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
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)
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