. The photo below looks similar in that it is also hair like and was also growing on some dead branches among the forest floor.

 The photo to the left here is of some lichen that was growing on a small dead tree. This was harder for me to identify because it is definitely not crustose or foliose. With that said, I think it would have to be fructose. After hearing Noelle's lecture, it does make sense for this to be the same for as the above lichen since lichens can dry out and reanimate quickly when applied with wetness. It still does hang down from the tree as an identifying feature of the fruticose form.

To the right is a photograph of another lichen in the foliose form. I believe this to be true because of the leaflike appearance that it possesses. This lichen was growing on a dead branch among a variety of shrubs just off of the walking trail. 

 The two photos above are of a species of mushroom     that were growing right in the parking lot in a lot of organic material. The mushrooms were a variety of color, from white to a tint of rusty red. The shape of these mushrooms were kind of uplifted or even revolute or "rolled back". The attachment of gills were uncinate with fairly close spacing as you can see in the right photo. The stem in the photo is also pretty central with a round, kind of flexuous shape.

Week Six

Date: Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Time: 6:30-8:30pm
Weather: Sunny
Temperature: 68
Location: Snohomish/Southwest County Park

Another beautiful day to spend at my site. Today's main focus was on identifying birds. Below is one page of notes that I took followed by some pictures to help illustrate my visit. After doing a little research, I definitely think that the bird I drew with the black stripe on the face was a White Crowned Sparrow. The habitat of forests matches this species and the defining black stripe was a key feature that stuck out to me as I did my gesture sketch. Re-listening to all the voice recordings that I did, it also makes sense for this species identification to be correct since the White Crowned Sparrow has a song that sounds like "IIIIIIII, am a White Crowned Sparrow". Although it was hard to see many of the birds up high in the tree canopy, having knowledge of bird calls helped to make it not seem as overwhelming. In addition to my notes, another call that was apparent at my site was a House Finch which ended with the classic "Sreet" sound.

More new Salal leaves growing!

Here's a photo of the stream down at the bottom of my site.

Salmon Berries are growing! Still very green though. 

Even the Lady Ferns seem to be larger this week.

Stinging Nettles are gigantic this week!

New Oregon Grape leaves growing.

Indian Plum "berries" growing.

Thimbleberry flowers are blooming, especially those in the sun!

In the photo to the right, you can see evidence of some kind of disturbance. Most likely, similar to the example given on our first field trip to the old growth forest this tree was knocked over during a wind storm. Where the branch begins to grow out, becomes a great habitat for certain birds.

I adventured to another area of Southwest County Park today. In the photo below, you can see a little green sign. On the trail that I walked there were various informative signs identifying many different species. Along with the Big Leaf Maple there were also signs identifying Western Red Cedar, Douglas Fir, Western Hemlock, Salmonberry, and Oregon Grape. Not only were these species labeled, but there were also interesting facts included on the signs helping to make the species easier to remember.

Caterpillar on a Salmonberry leave. 

 The photo to the right is of what I believe to be a Bewick's Wren. This was the only species that I was able to actually follow around. The call that the species was singing was the main giveaway to help with identification. The species was flying around in the understory of the forests among the circular trail within the park. As I was walking on the trail, the species flew across the pathway and landed back in the understory. You can see the size of the species from the picture pretty well which matches the Bewick's Wren size. Most of the time that I was able to spend watching this species, was spent perched. While perched it sang its song and stayed in the same location for quite sometime. I was able to view the species from quite close, and it did not seem like I disrupted it's behavior. After a couple of minutes a bird that looked just smaller than a Robin flew by us and the Bewick's Wren began to follow it and looked almost like it was trying to chase the other bird out of it's territory. The call of the bird also began to sound more competitive. Unfortunately they both flew quite far, so I was not able to follow them. I was so excited to finally see a bird, and so thankful for how close it was!

Week Five

Date: Tuesday, May 13, 2014 
Time: 5:30-7:00 PM 
Weather: Sunny 
Temperature: Mid-Seventies 
Location: Snohomish/Southwest County Park

It was a beautiful day to visit Snohomish County Park. In just a couple weeks, I can already tell so many things have changed. I have also noticed that as the class has progressed it has become easier and easier to identify many of the species at my site. Pictured below are a couple different species and areas in particular that I could tell a major difference. It was fascinating to see species such as Salal begin to grow new leaves. It's a little bit hard to identify new leaves, so today was some good practice getting familiar with tiny little leaves. There was also significant growth seen near a bench that I try to make to weekly. The  Common Ivy bursting with new baby vines and covering the forest floor with a deep green color. Lady Ferns also pictured below were much more present then my previous visits. It seems like they are popping up everywhere! The canopy in the park was also still a vibrant green, full of Big Leaf Maples and even a few Red Alders.

New Salal leaves growing!

Lots of new Ivy growing!

Photo of the creek with lots of Lady Ferns

This week I was finally able to make it down to the creek that I mentioned in a previous week. Since the last time I was here, there was a huge difference in the trail. It appeared to have been quite manicured. Nurse logs had been moved to the side and the steep trail was cleared leading down to the stream. Unfortunately, there were also signs of human activity in the various garbage items found along the creek. Another form of human activity that was apparent, was a tire swing that must have been left over from a previous summer.  

Below these photos are my own personal drawings and a continued journal entry from my site visit, but before that I wanted to provide a couple of shots that I took of each species. Below to the right is a small Ground Beetle (Likely Carabid with the help of Peer TA, Charles). He was hiding just beneath a couple of small decomposing leaves. It was very hard to snap a picture of him, but you can see the dark shadow in the center of the photograph. Charles suggested that since he was moving so quickly that this species was likely a Ground Beetle.    

 Above in the photo to the right is a Yellow-Spotted Millipede. This species was quite long with a black body and yellow/orange spots on both sides of the body. I found him beneath a small down branch. Even when moving debris around he did not move very much. This helped to identify the particular species as a millipede versus a centipede since centipedes tend to have to move more quickly to catch their prey. Another helpful identifying characteristic that Charles helped out with is that millipedes have two set of legs per segment, which the species above did indeed have.  

 The photo to the right is of an Ensatina Salamander. I found this species up from the creek on quite a steep hill. He was hiding beneath quite a large log and did not move right away when I found him. I am currently also taking ESRM 304, in which we had a module on wildlife. The lab for this module was spent doing 10 minute search intervals for salamanders and toads. After catching so many of these salamanders, it was very easy for me to identify and to find them at my site. The main particular characteristics that helped me to identify this species is the coloring- a brownish tan color. He did not move from the spot that I found him in until I went down to touch him. He then tried to dig himself down into the woody debris to escape. In the time that he was not moving, I was able to grab a pretty good photograph as well as a sketch, which is provided below.  



In the photograph below, again considering what Charles said about centipedes, that is my best guess for this species. As you can see in the photograph, this species was found on a decomposing log and that identifying characteristic that has suggested his identify is the fact that he was moving so quickly. This centipede was larger than a house fly, and a similar size to the beetle that I found. Among the photographs of these species that I took and the sketches that I drew, there were also a couple little moving insects that were very hard to draw such as Gnats and Mosquitos. They move so fast that it's incredibly hard to draw them, and even to see them for that matter.