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.