Week 5 Eastern Washington Field Trip

This week again, I am away from Madrona park, venturing to the desert-like terrain of Eastern Washington. As we left Seattle in the cars the weather became dark and stormy. Black clouds rolled in and heavy rain began to fall. This was not the case once we arrived East of the Cascades. The area we were in was in a rain shadow from the mountains. It was sunny on the the other side. Though it rained or misted incrementally throughout the day it was relatively warm and sunny for most of our time there.

We explored the Cascade foothills, which are smaller volcanically formed landmasses. Unlike the area in the Puget Sound, the hills and landscape was not formed by a glacier. The tops of some of the hills had more jagged tops than those that can be seen around Seattle, due to the fact that there weren't glaciers eroding the hills into softer, rounder shapes.

This picture may not be the best example of "jagged" but it certainly has a different feel than what is seen in Seattle. This area gets around 20 inches of rainfall per year and is much dryer than the West side of the Cascades. The dominant color around here was tan and grey-brown. Many short shrubs cover large surfaces of the hillsides and spread themselves out to cover large surface area to compete for sunlight and water. 

Many of the trees in this area grow at the bottom of valleys, a very logical adaptation since that's where all of the water goes. The trees that live in the valleys can collect water that runs down the hills during rain and storms. Very lush greenery can be seen in many of the valleys in the foothills. Also note how on the hillside in the photo there are few if any shrubs growing on the hillside, this is an area that doesn't get much sun, so the shrubs grow on the other sun facing side in order to collect as much sunlight as possible.

The Eastern side of the Cascades has many different plants from the Western side, but it also has some familiar ones. I spotted several species that I recognized while there. 

The familiar Tall Oregon Grape

In the same picture as above, the yellowing tree is a Black Cottonwood a tree that enjoys wetter areas, it is in the perfect location for this area, by a river in a valley. Soaking up lots of water.

Another familiar family that I noticed was the Willow, this one is a shrub that is growing close to the ground. I was able to identify it quickly because of it's distinctive long, pointy leaves. 

Willow

The foothills are located in the Ponderosa Pine zone,  and several can be seen intermixed with Aspen trees in this photograph

Tall green Ponderosa Pine and yellowing Quaking Aspen

The plants that made this area interesting are the dry shrubs and unfamiliar trees. The first shrub that we encountered was Rabbit Brush, a smaller shrub with soft bunched leaves that resemble rabbit tails, although apparently the shrub was named as such because people have witnessed rabbits living or sitting underneath the shrub. 

Rabbit Brush

The next shrub we found was much more interesting to me. The shrub is called  Tall Sage Brush, and it grows very slowly. So if you find a larger one it could be a hundred or so years old or older. Tall Sage Brush has many tiny leaves all bunched together. I think that the leaves grow this way so that the plant can catch rain or moisture from the air and have it drip down to it's roots, but also as a way to combat wind and keep itself from drying out or being blown over. The brush has a very strong smell that might deter animals from eating it. It smells kind of bitter and a little sweet. 

Tall Sage Brush

The final shrub we found in this area is called the Serviceberry, medium sized shrub that grows red berries. It didn't have any berries on it when I observed it. The shrub has small ovular leaves and was living at the base of a hill in a good spot to receive a decent amount of water. 

Serviceberry

We discovered three unique organisms to this area during our visit, the first a large, colorful spider sitting comfortably in the middle of it's web. I was not able to identify the spider using my field guide but I got some very nice pictures of it. 

Spider front view

Spider back view

While I was hiking up the trail with my spot buddy Sean, he jumped and yelled loudly when he noticed that he'd stepped on a dead snake (Sean is very afraid of snakes) a medium sized snake it was, it turned out to be a young Rattlesnake that had been killed. 

The Rattlesnake

The snake has a beautiful green and white pattern all over it's body serving as an excellent camouflage in the dry foothills. The snake's rattle can be seen in the above photo, the tail is on the left side of the image. Our professor, Tim was eager to inspect the snake and show us some of the creature's finer details. The Rattlesnake is a viper and has a uniquely shaped angular head and a venomous bite. This snake was still young and had very small needle-like fangs, nothing as scary as the long, sharp fangs of a fully grown Rattlesnake. 

The most entertaining organism of the day was by far the Song Sparrow That I got to help capture with the professor and the TAs. We set up a thin, soft net between two poles on a trail, along with a stuffed sparrow as bait, and played bird calls through a speaker to enrage any males in the area and have them swoop down at the bait bird to make it flee their territory. Within about ten minutes a bird flew into the net. Tim eagerly ran over to grab it and then showed it off to the class as well as explaining some bird holding and measuring techniques to us. 

Song Sparrow

The song sparrow of the Eastern Cascades has different brown markings on it's chest than Western song sparrows do. An interesting fact that does not have an explanation currently.

After taking down the net the class piled back into the cars and we drove off to Umptanum Ridge. An area with darker foothills and more rocks and small ground shrubs. 

The view from Umptanum Ridge

The shrub that populated much of the ground was Thyme Desert Buckwheat a shrub with a thick stalk and roots to keep itself anchored in the ground and to protect itself from wind. This hardy plant can withstand a harsh environment because its small and holds water well. 

Thyme Desert Buckwheat

While at Umptanum ridge we spent much of our time overturning rocks in hope of finding scorpions, but unfortunately we had no such luck.

Our next stop on the trip was to a wetter area of the Ponderosa zone, a nice, relaxing waterfall hike. Much of the plant life on the hike was Quaking Aspen a tree that is considered to be the largest organism on the planet because it reproduces by cloning itself and shooting up new trees out of the ground to cover a large area. All of the trees share the roots of an original tree. The Aspen trees were beginning to yellow and were a truly magnificent addition to the already unique scenery in the Eastern Cascades. 

Quaking Aspen

Quaking Aspen on the hillside

I was so tired by the end of the hike that I forgot to take a picture of the waterfall. The rocks that the waterfall was flowing over was volcanic in origin, a formation known as columnar basalt. It forms in columns and when cut has a multi-sided shape, like a hexagon or an octagon. The columnar basalt at the waterfall was cut into two sections, with an area that appears to have once had a waterfall running over it. We theorized that the waterfall that used to be there eroded the rock so much that it cut it away so that it appears to just mesh with the hillside. 

The trip was lovely and a nice change of scenery from the cold wetness of Seattle. I had a ton of fun and got to bond some more with friends I'd made on the Mount Rainier trip. 

 
 

Week Four

October 21
5:21
62 Degrees F
Madrona Park


It's noticeably colder this week, though this could be due to Sean and I arriving at the park about thirty minutes later than usual. The soil seemed very dry in the park today, even after all the rain that fell last night. The sword ferns at the site have entire arms that have dried out and curled up now, a definite progression from two weeks ago. The view from my spot has become, not quite brownish yet, but certainly less green. The view has become less saturated with green. The contrast between week one and now is evidence of progression into fall.

The view from my spot

I was very happy this week with the amount of knowledge I gained from the Mount Rainier trip. I was able to identify several more species at my site from memory than I could before. I've documented a few below.

this is a shrub with opposite, serrated leaves growing out from a sloped hill. I believe it is a Cascade Oregon Grape

Longer needles growing in two rows with white bottom side.

Grand Fir

This is my favorite find at the site, I learned it from our TA Jorge. A tree with green fuzzy roundish serrated leaves.

Beaked Hazel

I spotted a different kind of fern other than sword fern as I was leaving the site today. It has medium length leaflets with opposite leaves. I'm not sure because of the color, but I think that it is either spiny wood fern or lady fern.

Spiny wood fern or lady fern

Madrona park is also home to some wetland plants as there is a small water runoff coming down from the top of the hill and into lake washington. Lots of horsetail grows there. This spiny prehistoric looking plant is covered in crazy tendrils seemingly reaching in every direction. These plants still look very lush and green even as we approach the fall. The plants are succulent and retain a lot of water since they live by streams.

Horsetail.

The assignment for today at the park was to observe invertebrates and to sketch them. I was able to locate all of the invertebrates at my site by using a stick (I don't want to accidentally touch bugs, gross)to turn over leaves and fallen foliage to expose any creatures that might be hiding under them.

The first one I discovered appeared to be a common pillbug at first look, but I believe it is something else. This invertebrate was larger than any pillbug I have seen before. The invertebrate was a dark brown/ black color with grey sides. It's sides were serrated and connected in sections so that it can roll into a ball to protect itself.

What appears to be a common pillbug, but is a bit too large.

The next invertebrate I saw I did not like. I have a natural aversion to centipedes/millipedes. I'm not entirely sure which one this one was, but it was quite small, pale yellow and was crawling very quickly on the stick I was holding. It had many many tiny legs covering the entire bottom of it's body and it was only around 5 millimeters in length. 

A long invertebrate resembling a millipede or a centipede.

This invertebrate is no stranger to me, I have encountered them inside my own house at times. This is an earwig, a bug that is disconcerting because it has pincers on it's abdomen as well as feelers on it's head. Though small they are very detailed. They have sectioned bodies with a couple of unique colors. A light brown head, a dark brown thorax and abdomen and a shiny gold colored midsection.

Earwig

This nasty invertebrate had Sean and I yelling after it began to run quickly and then change it's mind and curl up. The centipede is a long invert at around 5 millimeters. It has a black body with yellow spots on every section of it's sectioned back. The centipede also has a plurality of legs that make it terrifyingly quick-moving.  

Centipede

Sean was quick enough to warn me of a mosquito before it landed on me to bite me. The mosquito is very tiny and makes a quiet buzzing noise as it flaps it's wings. It has a long mouth used for piercing skin and drinking animal blood. The mosquito has six segmented legs. Similar to the horsetail, mosquitos also enjoy wetlands because it is the perfect place for them to lay their eggs in still water.

Mosquito

We found some very interesting (yet disgusting) finds in the park today, and I'm sure we'll find some more interesting things next week as well.

  

 

Week Three- The Mount Rainier and Nisqually Delta Trip

This week the Natural History 280 class went on a field trip to the puget lowlands and Mount Rainier. It is significantly colder there than it is in Seattle, bundled up in under armor, sweatshirts and raincoats was barely enough to stay comfortable. Our first stop on the trip was the Puget lowland at the Nisqually River delta. We encountered many plant and animal species while we were there including several birds, frogs, and bugs.

The landscape at the Nisqually Delta was beautiful.

I attempted my own thumbnail drawing of the landscape there.

After we had just arrived our instructors were pointing out different plant and bird species to us when an enormous flock of migrating birds, man of which were Canada Geese flew out from the trees and made themselves visible to us in the distance.

Migrating Canada Geese

I documented a few plant species and identified them while walking through the trails at the Nisqually delta. First the Nootka Rose seen below. It must be adapted to live in colder climates because it was very chilly there. It must also be a plant that enjoys wetness because it is near a large body of water and the ground around it was very wet. The Nootka Rose plant has small leaflets and red berries.

Nootka Rose

Just across the trail from the Nootka Rose stands a mighty black cottonwood tree, it's branches turned upward seemingly reaching out towards the sun. This tree is adapted to live in a cooler climate and in a wetter area. I would infer that it's branches are turned upward so that more leaves can be in sunlight for more efficient photosynthesis. The leaves are heart shaped on this tree and are beginning to yellow. 

Black Cottonwood

These plants were growing on a bank next to a medium sized pond. I believe they are cattails but I'm not entirely sure. The plants have long stalks with a cylindrical growth near the tip. The growth is tan colored which makes me question what they are, most cattails I've seen have a brown growth. 

Cattails?

As a Washingtonian I was able to identify this plant right off the bat. This is a stinging nettle plant. I've seen nettles grow in all sorts of places, I don't think these plants have an incredibly specific location that they prefer to grow in, I only say this because I've been stung by nettles on many occasions in several different parts of Washington. Nettles seem to like forested areas and are adapted to live in wet places with wet soil. The leaves are serrated with deep cut nerves that can be viewed easily from the top down. Short sharp spines stick out from the underside of this plant that will irritate the skin if touched. A method for soothing the irritation is to rub fern onto the affected area.   

The final plant that I documented here was in the marshy area of the delta. I saw some seaweed that had washed to shore so I photographed it and attempted to identify it. This is sea lettuce, large common seaweed that always seems to wash up on beaches. This organism is adapted to living in the cold because it is found in Washington water like Puget Sound which is very cold for the entire year. 

Sea Lettuce (Big green fleshy bit in the middle of the image)

Many animals were spotted during our time near the delta. Jorge found a Pacific tree frog in some brush. I found some other animals around as well. 

Pacific tree frog

                                                    Unidentified Snail

                                                    Wooly Bear Caterpillar Moth

                                           Rufous Garden Slug

                                          Northwestern Garter Snake

Ring Billed Gull

Blue Eyed Darner

The most exciting part of being in this area on this day in particular was that we got to see a tornado form and die. A fascinating rare occurrence in the Puget Sound region. We even got tornado warnings on our phones!

 The tornado and the phone warning

On day two we stopped at a mysterious geological site called the Mima mounds. A large patch of lumpy land that has no known reason for existing. Some cool theories, but no actual explanation. My theory as to why this area looks the way it does is that during the time it was covered in a glacier, wind erosion and erosion from rain could have carved out small dents in the top of the glacier that were then filled with rocks and gravel that were pushed along the top. After the rocks and gravel settled in I think that plants that survive without much dirt, such as red alder might have grown there and then been killed off for any number of reasons. I suggest that there would be plant matter there to account for the soil and matter besides rock in the mounds. Once the glacier melted the pockets filled with this mixture would have been deposited on the ground only to be grown over with grass. I know there is something missing from my theory, but I have no idea how to conceptualize how so many pockets could have been formed on a glacier without some kind of help from a living creature. I suppose it will remain a mystery. 

The Mima mounds

My thumbnail sketch of the Mima mounds

Many species colonize the area around the Mima mounds, trees, shrubs, flowers, birds and bugs were all sighted during our time there. Douglas Fir trees surrounded the Mima mounds, this area seems to get a decent amount of sunlight, the arms of the trees are spread out flat to allow all of the needles access to the sun to perform photosynthesis. Pine cones with bracts lay scattered about the forest floor at the edge of the field of mounds. 

Douglas Fir trees

I spotted this small wildflower among the mounds, it is a member of the pea family called a red clover. The red clover must be adapted to live in an area where it gets quite wet, this one in particular was growing at the base of the mound, an area where rainwater might run off from the top and flood. The clover has one flower held up high at the top of the plant so that it will be easily be spotted by bees and other bugs for pollination. The clover lives at the base of a mound, meaning it might not be receiving as much sunlight as it needs, so it has leaves positioned in a ring around the flower laying flat and facing the sky for easy access during times with the most light.  

Red Clover 

This small pink-purple flower is called a common harebell, a flower that seems to thrive in harsh environments. The leaves it has are very small and don't look at all as if they are positioned in a way to receive ample sunlight, however the flower looks healthy and is colorful without showing any signs of wilting. This flower was growing in a very dry place near some lichen. It seems that this wildflower is adapted to live in cold places without need of water or sunlight for long periods of time.

Common harebell

This pale green growth is lichen, more specifically it's coastal reindeer lichen. Open land is no problem for this lichen because it can absorb moisture from the air and endure the cold. This lichen has an advantage in this terrain because it is everywhere, living in a large spread out layer over the Mima mounds. This lichen has adapted to take over a large area so that it has access to resources like sunlight and rainwater in a range of locations. The lichen has short "branches" that poke out in every direction. Some patches of this lichen grow in rounded shapes and resemble the puffball of a dandelion. 

Coastal Reindeer Lichen

The most unique find at the Mima mounds was this fascinating organism. I had never seen a preying mantis in the wild until today. What surprised me most about it is that it wasn't green. I had no idea that they changed to brown to blend in during the fall. A genius adaptation of camouflage.

Preying Mantis

After our adventure at the Mima mounds the group drove up the mountain to Paradise to learn about the landscape there and to view an active glacier. I drew two views of different places on the mountain. First a view of the glacier that I sketched.

I was so taken aback by how huge the glacier was that I forgot to take any pictures of it. I'm not so sure a picture would have turned out because my camera is my iPhone and the glacier was a ways off in the distance. In the drawing above The dark heavy object on the right is my artistic rendition of a glacier. The dark patches that cover it are piles of gravel that have accumulated on top of the glacier because of wind and water movement over the glacier. The lines coming off of the glacier are streams of water, runoff from the glacier. The glacier is melting now at a faster rate than it ever has before and is predicted to be completely gone within  the next fifty years. The rocky slope on the left of the drawing is a moraine, a bunch of deposited rock and gravel that was left there by the glacier as it melted. All of what I witnessed at the glacier was inside of a deep valley. This valley exists because over thousands and thousands of years the glacier moved through this area and sculpted out these valleys, which are then made visible as the glacier melts. 

The view of the mountain from a high point on a trail called panorama point is incredible. One doesn't understand the vastness of the mountain until they are right up next to it, it looks like a tiny blip in the distance until you get close. I did a sketch of the mountain (below) and a sketch of the view surrounding it. Both are next to photos I took of the same area.

A sketch of Mount Rainier

The area around paradise

The area the group traveled to at Paradise is referred to as the Sub-Alpine Zone, a zone that contains many different plants than the zone that I live in; the Western Hemlock Zone.  The plants that I identified in this area are adapted to live in extremely cold environments. The weather here is considered wetter than that of the Western Hemlock Zone, but most of the water that this area receives is in the form of snow. The most populate family here is the pine family.  

Western Hemlock is a tree that I have become very familiar with because of the time I have spent in class as Ravenna park. The Western Hemlock is easily identified by the variable size in it's needles, and the white stripe on the bottom of the needles. This tree has adapted to live in cold environments seemingly without much need for nutrient rich soil. The ground here seems very dry in places.

Western Hemlock

This tree resembles Western Red Cedar but I overheard classmates saying that it was a yellow cedar, I'm not sure which one it is, my field guide isn't specific enough for me to be able to tell. It seems to me that is is growing at too high an elevation to be red cedar. The tree has adapted to grow on a slope, this one was growing out of the side of a hill, sticking out over the hiking trail. It's branches are laying flat to allow the needles to grasp at every last bit of possible sunlight.  

A tree I believe to be yellow cedar

This tree here is the namesake of the zone it exists in. This is the sub alpine fir tree. This tree has it's needles growing all the way around the branch, and it has many of it's branches angled upward. From a distance this tree looks like it has a soft fur covering it. This tree seems to have adapted to cold climates since it is seen growing in the high mountains where it's chilly outside. It seems to also have adapted it's cones for spreading down hill, the cones of the tree are long and cylindrical, I think they are shaped this way so that they will roll easily down the mountain and stop and grow a ways down from the original tree. 

Sub alpine fir

Lastly, I observed a shrub called pink mountain heather, which greatly resembles a plant from the pine family. In fact this plant is from the heath family. It was difficult to find this shrub in my field guide because it doesn't have the pink flowers on it at this time of the year. During the spring it has tiny pink bell shaped flowers hanging off the tips of it's branches. An adaptation of the pink mountain heather is the ability to grow outward in a patch, covering a large area. This gives the pink mountain heather the advantage of greater area to absorb sunlight, or to catch rain, or to absorb nutrients from the ground without other competition in that space. The shrub also grows on hillsides and can grow at angles allowing greater versatility of places it can thrive. 

Pink Mountain Heather

I observed many other species of animals and fungi on the trip that I would like to document in photograph below. I'm going to upload these to iNaturalist to find out if I'm correct with my identification.

This looks like artist's fungus to me

Giant puffball

Western Yellow Jacket

Mule Deer

Odd patterned fungus

Fly amanita

I think this is a Cascade golden-mantled ground squirrel

I think this is emetic russula

upward curved fungus

strange tendril covered fungus

more tendril covered fungus

A fungi that resembles a flying saucer 

very tiny white fungi

Douglas fir pine cone mushroom

Stellar's Jay

Common raven (iPhone through binoculars)