University of Washington Arboretum

University of Washington Arboretum
4/26/2012 5 PM gray, cloudy, dry, slightly windy, about 50 degrees
The arboretum was beautiful and very much in bloom. The grassy hills leading into the park were covered in daisies and dandelions. The arboretum is interesting because it has the original plants of the Pacific Northwest growing naturally, as well as some carefully planned gardens. The area was good practice for tree identification. Many of the trees had young, small cones, making it easier to figure out which one I was looking at. I saw Big leaf maple, Dogwood, Sitka spruce, Douglas fir, willow, and many others. The sitka spruce had tons of little red cones at the tips of its branches growing in clusters and it made the tree look like it was in bloom with red flowers. I found it difficult to identify many of the flowering shrubs, but occasionally there were labels to help. The arboretum probably has all the different kinds of ferns that grow in this area, but the only ones I examined close enough to identify were sword, lady, bracken, and oak fern. The lady fern had lots of pairs of leaflets- the few I counted had between 20 and 30.
There was a red flowering shrub that I couldn’t identify. The flowers had 5 petals and were a dark/bright pinkish red. The leaves grew mostly in clusters of 3 or 4 and were oval shaped with thin, long white hairs on the top and bottom. There were no hairs on the branches or twigs.

4/29/2012 2:30 PM slightly overcast but some blue sky, humid, about 58 degrees
I went back to the Arboretum because I didn’t make it to the Foster Island, Duck Bay part of the arboretum and wanted to see some birds. I saw lots of mallard ducks, mostly in pairs. The female is brown/ tan with dark brown and black tipped feathers. She has a darker streak that goes from her beak, across her eye, and ends on the side of her head. The beak on both male and female is yellow and the feet orange. The male has a florescent looking dark green head and neck, dark brown chest, and gray wings and body. I saw one white chested male mallard. I thought it may be a different species, but after researching it at home I found that it is basically the same, just a common hybrid of mallards. It was acting just like the other ducks and seemed to fit in just well. In researching this subject I discovered that there are many hybrids or look alikes when it comes to Mallards. One of these is the Rouen, which looks almost exactly like a mallard except that it is bigger/ chubbier.
I also saw a few wood ducks, both male and female. The male had a green head, with a crown of feathers that looked like hair. The male has a white streak down it’s beak and up around its eyes. The chest was a rusty orange color with black speckles. The wings are dark bluish with white edges, and the body tan with a dark brown chest. The wood ducks were smaller and more stalky than the mallards.
I also saw seagulls and crows coming to eat cheerios that some little girls were throwing for the ducks. One of the crows flew by and scuffled with one duck for a moment. This was a new duck I hadn’t seen before. There was only one of this kind. The duck was mostly gray with lots of little black speckles on its head and chest. The top parts of the wings were light bottom and the bottom/ tail was black. The duck’s eyes were bigger than the other ducks. It stayed off to the side by itself. It closely resembles the Eurasian widgeon, but I’m not positive this is the proper ID.

Posted on May 1, 2012 02:40 AM by brooke