avogel's Journal

I took a hike up the trails behind Clark Kerr Campus, looking for a few observations in the hills that had been tagged by last year's class. I found a good number of them, actually.

I did two rounds, one day after another. Starting from the bottom of the hill, I found the bermuda buttercup, the tasmanian blue gum, the french brush, the miner's lettuce. As I walked up the hill, I came across California poppies, milk thistle, and arroyo lupine. It was a couple of good hikes.

I made a bunch of observations on both hikes. They both covered the same area (rather, they both started and followed the same trail. On the second hike, I was able to go much farther.) I hope it still counts for the extra credit. It took me two days to get 50 observations, minus the ones I was looking for from last year's class. I would have done it all in one day, but I couldn't stay out that long the first day. I almost got 50 observations on the second day alone, but I had to head back because I was already late for work.

here are the links to both calendar events:

http://www.inaturalist.org/calendar/avogel/2014/5/5

http://www.inaturalist.org/calendar/avogel/2014/5/6

Once, again, I hope it still counts. Even if I couldn't get all 50 in one day, my knees can't tell the difference!

So I took a walk in Strawberry Canyon and took photographs of a bunch of plants. I tried to focus on the patterns of leaf growth. In the last tagged observation, I pulled off one compound leaf consisting of four leaflets, growing in pairs. The bottom of the leaf also had some small leaves sprouting from it. The Wood Sorrels that I photographed had individual stems that each bore three heart-shaped, speckled leaves.

I also tried to photograph the flowers of plants as clearly as I could without disrupting them. The wood sorrels were all curled up, but most of the other flowering plants were fairly cooperative. I really want to know what the white flowers are; they had four petals and four sepals. The plant had thorny stems.

All in all i made 15 observations; I think it went quite well.

So I took a hike on the Fire Trail through a chaparral ecosystem and a moist evergreen forest ecosystem. It was interesting to see how the two ecosystems supported different types of plants.

Plants in the chaparral ecosystem tended to have small leaves, waxy leaves, or both. There were a few broad-leafed plants, but they seemed constrained to small areas that perhaps got more access to water. This kind of adaptation makes sense, as plants in a chaparral ecosystem get tons of sunlight but must adapt ways to keep from losing water. There weren't any trees at all, perhaps because they simply need more water than the ecosystem can provide.

Plants in the moist evergreen forest seemed larger on average, with broader, thinner leaves. Ferns appeared, unlike in the chaparral ecosystem. I saw trees, most notably pines. These plants definitely still get sun, but they also get much more rainfall, which means that the ecosystem's plants don't have to worry about drying out quite as much.

The periwinkles are flowering, representing that phenological stage. The plant with the label of "vascular plants" is covered in leaves. The plant in the photo at 2:33 pm is dormant. The plant in the remaining photo has some leaves, and I presume that it will flower (although it isn't flowering yet.

So I took a trip up to a stream and photographed a couple of things. I found a few spiders (arachnids), but they were hard to photograph. I got at least one decent shot of one of them (they were so tiny!). In one photo, you can't see the spider very well, but you can see a little slug (a mollusk, evidently), making his/her way (you never know with slugs) up a leaf.

I went down to the edge of the water and turned over a few rocks. Clinging to the wet side were two little insect larvae (insects), each only as long as a few grains of rice. They seemed a little spooked, but mostly kept still while I took their pictures. I put them back in the water once I was finished.

Just before I left, I caught a few fiddleheads (plants) on camera. My battery was almost dead, but they were very cooperative (unlike a few birds, deer, and spiders I could mention). All in all, a very nice afternoon was had by all.