North Beach Natural Park and Natural Area 5/12

Weather: sunny, clear
Time: 1:00 PM

On 90th and 24th ST NW, there is a 7x2 block natural area with lots of interesting critters, mushrooms, and wild flowers. Most of the mushrooms I found I have yet to identify successfully. One of which had a bright red cap and pink spores. The red mushroom did not yet have a colony, suggesting it was a young mushroom. Among the flowers i saw were water forget-me nots and Creeping Buttercups. Water forget-me-nots are small blue flowers with white middles and 5 pedals. The creeping buttercups i saw were gold in color and also had 5 pedals. The Buttercups were considerably larger than the forget-me-nots. Both flowers were growing in the same location. I also saw a small purple flower I have not identified with 6 pedals and long grass like leaves. I found a lot of bugs in the naturalist area by picking up logs or smashing them open. Among the bugs i found was tipula paludosa, a spider mite, earthworm, termite, millipede, and a dusky slug. I also found an unidentified worm that was black and white striped and very small. Most of these bugs live off of the decaying logs along the floor of this forest-like naturalist area.

Species List:
water forget-me-not (myosotis scorpioides)
unidentified striped worm
unidentified red mushroom
dusky slug (arion subfuscus)
spider mite
earthworm
unidentified purple flower
creeping buttercup (ranunculus repens)
termite
north american millipede (narceus americanus)
eurhynchium praelongum

Posted on May 28, 2012 06:46 PM by lmcthe01