Week Eight Madrona Park

4pm
Madrona Park
11/17/2014
41 Degrees F

This week at Madrona park it was difficult to take good pictures. The bus ran a little slower than usual, we only arrived about ten minutes later than usual but now that it's fall every minute counts when it comes to daylight. The park smelled different this week. Much more earthy than before, I think this is due to the discarded leaves breaking down and biodegrading. Many more leaves have piled up and the ground is now cloaked almost completely in leaves. What was most astonishing to me about the situation in the park this week was something that had not changed. The fallen tree continues to sit blocking the path below my viewing area. I thought that by now the parks department would have taken it away. Birds sing in the canopy above but are above the remaining leaves unseeable. They sing a song that repeats, a simple "skwee skwee skwee skwee skwee" repeatedly.

 The ground is now completely covered in leaves, leaves were falling all around me while I was visiting the park today.

 A Vine Maple that I have photographed before has begun to lose it's green color around the edges.

Vine Maple

My goal this week at the park was to document some birds and their behaviors. I noticed three birds while at the park, the bird I mentioned before with the "Skwee" call, which I was never able to see unfortunately. I was also able to spot a gull flying over lake Washington, I believe it was a glaucous winged gull because it looked quite large and had a darker grey wing color. I wasn't able to get my sketchbook out quick enough to sketch it before it flew out of view. It flew in a circle and was quite a ways in flying just above the lake. It turned and flew off around a corner after a moment. 

The bird I was most able to observe, sketch and identify was a male mallard near the wetland-like shore at the edge of the park. The male mallard duck is a medium sized water fowl with a white belly, brown wings and an emerald green head. It is a duck, so it has a wider, flatter bill and a white ring around it's neck. My favorite part of the mallard is it's orange webbed feet, which allow it to swim faster in the water. The mallard flew in from another area down the shore aways, and landed on the water in front of me, flapping it's wings harder and faster as it got closer to the water. Once landed it swam around in an almost aimless way, before waddling on shore. On the shore the duck wandered some more until it found some grass to munch on. It ate grass for a little while until another mallard showed up to eat grass, (also male)  and then they flew off together. It was interesting to watch the take off and landing of the ducks, I didn't see them take off from the water, but seeing the landing is almost comedic. Of coarse it's a beautiful marvel of nature to see an animal in flight, but the crazed flapping before the duck gently touches the water is a bit silly. 

These are my gesture sketches of the mallard duck

The mallard swimming in the water 

The mallard moments from landing on the water. I labeled it's webbed feet in this picture because they were not visible in my primary sketch. 

I noticed two organisms in the park today that I had not noticed previously, a nice green sedge growing by a stream, and a couple of interesting mushrooms. 

Nice lush sedge

Small spotted scaly red mushroom

A mushroom with a flatter cap with a pattern that resembles a french crepe. 

Week Seven Madrona Park

Madrona Park
11/12/2014
42 Degrees F

The weather has become substantially colder here since last week, bits of the dirt trail have frozen and the ground feels much firmer under my feet. The canopy has thinned even more since last week, and the ground is littered with dead bigleaf maple leaves. Sean and I have come to Madrona park today in search of mushrooms and lichens. The fungi are quite elusive at this time of the season because they are hiding under the damp carpet of decaying leaves that cover the forest floor. Sean and I grab sticks and begin to turn over leaves in a similar manner to when we were hunting invertebrates. I was the first to find a cluster of odd yellow mushrooms growing out of the ground under some sword ferns.

This cluster of mushrooms have a round cap with scales, called a squamose cap. They are brown-yellow and only about an inch and a half to two inches tall. I believe they are Honey Mushrooms or Armillariella mellea that have yellowed because they are beginning to die and whither. 

Sean discovered the next one, a small piece of Oakmoss Lichen in a pile of leaves under a bigleaf maple tree. This lichen is known by it's latin name as Evernia prunastri. It has skinny feelers that branch out in all directions and is a very pretty pale green color. Lichens are a unique group of life because they are a combination of both a plant and a fungus, a fungus that can photosynthesize. This kind of lichen is seen attached to trees all over the puget sound region.

Oakmoss Lichen

I'm not entirely sure what kind of fungus this is, but going by the mushroom guide it appears to be some kind of galerina, these mushrooms were found growing out of the bottom of a decomposing log. They are a light brown and have striate caps (striate means the caps have lines). These little mushrooms don't look like they are doing so well in the cold weather.

Small striate capped mushrooms

This mushrooms was hiding under some fallen leaves. It resembles the mushrooms in the previous picture but has a smooth cap and is taller by about an inch and a half. It looks like it could be a Nolanea mushroom or a Conocybe. It appears quite healthy and isn't slimy or wet. 

Nolanea or Conocybe Mushroom

Many of these mushrooms have a very similar look of brown with round cap. The closer you look the more unique they each become. This fungi's cap stands apart from the last two because it doesn't droop, it sticks out like a tiny little umbrella. Instead of having a conic or bell shaped cap, it has an umbonate cap. It was found growing out of the ground.  

Small mushroom with an umbonate cap

This was my personal favorite find of the day. These lumpy fungi grew on the apple tree in my back yard as a child. I'm always fascinated by them because they are so ugly. Just a big weird lump eating away at your tree. These fungi are similar to an artist's fungus in that they are growing on a log, however, they are too small and lumpy, they aren't as organized looking and they aren't as big. I couldn't find a proper identification for this fungus. It's pale white and grows in both semi-circular growths and round lumps on the tops of logs.  

Unidentified tree and log fungus.

Since this week's blog was about mushrooms, I wanted to share a cool mushroom that I found away from my spot as well, I found this by my dorm at the University of Washington. I got a pretty sweet selfie with it before it was stomped into the ground by someone the day after. 

Here I am with a Fly Amanita or Amanita muscaria mushroom.

  

 

Week Six Madrona Park

The progression of fall has become very apparent in the park, bigleaf maple leaves cover the ground and the canopy is thin and orange. The sounds of birds are louder and less muffled than before, and a thin layer of moisture seems to cover everything. The most obvious change in the area is a fallen tree, now blocking the path just below my spot. It's leafless body lies rigidly on the gravel path seemingly pointing in every direction.

The fallen tree obstructing the way.

The view from my spot has become more barren and washed out in color in contrast to week one, though it still retains most of it's greenery. 

Most of the green in Madrona park now comes from the ferns, which have retained the darkest shade of green as opposed to the beaked hazelnut and black cottonwood trees which have become yellow and brown. 

Leaves cover the ground and provide a nice hiding place for invertebrates now. These leaves that have fallen have made the canopy much more open and allow more light to come into the woods. Unfortunately this makes the park lose it's fantasy appeal of a lush hiding spot for fairies and sparrows, but nonetheless it still remains attractive and comforting. 

The carpet of fallen leaves

The open canopy of browning bigleaf maple trees

Part of the assignment this week is to describe parts of nature as if we were someone who had no conception of what they were observing. I'm going to try my best to write poetically.

"The behemoth lurches before me, cackling as it bends to meet me. The beast bears no witness to me yet it is aware of my presence, and sends me a gift. A small chevron spirals from the monster's tangled mass of feelers towards me. The giant that stands before my eyes has thick wrinkled skin, only grown thicker and stronger through time. I look back to the chevron in my hand to find that it is itself a creature, covered in veins, similar to the wrinkles on the great beast. I feel a great difference in age between us, and begin to understand that I am not the only one bearing witness to the other."

"Reflective and pitch black, the collection of animate sharpened obsidian cocks it's head, before plunging it's blade into the earth. The pointy creature extends it's sharp appendages outward and swoops into the air, gently carrying it's weight. As it lands again it releases a shriek of anger and resumes stabbing the ground. The animal appears perpetually wet, glimmering faintly and arching it's body with every step."

"Thin ridged friends here

pale and white together

here in a place to get by"

It's been forever since I've written a haiku, and I thought that it might be kind of hard to get without a picture. The poem is about these mushrooms: