bluehoneysugar's Journal

May 31st, 2012 1:45PM-2:30 PM

The day is not cold but not warm either. Full cloud cover gives makes the day the ordinary Pacific Northwest weather, but luckily there is no precipitation. Almost no wind. The squirrels group are taking the class on a tour with activities in and outdoor, ranging from Mary Gates hall to Grieg Garden.

From the first day I arrived on University of Washington campus, I knew that squirrels were going to be a big part of my college life. Now that might be an exaggeration, but it is true that I was enlightened to see so many of them having to come from a city where I am not so sure most people have seen a wild squirrel. In fact, there are so many squirrels that I think if time comes to switch the UW mascot from huskies, we might as well become the UW gray squirrels.

The primary aspect of any squirrel that fascinates me is their capability to climb vertical slope of a tree bark. The agility of squirrels are incredible, especially the speed at which they climb up a tree. Their sharp claws seem to be helping them with the process, but if their claws are so sharp 1) how come there are no claw marks left on the bark of the trees? and 2) are their claws not damaged by walking on pavements and other artificial surfaces? The squirrels group have pointed out that squirrels might have a hard time climbing smooth barks. This is an interesting point; all the trees that I have seen squirrels climb have rough barks such as giant sequoia and pine trees - I have yet to see one climb up a birch. Discovering whether squirrels are capable of climbing up smooth bark trees may ultimately come down to play a part in habitat conservation measurements.

From their appearance, squirrels are adorable species. One of my friend mentioned that they shouldn't be as cute because squirrels dig into a garbage can for food. My friend's point - leaving aside the subjective argument of whether species that dive themselves into a garbage can is cute or not - reveals the trait that these squirrels are quite smart and can flexibly adapt to their surrounding environments. However, their intelligence does not stop there because eastern gray squirrels are capable of storing their food. In other words, eastern gray squirrels are capable of performing both spatial and temporal analysis to base their foraging behaviors. It certainly takes skill to develop a temporal mindset; animals like sheep I do not believe are capable of such abilities to store food. I have been wondering why I see squirrels during winter for a long time, but it is the storage of food allows the eastern gray squirrels to overwinter without hibernating.

Eastern gray squirrels are known to store their food in a tiny hole that they dig, which inevitably means that they have some source of guidance that allows them to remember the location of the holes. It seems like the mainstream hypothesis is that squirrels rely on scent of pheromone, but it could be pure memory. What is incredible is that squirrels dig several small holes to minimize the risk of the hole being dug up and precious food source stolen. Some squirrels have even been observed to fake digging a hole especially when they sense other squirrels watching them. This means, that in addition to spatial and temporal thinking, eastern gray squirrels could calculate risks as well. By using a huge tract of land as their territory, they manage to avoid the catastrophic situation of what happens to humans when houses get broken into.
I wonder if squirrels would fake digging a hole if species other than squirrels, like myself, observed them long enough. We could translate this situation into ours, of which situation we could imagine an animal staring into our house, directly at a refrigerator. If it is a duck or sheep peeking, then I would not bother whereas if it is a bear or a monkey, I would be concerned that bears and monkeys would be too strong or too smart to do anything about it if they truly decide to take food from a refrigerator. So my hypothesis rests upon that squirrel's decision to fake a hole depends on what species are staring at them.

Finally, it seems to be that the eastern gray squirrels are the only squirrels found on campus, and to me they look like a typical squirrel that pops up in children's picture book. It is a shame that eastern grays are driving the western counterparts to limited habitat. Since the eastern grays are the only species of squirrels that I know, whatever behavior of them becomes the behavior of all squirrel species in my mind. Because I know that is not true, watching the western grays might strike as a revelation.

Species List

Sciurus carolinensis - Eastern gray squirrel
Sciurus griseus - Western gray squirrel
Sequoiadendron giganteum - Giant sequioa

May 31st, 2012 3:20PM-3:40PM

Many of the hives are owned by Evan Sugden, a beekeeper and a part-time entomology professor who was mentioned in the journal entry "Bees." There are several hives at the UW farm that is operated by the Bee Committee. Because the bee committee is a student led organization, student interns are held responsible for taking care of the honeybees.

During our tour, there happened to be a student intern taking care of the bees. It was a great timing for the tour to prove that bees didn't attack even when a person stuck his hand in the hive with just a beekeeping glove. Chimera and I had a little conversation with the intern, who I failed to ask his name, about what he was doing during our tour. He opened the hive for us to peek at the bottle of sugar water placed upside down so that osmosis allowed for gradual leakage of food source for the bees. Apparently, bees do not have to travel outside because of the sugar water readily available for them and the intern told us that that is one of the ways to mitigate loss of number of bees.

In a sense, the VIP treatment of the bees make it seem like they are spoiled; the bees already have their home and food available for them. If the bees should think about swarming when the population gets too large, they have a vacant housing awaiting them, although the intern told me that swarming rarely occurs. I believe this just comes to show how important honeybees are to the industry and the economy. Honey is a magical food that never rots and a precious source of nutrients like minerals and vitamins. Bees mean a lot to us now, and it seems like we made them dependent on us, too. According to the intern, honeybees rarely goes far to forage (because food is in their house) and they rarely sting even when he sticks his bare hand in the nest. During the tour I talked about how honeybees have been tamed to produce more honey while being less aggressive; I thought I found a great example there.

At this point, I am proud to say that I was standing right by the entrance of bee hive, in the midst of hundreds of honeybees. It will sound odd, but they looked adorable with small and fuzzy bodies and not showing even a hint of hospitality towards me. Occasionally, some individual bees stopped and rested at my legs, and whether a sign of friendship or taste of curiosity, the sight of bees on my body without any pain eased the last bit of discomfort I had with them.

May 31st, 2012 2:30PM - 3:20 PM

It is already the final day of the fifth month of the year. At this point I'm not so sure whether I have not slept in every other day because I still write march instead of may for the month. If my mind is truly lagging, sometimes I fill in 2011 for the year. But the truth is out in the spring weather that is about to mature into summer. Although the day is quite gloomy like the typical winter Pacific Northwest weather, temperature is just about right to be wearing a t-shirt and something over it.
Is June really approaching, though? I still don't buy the argument; it cannot be the end of May already - I was going to study Portuguese, improve my guitar skills, and become a decent chef according to my new year's resolution, and none of these have been executed quite as well as I was hoping. Perhaps today is just an oddly warm day.

Despite my fierce struggle to go back in time, there is another evidence of spring on the University of Washington campus. If you are familiar to the campus at all, then you would know the UW farm, and possibly the bee hives kept for beekeeping. Make a visit and you would fine honeybees actively engaged in nectar collecting. You may have heard that spring is the season for insects (or something along the line) and bees are no exception. Only social bees can overwinter (see "Bees" entry for details on solitary and social bees) but even then, honeybees and bumblebees are vulnerable against cold; they can only maintain warmth owing to the honey production that creates heat. Back in April when we made a visit, hardly any bees were to be seen in the pouring rain that made me want to stay inside. Today was also a gloomy day, but those bees were cheerfully going about their business. For some reason, the sight of hard working bees carrying out their tasks made me happy. I'm glad they like what they are doing.

By this time I have accepted the fact that today was the day before June, and there is good reason for it. Bees are not only hardworking but also intelligent species - the type of species that would earn straight As if they were human students. Bees learn and they learn very efficiently to get to the food source more efficiently. Bees have a variety of learning methods; one of them involves memorizing colors. Bees cannot quite see the red end of the spectrum but they can see ultraviolet (so you can think that bees can detect shorter wavelengths than humans can). With time constraints, bees have an incentive to forage at flowers that provide them with the most reward. Flowers are colorful to attract their pollinators and thus bees memorize the color of the flower that they like. When they find a good foraging site, social bees engrave the location in their mind relative to their nest. Bees would then go back and communicate their share of information with their peers in the form of what humans see as a dance. Here's where it gets complicated because bees communicate the distance and direction of the type of their dance (waggling and circling) and the angle relative to the sun. Bees incorporate the sun because their nests are seldom parallel to the ground, creating the need to use the sun as a reference for the correct direction. I'm not quite sure what this means, but it ultimately indicates that bees have accurate internal compass, biological clock, and memory. Even in days like today with thick cloud cover, they trust the UV rays to detect where the sun is. So if they are out foraging, they convince me that it is that time of the year. Sailors used the sun and the moon to guide them? No big deal, the bees can easily do that and make a dance out of it.

Being smart also saves their lives, sometimes. Worker bees have to be productive in food collection since foraging time is limited, especially so if weather is not cooperating. They have got to be aggressive in their processes; they do not get quite the luxury to ponder about where to go and which flowers to choose. For this reason, bees don't mind humans (and us) standing around their bee hives - they are too busy to mind our presence (although several people seemed to be at discomfort standing near beehives). It is interesting to note that the monster that takes advantage of the bees' rush for time is the flower crab spider. Flower crab spiders are intriguing monsters that ambush for prey in or near flower by shifting its body color to the color of the flower! I have tried looking for them near the beehives but they were either not present or were camouflaging too well for me to spot. Some crab spiders would eat bees when bees dive into the flower. Research published in the Science News called "Robot Spiders vs. Bees" indicated that bees soon learn from their traumatic experience, giving a little more time to examine before they dive into a flower. The fight against crab spiders and bees is one of the natural survival scenes that I wish to observe one day.

After standing beside the beehive for an hour, I felt much more comfortable with the bees. I have mentioned that bees do not care about humans over their tasks, but this has been easier to say than take in. I have gotten stung by a bee in second grade and there is still a mark in my hand. Since then, I have learned not to mess with bees like how bees learn not to deal with crab spiders. Learning about bees have helped me overcome my shunning away from them; it has given me a sense of accomplishment similar to when I overcame the distaste for tomatoes.

Species List

genus Apis - Honeybee
genus Bombus - Bumblebee
family Thomisidae - Crab spider

May 26, 2012 7PM-9PM

As in most lowland Puget Sound ecosystem, the Arboretum has numerous conifers like western red cedar, western hemlock, ponderosa pine, shore pine, and douglas fir. As you may know, since coniferous trees are evergreen, scenery dominated by conifers rarely change drastically by seasons. It would be a strecth, though, to claim that the Arboretum is dominated by conifers. There is a whole series of deciduous plant species, native and nonnative to Puget Sound, that creates a beautiful visual harmony during seasons of change. I do not know how much human intervention there has been to shape the current balance of species at the Arboretum, and on UW campus for that matter. I imagine that there has been extensive planning on what species to introduce and where to locate them, as ecosystem is a fragile balance of species. Even though a coniferous forest has its own greatness, one could potentially say that it could be aesthetically boring. Deciduous trees play a huge role in attracting humans to the beauty of tree species, which is something that any arboretum would cherish.

Deciduous trees bring a half year cycle of color to forests. In spring time flowers bloom with pretty colors to attract pollinators. In autumn, deciduous leaves change color from wild green to cheerful yellow and passion red. Both spring and autumn are short seasons that I interpret to be a brief transition period to major super-seasons of summer and winter. The ephemeral of the beauty in these seasons only adds to the nostalgia and fantasy of the harmony of nature. For example, Japan has a tradition of celebrating spring blossoming with "hanami" and autumn foliage with "kouyou."

Examples of deciduous species in the Arboretum are red alder, vine maple, big leaf maple, Japanese maple, salmonberry, serviceberry, ocean spray, and the list goes on. Many of these species lose their leaves while they may be green, or leaves may turn spotty brown that symbolizes maturity. These leaves may become wrinkled compared to the young leaves that emerge in spring.
Big leaf maple and Japanese maple give a colorful ending before their leaves fall. Go type japanese maple in a search engine and you will be provided with breath-taking photos of colorful foliage. If that is not enough, add kiyomizu-dera to the search result to find the collaboration of a world heritage site with nature's incredible beauty. Compare that with the photo of japanese maple leaves synced with entry and it is pretty difficult to believe that they change colors completely. The nostalgia from looking at autumn color leaves skyrockets in the event of encounter with japanese maple for me, perhaps because they are so common in Japan but perhaps because they are one of the best beauty that nature could offer.

Hence, the arboretum provides a different face in fall and spring. It may seem that you would tilt your head up and see colors in autumn while you would look down in spring. Autumn visit to the arboretum may be emotional and soothing, while a visit in the spring is enthusiastic and cheerful with young generations emerging. I believe it is always a great opportunity to see two seasonal faces of the same place.

Species List

Thuja plicata - Western red cedar
Tsuga heterophylla - Western hemlock
Pinus ponderosa - Ponderosa pine
Pinus contorta - Shore pine (lodgepole pine)
genus Pseudotsuga - Douglas fir
Alnus rubra - Red alder
Acer circinatum - Vine maple
Acer macrophyllum - Big leaf maple
Acer palmatum - Japanese maple
Rubus spectabilis - Salmonberry
genus Amelanchier - Serviceberry
Holodiscus discolor - Ocean spray

May 26th, 2012 7PM -9PM

It is a warm, beautiful day that is suited for the weather of the first day of three day weekend. By this time of the year, spring is starting to fade and is gradually replaced by summer weather. I have been spending the day in a polo shirt and shorts as it has been the perfect temperature to be in such attire. In this beautiful day I decide to visit the UW arboretum, which is a property of the University of Washington but unfortunately not many people know about it. The UW arboretum is referred to by many names, like Washington Park Arboretum, which I believe to be the official one, and UW Botanic Gardens, which may be the umbrella name for UW arboretum and Center for Urban Horticulture combined. From the UW Seattle campus one would walk across the Montlake bridge or take the 43,48 bus to downtown and get off at Seattle Public Library Montlake branch. The UW arboretum website describes itself as "the hidden gem on the shores of Lake Washington," and I began to think that it is quite impressive that a 230 acre land of arboretum could be a hidden gem.

I have never truly gotten accustomed to the unit of acres. Supposedly 1 acre of land is roughly 4 square kilometers, therefore 230 acre arboretum is very roughly 920 square kilometers of land. Since the Union Bay Natural Area is approximately 50 acres, one can appreciate the size of the arboretum. The whole property has a wide collection of plants not only restricted but with an emphasis on native Northwest plants except for the Japanese Garden. In fact, I used to be involved in a project called Seattle Survey of Native Species when I volunteered for the Arboretum. The project, which I may discuss in other journal entry to compare the state of arboretum, was carried out during the fall of 2011. With different seasons it is only natural to observe plants in different stages of life.

If I were to obtain a birds-eye view of the property today, then I imagine that the area would be covered in healthy green. This consequently means that from ground-level the vast overstory cover shades sunlight and makes some ground pretty dark. Even though coniferous trees are fairly abundant in the park, such as ponderosa/shore pines, western red cedar, and giant sequioa, the vibrant maple leaves make a tremendous difference in the amount of sunshine penetrating through the overstory. Especially the big maple leaves have much more of surface area to block the sun, and therefore the arboretum felt a little cool in a t-shirt. The amount of overstory is one of the ways nature maintains balance in the ecosystem by preventing drastic temperature gradients.

Even then, the arboretum is cheerful with lots of understory shrubs and grass. It is impressive to find different species of plants named berries: snowberry, red huckleberry, evergreen huckleberry, salmonberry, sugarberry, bearberry, etc. I have only tasted the evergreen huckleberry and have had great experiences consuming it. Their berries are tiny and dark purple, almost like a small blueberry. They may taste like blueberries as well, but perhaps a little sour. Evergreen huckleberries are great for picking when you are hungry during a hike. I have heard about the vulnerability of crops and berries to cold weather, especially below zero with snow and frost, but evergreen huckleberries prefer cold and increase their sweetness after being exposed to below zero temperatures. I would assume that berries are producing more nutrients to protect themselves from harsh conditions that make them better tasting.

Another interesting berry is the California bearberry, which I go with the name kinnikinnick. They grow very low to the ground, with dark, small, and alternating leaves. Berries grow to be red but typically only grow to be about half as large as conventional blueberries. I have been told that kinnikinnicks are not much tasty, and I wonder if the berries are universally dissatisfying to all species or just to humans because apparently bears eat kinnikinnick, hence the name bearberry. Their preferred habitats include slightly disturbed areas such as right next to trails. Kinnikinnick does not require too much sunlight along with several of other shrubs - so it raises the question about how much sun do understory layers get at the Arboretum. My hypothesis would be not too much given the Pacific Northwest weather and the overstory coverage, and probably that understory are fairly dominated by species that do not require too much sun to flourish.

Species List

Pinus ponderosa - Ponderosa pine
Pinus contorta - Lodgepole (shore) pine
Sequoiadendron giganteum - Giant sequioa
Thuja plicata - Western red cedar
Acer macrophyllum - Big leaf maple
genus Symphoricarpos - Snowberry
Vaccinium parvifolium - Red huckleberry
Vaccinium ovatum - Evergreen huckleberry
Rubus spectabilis - Salmonberry
Celtis laevigata - Sugarberry
Arctostaphylos uva-ursi - California bearberry (kinnikinnick)
genus Vaccinium - Blueberry

May 16, 2012 5PM-7 30PM

The second of the sequence of the Union Bay Natural Area (UBNA) observations. It has been several weeks since my previous observation at UBNA. The day started out with chilly, fair weather, then gained sun as time progressed - by late afternoon/early evening I am sweating with a t-shirt and a jacket. Generally, the real feel of temperature at UBNA could go both ways depending on whether the sun is out. The location and the lowland marsh ecosystem makes UBNA breezy at times as the temperature gradient above water and land creates a pathway of wind. Because of this, the area could become shivering cold without sunshine. On the contrary, sunshine could significantly warm the area with not many objects to create shades. With the sun making its way by the time I arrived, the air felt significantly warmer, which meant that I was happy and so were the birds.

Birds are clearly abundant at UBNA. For example, I discussed about red-winged blackbirds in the previous journal entry, which I think to be the most typical bird species. They are in fact very abundant today, maybe more so than two weeks ago. I managed to observe another red-winged blackbird at a same tree (so possibly the same little boy that I took a photo last time). It might be my imagination that red-winged blackbirds are much more friendly today than they were a few weeks ago. If this is the case though, I would build two hypotheses. One might be that the blackbirds were in a period of breeding/reproduction during my visit in late April. Red-winged blackbirds usually incubate for about 12 days and take care of the chicks for another 12 days until offspring are ready to leave the nest. It would make sense for mother blackbirds to be nervous during the 2 week period of incubation or parenting. Another hypothesis builds upon the bird's seasonal migration habits. Red-winged blackbirds often leave marshes during winter to agricultural areas to peck on grains. The timing in which the birds come back to marshes vary, but late April could have been only a little time since they arrived. The birds may potentially be more wary of their surroundings during the first few weeks of seasonal migration.

But overall I find that some species are "greener" than before. The tall tree (that I do not know its name) synced with this journal entry has given me an impression that it is much more vibrant. Some are taller instead, like the Equisetum telmateia growing near the edge of the land along the Union Bay.

Since I went so deep into red-winged blackbirds in today and April's UBNA entries, I think it is only fair to put spot light onto other species. The great blue heron, which I saw both times resting under a tree growing at an edge of a marsh, is a quite large swan that almost looks like a pelican. Initially I thought it was a pelican due to the light violet body color and large body size that probably reaches a meter of wingspan. I believe they like to avoid sun unlike many other species of their kind, but this is the perception that I have built over the two opportunities of observation. They could very well be feeding on small organisms in water instead of just avoiding the sun. The most interesting component is that even though blue herons are so large, they seem to appear out of nowhere all of a sudden and so gracefully. They seem to prefer shallow water and slow moving rivers, but I can only think of the Union Bay where they could be coming from.

Last but not least, I saw a big and dark creature making a huge sound near the Union Bay coast, which I believe it to be a beaver. It was carrying a big branch on a ground - branch way larger than itself - to the bay where it was probably building its nest. There was a clear path after the beaver left, which indicated how big and heavy the branch was and how powerful the beaver's teeth are to carry that into the water. Being it the first time I have seen a beaver, I could not distinguish what it was for a while, especially because its fur was wet and flat. Once the beaver successfully entered the water it swam smoothly, controlling its path so that the branch did not hit other branches in the water already.

Species List

Agelaius phoeniceus - Red-winged blackbird
Equisetum telmateia - Equisetum telmateia
Ardea herodias - Great blue heron
genus Castor - Beaver

April 23rd, 4PM-6 30PM

The first of the probably few sequences of journal entries on Union Bay Natural Area (UBNA), which is the second largest natural habitat around the Union Bay. UBNA is under habitat restoration by the University of Washington. I have posptponed publishing this entry since I wanted the UBNA entries to have a back to back linear progression on the website. This entry is from April 23rd, a beautiful spring afternoon with aqua blue sky and some fluff of clouds. During the hours of my natural world experience, which happened to be the warmest time of the day, the real feel of temperature was somewhere around 65 degrees Fahrenheit. Under the sun and without breeze, a thin layer of long sleeve t-shirt and jeans is a suitable attire.

In the wake of spring, the UBNA is gaining enthusiasm from creatures awakening from a long winter break. The most energetic are the birds, which makes sense because these species never truly hibernate and therefore have gotten a jump start at enjoying the beautiful spring weather. If I were to stand still and close my eyes, I could have heard three or four different bird calls at one moment. The combination of bird calls create a harmony of spring theme melody that for some reason makes me feel at home, but at the same time it gives a novice naturalist like me a hard time to distinguish who has what voice and where it is calling from. Clearly the loudest call was from the red-winged blackbird though, and entrusting my ears I was able to encounter multiple of these species. It was not so much about the noise level of their calls but more about the unique, almost machine-like call that made them so distinct from the rest of the calls. Their calls have a special accent to it that if all the birds at UBNA were to formulate an orchestra the red-winged blackbirds would be playing the trumpet, or if it the birds decide to do a band instead the blackbirds would assume a role of a main vocalist. The red-winged blackbirds have a high pitched voice that sounds like "kur-eeeee" with the "eeee" giving the impression of a phlegm tangled in a throat (but not displeasing to hear). It sounds so mechanical that initially I thought it was some machine making the calls and I wondered what machine would be so necessary in UBNA to be so numerous. The most interesting discovery was that red-winged blackbirds are able to chirp as well, which I believe to be their alarming calls to caution their fellow members. Their chirping is quite short with constant intervals like a staccato G quarter note (is what I think, I do not have the musical talent to really assess what note is closest to red-winged blackbirds' chirps). I believe they have a certain radius of invisible territory that they pay extra attention to - whenever I sneaked up close to a certain distance to one of the red-winged blackbirds he started to do the cautioning chirps, even though the bird was sitting on a treetop beyond my reach. At one point I almost figured out where the territorial boundaries are by taking half a step back and forth to see whether he chirped or not, until the bird found me as a surprisingly strange human being so he began chirping no matter what.

Focusing my attention besides the red-winged blackbirds, I find that some trees are yet to foliage, leaving the last glimpse of winter in the area. For example, the tree that the red-winged blackbird is resting (photo synced to this journal entry) is still working its way to full foliage. But trees are not dominant, in fact the ecosystem at UBNA is quite interesting and variety-rich. I would assume that in one word UBNA would qualify as a lowland marsh, but it is amusing to find landscapes change quite significantly by just a turn of a head. Looking straight from the trail where many runners use as their running course, I would see the Union Bay. Turn my head right and there is a marsh; turn my head left and there are tall trees that could be a lowland forest. Between the trail and the trees are turfs that have grown quite long and shrubs with some colorful flowers. It is like a gradient from an absolutely flat marsh to grass to shrubs to tall standing trees. However, it seems like birds enjoy the water of the marsh, as I also saw an american crow bath in the water, scaring some smaller birds away with the sound of splash.

Species List

Agelaius phoeniceus- Red-winged blackbird

May 12, 2012 8AM - 6PM UW Seattle - Gold Bar - Index Road - Money Creek Campground - Leavenworth - UW Seattle

Contrary to the weather forecast by local news networks predicting for an absolutely beautiful day, the day of Saturday, May 12, 2012 introduced a fair but not a gorgeous morning. Precisely, the sky had enough sunlight making it through the thin and scattered clouds to make a pair of sunglasses a worthwhile entity (a pair of sunglasses on a dark, cloudy day becomes a worthless object). At 8-o-clock in the morning the air is chilly to be walking outside with a t-shirt, unless if you were speed walking hurriedly to the designated meeting spot to catch the van like I was.

The van ride from UW Seattle Campus to Gold Bar was approximately an hour and ten minutes, so the time was 9:10AM when we arrived. The air was still below 60 degrees, I suppose, at Gold Bar and certainly fresh, even though I would not know if the air was truly fresh or if that was just my imagination after sitting in a crammed van for long.
With the car cruising past miles of land on freeways, it certainly gave me an inaccurate prejudice that the local ecosystem in Gold Bar must be quite different from that in Seattle. In fact the ecosystem was somewhat different, but the difference most likely originated due to Gold Bar being a floodplain. Trees were fairly scattered and allowed for ground stories to develop quite extensively once off the graveled main track, including pacific crabapples, japanese knotweeds, bracken ferns, and dogwood. Many trees exposed their roots in the floodplain regions to get nutrients. Almost everything was green, which is to say that not many colorful flowers appealed their presence. The presence of Japanese knotweed was particularly strong. This invasive species seemed to appear at the edges of grassline and thus making a strong impression on me. Only a knee to thigh tall with leaves the size of a person's hand, the Japanese knotweed for some reason has a curled and knotty look to it, even though nothing about it makes a knot in reality. The biggest question, though was whether I had ever seen a Japanese knotweed in Japan because I do not recall seeing such a knotted plant over there. Japan is a vertically long island, so it could very well may be that knotweeds exist higher up in the latitude than where Tokyo is. It would be interesting to go look the next time I return to Japan.

At the next stop at Index Road, the landscape introduced a denser tree pack. On many of the trees like western hemlock and big leaf maple, licorice fern were widespread - these ferns apparently have a reverse cycle of a regular deciduous tree, in which they flourished in winter when moisture is abundant. At ground level, the false lily of the valley covered extensively. False lily of the valley have a spade shape of a playing card suit, and when compared to common ivy they are a slightly taller and greener. Their extensive presence is a surprise because there seemed to be more trees than Gold Bar and hence less sunlight making it through to the ground and yet the understory was pretty extensive.

At Money Creek Campground, there were a lot more lichen to be found. One of them was Platysma glauca, a huge piece of lichen in one of the photos synced to this journal. With a light emerald green color on the front and black on the back, Platysma glauca are very pollution tolerant. Hence they can be found in the Seattle area, although not as big of a size as the ones found in clean environments. Another lichen I found was the Hypogymnia imshaugii, with a common name forked tube lichen. They are in fact a tube; there is air space that has white spore on the inside. Perhaps more lichen indicates that Money Creek gets more rainfall than does the two previous stops.

Finally at Leavenworth, there are species common to Eastern Washington that are not as common in the western counterpart, now that we passed the Cascades. The very first thing to note was that the trees turned coniferous from deciduous in the Cascade forests. Ponderosa pine now appeared right and left. At the understory level, repant oregon grape found its way to be recorded as the third oregon grape species in my field notebook. If dull oregon grape is shorter than tall oregon grape, than repant oregon grape was even shorter, having its own time near a ponderosa pine bark. The yellow flower and its overall shape reminded me of a dandelion. Also balsamroot seemed to be flourishing - their beautiful yellow flowers and scent seem to attract bees like a magnet. I saw at least five bees enjoying their time near a balsamroot, which is pretty peculiar unless there exists a bee hive nearby, which there were not. Bees were numerous, but so were wasps too. Family sphecidae were hovering near ground looking for preys - they were a number of them if you looked closely. These wasps were not big though, perhaps just slightly larger than a bumblebee. Since lizards were abundant in the area as well, I wonder if those wasps ever prey on lizards.

Species List

genus Malus - Crabapple
Fallopia japonica - Japanese knotweed
genus Pteridium - Bracken fern
genus Cornus - Dogwood
Tsuga heterophylla - Western hemlock
Acer macrophyllum - Big leaf maple
Polypodium glycyrrhiza - Licorice fern
Maianthemum dilatatum - False lily of the valley
Platysma glauca - Platysma glauca
Hypogymnia imshaugii - Hypogymnia imshaugii
Pinus ponderosa - Ponderosa pine
Mahonia repens - Repant (creeping) oregon grape
Mahonia nervosa - Dull oregon grape
Mahonia aquifollium - Tall oregon grape
genus Taraxacum - Dandelion
genus Balsamorhiza - Balsamroot
amily Sphecidae - Wasps
genus Bombus - Bumblebee
suborder Lacertilia - Lizards

Bees are yellow and black, they make a buzzing sound when they fly, they make honey, they sting, they have a bee hive, and they can trigger life threatening allergic reactions for some people. That pretty much ends the list of the common conceptions of bees, which, therefore is all the knowledge I had. Many of these knowledge scared me a little; whenever I see a flying object in yellow and black, whenever I hear a buzzing noise, or whenever I feel a sting I think it may be a bee and sweat. However, knowing a lot more about bees made me like them a little more, thanks to the great knowledge provided by Evan Sugden.

Evan Sugden is a part time professor at the University of Washington (I believe!) and he is an astounding expert of insects. He occasionally teaches an entomology class at the University, while he is also a beekeeper at the beehive at UW farm.

First off, Evan described the very basic distinction between wasps and bees is that wasps are predators that feed on insects and arthropods, while bees feed on plants. Wasps are relatively larger and more aggressive - the guys you necessarily do not want to mess around. The wasps would not be afraid to sting you. On the contrary, bees are gentle; often times they would not attack you unless you aggressively molest them. This is especially true when bees are feeding on flower nectar since they become so concentrated on collecting the precious food source that they are not easily bothered by whatever happens in the surroundings.

Evan also introduced that all bees are types of wasps. I found this quite surprising as somehow I imagined the order of evolution to be the other way around. I reasoned that pretty much all the traits of wasps: larger bodies, aggressive behaviors, louder buzzing, and brighter yellow and red colors evolved from bees in order to induce fear to other species. However, as mentioned before, bees evolved from wasps for a good reason. The reason lies in the characteristic that separates bees from wasps, which is that bees feed on flowers. Back in time, it made sense for certain wasps to specialize on collecting food from plants, taking advantage of plants' immobility and less competition with other wasps. The plants welcomed bees as great pollinators. As a result of the mutalism formed one of the most important coevolutions in the natural world between plants and bees. Apparently, coevolution led bees to develop furry hairs on their bodies to capture more nectar and pollen.

Within bee species, there are what are called social bees and solitary bees. The names are pretty self-explanatory; social bees include honeybees and bumblebees that hive by packs. Each hive has a queen bee that lays all the eggs for the hive at an incredible rate; two or three per day. What is more interesting is that queen bee only has a week or two of a time span to mate with males from other hives. This period is essential since queen bees use the sperm gained during this period to give birth for the rest of the year.

We tend to associate bees with honey, but it is only the honeybee that produces honey. Bumblebees do as well but less efficiently. Honeybee is especially vulnerable against cold, so they make honey to generate heat so that their nest remains warm. It is the process of making honey that generates heat, not the honey itself. Honey comes from nectar, which then, to my astonishment, bees fan the water to evaporation with their wings until only the sugar remains. Bees can flap their wings about 230 times per second (obviously depends on the species and individuals of bees) and it is this ultra fast wing movement that evaporates the nectar into honey (and it is also this wing movement that causes the buzzing sound). Honeybees are not that big in size compared to other bees and much less so than humans, so one can only imagine that fanning water to evaporation is a huge labor. Translate their worth of labor to human accounts; it would be like being told to evaporate a sugar water in a frying pan with a traditional fan. I simply think honeybees' production of honey is unbelievable.

By the way, bees sleep as well. They sleep in and out of their hives depending on age, but some bees are found sleeping on flowers.

For more interesting bee facts, check UW bees on google blogger.

Species list

genus Bombus - bumblebee
genus Apis - honeybee
suborder Apocrita - wasps

Burke Museum at the University of Washington
April 26, 2012 13:30-15:20

This day we continue to examine bird specimens at the Burke Museum.

Birds have evolved in an amazing manner to increase their fitness. Their ultimate goal is to survive and reproduce so that their genes get passed on to their offspring. In order to realize this goal birds will undertake almost anything, including potentially immoral sex and treachery in the human world. But eventually they all face death.

First of all, dimorphism refers to different features between males and females due to sexual selection. For example, often times males have a distinct and brighter physical feature to attract females. Males are usually larger as well to prove their masculinity and toughness - a physical and heritable trait that is desirable for their offspring to have so that their genes could cross eternal generations. Dimorphism is a type of sexual selection, a type of evolution that puts at an advantage those individuals who are sexually fit. However, many times in exchange sexual selection is counteracted by natural selection, such as increased chances of predation, as larger bodies with distinct patterns stand out for predators to see. To mitigate the negative impact of sexual selection, many birds have adapted so that patterns start to emerge during the breeding season. Again, spatial archives at the museum allows to investigate changes over time, as mentioned in the previous journal entry. When birds with seasonal sexual selection are lined up by the time of year, the patterns of changes in their physical features become apparent.

Stronger, larger, and more distinctive males get to enjoy reproduction. The competition is fierce, partially because there is no law or morals that accompany relationships like humans do. Desirable males may get multiple breeding partners while others get none. Since it is the female that takes care of their offspring for most species, males look to breed with many as possible, while females pick and choose their partner. This characteristic apparently applies to humans as well; men like to flirt with several women whereas women pick and choose a single attractive man.

As mentioned above, females often incubate eggs until they hatch but some species, like the cuckoo. Cuckoos drop their eggs in other birds nest, basically to get free babysitting without permission. It is not quite known whether birds that were dropped a cuckoo egg in their nest, or the free babysitters, realize that there happens to be an extra egg in the nest. In many cases though, the cuckoo chick gets fed just like others for many reasons. One, birds rely on the chirping of chicks as signals to feed. In other words, that is the cue for parent birds to provide food into chicks' mouths. There are not too much variation in chirping between species, so all chirping chicks get equally fed. Secondly, birds must be strong to survive in the fierce wild. In order to realize the goal to pass on their heritage, parents may be biased to feed the larger chick, which is the cuckoo. Third, one must be overwhelmingly confident that a child in your house is not your own to throw him out forever. You could imagine how this may be when human infants get mixed up - parents may feel as if there is something not right about the baby, but you would have to be very sure to throw him out (or talk to the hospital). In addition, smaller birds like the warbler are not big enough to hold and remove the cuckoo egg between their beaks even if they do realize that it does not belong. Warblers then try to pierce through, then to realize that cuckoo eggs are very tough to strike. Cuckoos go back to their true parents nest when they grow up large enough.

To do some justice, though, there are many cases in which cuckoo birds do not get their desired outcomes. Since they are larger than other birds' eggs, they chirp with a larger volume for food, which in turn makes them more vulnerable to predators. And in some cases, the parents do carry the cuckoo bird out of the nest.

I have already mentioned this a couple of times, but since birds are not bound by ideas of morality and law, it is quite amazing to learn how they go about increasing their fitness. I am pretty sure that I am not the minority who is amazed, in fact, there are lots of dramas and telenovelas that feature sex and treachery as main themes. I believe one of the reasons why we may think that a world with rampant sex and treachery is amusing is because humans still have that instinct. Humans would probably act the same way if unregulated. And it would be interesting to see how humans would evolve in a world of birds; if some class of humans would specialize in treachery like the cuckoo.

Species list

family Cuculidae - Cuckoo bird
Dendroica petechia - Yellow warbler
Dendroica occidentalis - Hermit warbler