Daily Account #5- Carkeek Park

today i spent some time walking around Carkeek Park in northwest seattle. there are several different parts to the park, including a sandy beach that opens to the Sound and overlooks extraordinary views of the olympic mountains, a railway that runs adjacent to the beach (and along much of the coast, i believe), a swampy/creek area that you can walk over as well as more wooded areas for hiking, and open grassy fields with playgrounds and picnic tables. there are hiking trails on the northern and southern ends of the park, and today i walked around the southern end- crossing over both the wetlands and hiking in the trees.

it was a warm, sunny day (around 55 degrees F) with light winds. the park is essentially at sea level, unlike the higher elevation hikes we did on mount rainier- but i saw much of the same vegetation.

the small wetlands area had only a few inches of standing water, and along the paths leading up to it i saw a lot of blooming salmon berry bushes as well as sword fern. there were a number of smaller, bare, twiggy trees (some with bright green leaves) that i have yet to identify. in fact, many of the trees on this side of the park were bare (deciduous, i would presume), and so i had trouble identifying them. there were many more green conifers on the northern and eastern sides of the park. i only identified one western hemlock, and some other scattered conifers that i didn't know on the spot.

the creek running through the park is called Piper's Creek, which apparently has salmon come through it. the trails were all very well-maintained.

i noticed most trees were fairly thin or medium sized, though there were occasional large trunked trees as well. because i had trouble identifying them where i was, it's hard for me to make generalizations about the state they were in, or the characterization of the wooded areas. i did see a number of catkins (and what looked like female cones) that had fallen on plants below the bare trees, so there might have been a number of alders (though i only spotted one that specifically looked red from afar).

a lot of the understory was sword fern, oregon grape (i think i only saw m. nervosa), several salmon berry trees, sparse sightings of salal and red flowering currant (closer to the grassy fields), and several small leafy plants that i have yet to identify.

i could hear crows and seagulls, and sounds of other birds that i am not familiar with. i also saw a banana slug (i think Ariolimax columbianus), and a tree that had been ravaged by what looked like it might have been termites- check out the pictures to offer your thoughts!

Posted on April 9, 2012 01:43 AM by akumar