Daily Account #19- West Duwamish Greenbelt

6/4- this was my destination for my final journal entry. however, i have to preface this by saying that i was not very comfortable walking alone, in a part of seattle i was unfamiliar with/a very industrial part of west seattle, in the forest with semi trucks driving by and a very sketchy looking, one-car sized gravel parking lot for me to stop in, and a huge bag of garbage greeting me first thing by small creek running through the greenbelt. in fact, i had a really hard time figuring out how to start walking in the forest in the first place, and just happened to turn somewhere and find this little opening, otherwise i would have had to park in some factory and try to tromp/trailblaze up a steep slope of trees!

in any case, i was not comfortable walking alone here, so i didn't spend enough time to sketch things and i only walked so far as i could still see my car. i still observed a large diversity of species, but i wanted to make the situation clear.

there was a small sign outside that said "West Duwamish Greenbelt Walking Trail" and the coordinates i was given to get to this general area (but not to this actual opening) were:

Lat: 47.53067100000, Lon: -122.39751900000

it was very overcast, not sunny but very bright out, no wind or rain, 50 F.

the first thing i noticed was how loud it was- not only from the trucks driving by on the outside, but also how many bird calls i could hear on the inside. i really wish i had been able to identify them, but i don't know bird calls well enough. the only species i could confirm were crows, which i saw flying through the trees. nevertheless, it was quite a choir- this must be good bird habitat (although i wonder what specifically about it makes it so? this area strikes me as industrial/not residential, so in some ways it's probably less disturbed re: people walking through, but in other ways i would imagine it would be more, re: pollution). it reminded me of the UBNA in the sense that it was a restoration area, and seemed to be flourishing- both in flora and fauna.

it was a very lush, verdant forest, and dense as well. many of the trees seemed quite tall (50' or higher? i'm not the best at estimating heights, but i felt very enclosed in the forest, as in the trees seemed to tower and create a fairly thick canopy). though they were tall, all trees were relatively thin.

the dominant trees (at least in the beginning of the trail) were black cottonwoods, bigleaf maples, and red alders. there were a few sightings of other trees that were unfamiliar to me, but these were the predominant trees in the area. i also noticed saplings of western red cedars planted in woodchips near the front of the trail. because this was a restoration area, there were patches of woodchips and several plants or trees that were marked with certain colors.

the understory had quite a diversity of recurring species, all looking very healthy and lush. among these were himalayan blackberry, thimbleberry (which was flowering and fruiting), snowberry (which was starting to show some pink buds), swordfern, oregon grape, horsetails, herb robert (which was flowering), a different kind of buttercup than the one i saw at my house- which i have yet to identify (this was largely done flowering, and most plants had little spiky balls left instead of flowers), and largeleaf avens.

the largeleaf avens (and other weeds that i've seen growing in my own yard) were bigger here than i've ever seen anywhere else. the plants in this greenbelt just seemed to be very healthy and large.

there was also a small creek running adjacent to the trail, and some boulders on the ledge between the path and the creek. i noticed that there was copious amounts of moss on the rocks and some dead logs, but not so much on the upright trees themselves. i also observed little to no lichen on any of the trees- which makes a lot of sense, considering the amount of pollution that must come through from the semis and the factories!

species list:
American crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos)
Horsetail (Equisetum)
Herb robert (Geranium robertianum)
Black cottonwood (Populus trichocarpa)
Thimbleberry (Rubus parviflorus)
Largeleaf avens (Geum macrophyllum)
Snowberry (Symphoricarpos albus)
Oregon-grape (Mahonia aquifolium)
Sword fern (Polystichum munitum)
red alder (Alnus rubra)
bigleaf maple (Acer macrophyllum)
western red cedar (Thuja plicata)
Himalayan blackberry (Rubus armeniacus)
buttercup (Ranunculus)

Posted on June 4, 2012 05:50 PM by akumar