May 9, 2012

Location: The finch, heron, and horsetail were all from the UW Seattle campus. The Northern Flicker and the Pileated Woodpecker were both found at the Washington Park Arboretum.

Route: The purple finches were flitting around near the Physics and Astronomy building, but I've seen them all over campus, so there is no one route to follow where one will see them every time. The heron baby was located in the heron rookery near the chemistry buildings, which can be reached by heading down the path from the fountain towards the copse of trees. The field horsetail was located beneath a tree in the UW medicinal herb garden that can be reached by merely exiting the copse from the other side.

Weather: The weather that day was bright and sunny for most of the day. It was about 65 degrees Fahrenheit all day and there was no cloud cover until around seven o'clock in the evening. There was a slight breeze and the lighting was excellent for taking pictures.

Habitat: The habitat of the areas I found the finch, heron, and horsetail in has been outlined in many of my past journals. As for the Washington Park Arboretum, the areas I visited were nearly entirely forest habitats. There were a few ponds scattered here and there where waterfowl could be found, but that was only difference in habitat I saw. The area is very neat and trimmed. Many of the plant species were clearly put there by humans, as a lot of them were not native to the state. In terms of animals, birds were the only common sight in the forest. The Northern Flicker and the Pileated Woodpecker were the most notable sightings, as the rest were common Mallards and Gadwalls in the ponds and Song Sparrows in woods hopping along the ground looking for food. There were also crows and hummingbirds throughout the entire area as well as some other birds calling out from the tree tops that I could not identify. I encountered squirrels twice in my entire visit (that was the reason I went in the first place, as it was for my class project), but they were both extremely skittish and would not let me get within ten feet of them before running up a tree. The one squirrel I did get close to was up in a small Japanese maple tree and was notable because it had enormous testicles, something I needed to observe for the aforementioned project. I got to see it mark its territory in the tree (or maybe it was just relieving itself, I'm not really sure). In any case, these were the only animals I witnessed that day, and the two birds I documented on iNaturalist were the most important. I saw the Northern Flicker first. I was looking for food in the grass next to the edge of the Arboretum. I thought it was a female Mallard at first by its coloration, but then I saw that it was much smaller and was clearly something else entirely. It flew into a large Douglas fir before I could get closer and observe its behavior a little longer, however. The Pileated Woodpecker came as I was leaving the Arboretum. I glimpsed it flying from across a clearing from one conifer to another just off the path. I then observed it for awhile as it climbed up and down the trunk of the conifer it was in looking for a spot to peck at. It was much larger than I expected and I was captivated by its striking red crown. There was a "beach" type area on the other side of the Arboretum that I did not explore that day, as I did not expect to find anything, so that's pretty much it for the habitat at that area. It is, essentially, one big forest where different plant species from all over the world are shown off to visitors.

Vegetation: The forest at the Arboretum is primarily deciduous, though there is a smattering of conifers across the area. All the major trees are at least 30 to 40 feet tall and made excellent places for the birds and squirrels to hide. The ground was covered with an even distribution of things like western sword fern, ivy, and flowering plants. It is extremely important to note that just about everything here is planted, which is obvious from the fact that almost none of it beyond the large trees is native. The large trees are mostly bigleaf maple, Douglas firs, and western red cedars. The smaller trees and the shrubs are almost all non-natives and all had tags on them denoting species, so it seemed like cheating to take pictures of them and put them on iNaturalist. This is why I only have two observations from that day. The ponds had only two main aquatic plant species in them: algae and lily pads. They were surrounded only by grass and more small shrubs. The flowering plants largely consisted of brightly colored azaleas of all kinds that were clearly put there for their aesthetic value. They were on one side of the path for nearly the entire length of my journey through the Arboretum and it was clear they were very popular with the bumble bees.

General Comments: I don't really have much to say about the observations made earlier this day. I've talked about the UW many times and I want to branch out beyond it in my journal entries. I've decided that, from now on, I'm only going to write journals about species I see at UW if it is from a class visit or if I see something really unusual in a place I haven't really talked about before (which will be hard because I've talked about most places at the UW in past entries). The Arboretum is certainly not a place to look for native species. While there were a few of them among the planted shrubs and smaller trees, many more of those were non-natives put there for both aesthetic value and to educated people on plants of the world. It is a good place for birds, however, as they love the tall trees and ponds. I got to see two species I had never seen before, so I'm happy with how the trip went. I went looking for squirrels originally and I did get to see how their behavior at a more wild place like the arboretum differed from squirrel behavior at the UW. I wonder why they are so much more skittish when they still encounter plenty of people in their habitat and still take food from them. I also wonder what other mammals live at the Arboretum, because, if they are there, I didn't see them. I'm sure raccoons, opossums, and other smaller mammals make their homes there, but I doubt larger things like deer do. I am sure that, if I were to go there at night, I would see some interesting things.

Species List:
Purple Fince (Carpodacus purpureus)
Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias)
Field Horsetail (Equisetum arvense)
Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus)
Pileated Woodpecker (Drycopus pileatus)

Posted on May 20, 2012 08:30 AM by tessaf