ajcruik's Journal

On the field trip on May 1st we went above the Greek Theatre on the trail towards Lawrence Lab. We were on the north facing slope of the canyon and ran into a lot of cool things. I was able to identify the following plant species - French Broom, Artichoke Thistle, pine, orangebush monkey flower, western blue eyed grass, himalayan blackberry. For my 7th observation I got a picture of a deer I found on the north-side of campus. For all of the ID's made in this scavenger hunt, I added fields to indicate I found the species identified in last years class.

This observation is of a honey bee. The body structure of this bee is in three parts - Head, thorax, and abdomen which is characteristic of most insects. This bee has stripes of black and yellow on its abdomen. If you look closer at the bee, you will notice that it is carrying pollen on its leg which will be carried to its hive to be stored. It's antennas are meant to detect odor and wings are seen here as well. Bee's have two compound eyes and three simple eyes used to determine how much light is in the environment.

The Western Fence lizard was perching on a log in the sun when I took a photo of it. It's main characteristic is its blue belly, also known as "Blue Belly Lizard". Its distribution is Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, California, and Baja California. It is not found in deserts and is commonly spread through coastal and mountainous terrain. It likes wood piles, tree trunks, sticks on shrub from chaparral to high forests. This lizard is able to change it coloration to match its background. It sits in sunny areas looking for food and keep an eye out for predators. These lizards mostly eat insects, and are susceptible to being eaten my snakes and hawks. They tend to mate in May and June where their hatchlings will come out in August. There is an ongoing issue with lizards carrying lyme disease from ticks that they carry. However, this species only has 5% of ticks carrying lyme disease while others carry up to 50!

In this exercise, I went to Peter's Canyon Regional Park in Southern California and observed plant Phenology. I observed both flowering and leaf phenology and their characteristics. First off, I went off trail and captured the cacti which had a budding flower on the top of it. It had not fully reached flower. Secondly, the poison oak was a bare leaf phenology. It seemed well foliated and not dry. Thirdly was a plant that species is yet to be defined, but I took a picture of it in its budding stage and flowering stage.

Today I took a trip through the strawberry canyon fire trails via the Tanglewood path. On the south edge of the trail was the Chaparral habitat. It was mostly low shrubbery and I was able to capture a few pictures of birds scavenging for food and calling to their mates. I took one poor photo of a blue bird with a black mohawk that I hope will be identified. Other than that I took a photo of a low lying plant with lots of moisture on its leaves, as if it were collecting water to drink. In addition, I found a centipede creature in some plants. On the north end of the trail I entered the moist evergreen forest. I was just that, moist. There I found creatures such as worm, slug, and fungus. It was dense and moist, perfect for these organisms to thrive. I also took a photo of a new pine as well as a fern. Overall, the evergreen had more to offer as far as diversity.

Today I walked along the strawberry creek through UC Berkeley campus. I identified 3 different taxa. First, I observed a plant that still needs to be identified as a species. Second, I observed a Fox Squirrel which falls into the mammal taxa. Lastly, I observed a Chestnut-backed Chickadee falling into the bird taxa. The Chickadee was especially hard to capture a photo of, as they are very skittish.