Journal Entry 19

5/12/12 and 5/15/12

Location(s): UW campus and home (about 25 miles north)

It’s both interesting and sad to see what I miss everyday walking by some of the places and never notice. For example, there are a variety of beautiful trees, especially a particular madrone, that I pass by and never really appreciate. These plants help build the campus environment, but with so much focused on classes, one misses the little things. The English Ivy, which I found a lot of, I probably would not miss as much because it is everywhere. However, I notice that the Ivy can be found crawling up the sides of many buildings! This adds to the buildings’ beauty, but Ivy is still invasive. There were also a few duck wandering around the grass by Drumheller fountain eating and enjoying the sunny day. They were mostly male mallards, with a few females. Cedar, Douglas Fir, and Elm trees were also in the areas underneath and on either side of the fountain, (the areas surrounding the grass field south of the fountain).

Home: One day while in my back yard, my family noticed something caught in the netting of one of our ponds. This turned out to be a rather large garter snake! It was rather calm as I handled it to free it, and even stuck around awhile in the sun on a rock after it’s release. It was mostly black, but had some pale cyan-like markings. This snake was either very health or older because it was about 2 feet long (possible longer) which is on the large scale of the garter snakes I have seen in the area. Also found, in the other pond, was a frog. He had reddish brown skin and little black and dark brown splotches all over. Underneath was a pale yellowish green and red around the legs. I have never seen tadpoles in either of my ponds so I can only figure he comes from the stream in the nature preserve. A long hope for such a small creature, it’s amazing the distances they can travel, and the metamorphosis they go through.

Posted on June 5, 2012 07:29 AM by lmiyamoto