Diario de jenstr

Always a spectacular location with terrific wildlife and dramatic views to accompany pleasant hiking. Gazing at the sky post-picnic brought us views of high-altitude migrating Snow Geese, along with soaring but lower eagles and osprey. Several Oystercatchers entertained us along the shoreline, and we watched an otter for a long time as it swam in the kelp and rested on a rock.

Speaking of rocks - we were on the serpentinite rocks brought up from the earth's mantle! This is not only cool, it affects what grows on Juniper point. Juniper, of course, but also several interesting little wildflowers, which I grabbed photos of today (not meant as a naturalist outing, but a bit of one nonetheless).

https://nwgeology.wordpress.com/the-fieldtrips/fidalgo-ophiolite-part-1-a-bit-of-the-mantle-at-washington-park-anacortes/

A few quick observations around the south ridge trail near the Norcross entrance. I notice someone has removed the sign indicating the quite unobtrusive path into the park between the houses here - over time I've definitely gotten the sense someone local prefers that this path not be well-known. Which just tends to increase my desire to use it.

While sitting taking photographs of fungi I heard a woodpecker and saw the female hairy I've seen here before. I got a decent video which of course can't be posted here, and attempted a few phone shots, but she was well off the path and it was quite dark there today.

I'm also curious about the liverwort, which I've only been able to find growing on the treated wood used for steps on the dirt path. Does it prefer this wood? Or is the dark, wet side of stairs on pressure treated wood one of the only places where it's not out-completed for space? A mystery, like almost everything else I observed. Hoping some others shed light where they can on IDs.

It's been a blast to explore around my own neighborhood lately - one because there are so many wonderful insects visiting my flowering herbs, and two because I've acquired a digital microscope and am learning how to start preparing specimens and exploring the micro-world. There's nothing like watching a protozoan attack something else, repeatedly, until that thing falls apart and you aren't sure what you just saw!

Nevertheless, I made some guesses in the hopes someone will correct/guide me.

Last week we had the opportunity to join several friends at what is best described as adult summer camp out on Hood Canal, near Belfair. Not many observations from there, as it was no-phone time, but a couple of great finds. One was that with Belfair State Park at the very shallow and long end of the canal, the temp of the salt water was in the upper 60s (to my feel) near shore, and over 70 at the surface. For those of us used to the Puget Sound, that's warm indeed. It was also extremely salty, and very little grew in the water or on the shore. It occurred to me that such conditions were perfect for "sea beans", so when I dried off, I walked over to a patch of green, and voila, there they were! Found in iNat as "pickleweeds" and known as Salicornia. State park, so no foraging, but I hope to find a good, accessible patch someday a bit earlier in the season to take some home.

Heading out of Belfair, I saw a terrific Virginia Tiger Moth who stayed still and let me get nice and personal for a series of photos. We drove north along the canal, through Poulsbo and Kingston and all the way to Hansville where we visited the Foulweather Bluff Nature Preserve and Point No Point. Happy to see some of my favorite mollusk shells on the beach and to observe tiny berries blooming on the native blackberry. And some absolutely gorgeous Madrone. Osprey entertained us at PNP, joining in for the start of Salmon season, and I finally learned what those yellow beach "thistles" are.

Lots of fascinating life out in the lower intertidal zone visible the last couple of days during the very low tides (-3.5 or more) over the last couple of days. I was able to go out with a group from my Naturalist course on Sunday at Constellation Park at Alki, and had so much fun I popped down to Golden Gardens this morning as well.

Constellation is clearly the best "bang for buck" tidal exploring due to a long rock jetty that protrudes well into the water even at very low tide, allowing for several different species to find hidden-holes and rocky areas on which to hold. I found several Lined Chitons early on, which then people were teasing me about, as I was always the one to spot them. We found the beautiful blue undershell of a deceased Mossy Chiton, something I've never seen. I also lucked into finding a Horned Nudibranch turning over a Moon Snail Egg Case - luckily Renee was right there to help me ID the nudie and share it around. I came home with a lot of questions about different types of seaweed and a strong wish to get more educated about the animals and algae that live in our intertidal zone.

I was intrigued that we found relatively few Orange Sea Cucumbers at Constellation, but lots of chiton. Whereas at Golden Gardens we found an absolute plethora of Cukes but very few chiton. Trying to consider what the differences might be. The Constellation beach faces south and there were several rocks all together in the breakwater. At GG the rocks are quite scattered and the beach faces north. I'd love to know what kinds of conditions favor each species.

We had a lovely hike out from the Middle Fork Snoqualmie campground along the connector trail and then up Garfield Ledges. It is still gloriously bright green along the road out, and there are still native bleeding hearts blooming along the trail entrances. Up through Garfield Ledges there were several old growth stumps bearing new growth of primarily hemlocks. As we got to near the tree line on Garfield Mtn (not from elevation but due to sheer rocky face), the wood became almost entirely thin hemlocks, all trying to beat each other out for the sun and the right to grow large as the forest moves into the second century after clearcut logging there, Already there are failed combatants littering the floor. The view at the ledge looking back down the Middle Fork Snoqualmie Valley is incredible, I wish there was a way to post it here.

Found a bunch of interesting things on the way down, mostly, as I was looking around more at that point. Lovely mosses, including a leafy moss (probably dotted-thyme but could easily be something else related) that almost seemed like a liverwort initially. Terrific British soldier and fishhook lichen, deer fern finally out and proud, and some funky fungi, including a Bolete I'd like to know more about. Always fun to get a closeup of animals, so in addition to lots of Swainson's Thrush and Pacific Wren song, we saw a millipede (I think I always find at least one on this trail!) and a couple of large and fairly fearless garter snakes by the river.

Add in a nice riverside picnic and perfect sunny-but-cool hiking weather and it all adds up to a fun and productive day nature-spotting.

I have an ambivalent relationship with the artistic side of "nature journaling". It's become clear to me that the act of sketching something found in the natural world makes a significant difference in how closely you look at it and how well you remember it. So I find it extremely helpful. However, much of what is called nature journaling that you may encounter online shows these impressively designed and presented drawings, paintings, and lettering that it feels like some kind of sacrilege to sully my notebook with my own feeble attempts. There are terrific tutorials online from many artists (John Muir Laws and Jed Dunkerley's are my current favorites) but sometimes I feel more distracted by the need to make some kind of art and realize I'm following their guides but not looking at the actual specimen. Which is fine for learning technique but difficult to translate into my own work sometimes. And let's not even discuss the issues of attempting to draw or paint in the field!

All that said, I am sorry that the Introduction to the Natural World course doesn't have at least some small section on keeping a naturalist's journal, sketches or not. I can see why - there really isn't a perfect option for it. We are encouraged to use apps to identify and learn about plants and animals (and it is much handier than carrying multiple hard guides). Some of them even keep a running life-list for you. The handiest ones use AI and crowd-sourcing to help ID and keep a list, iNat being the top in this area. As I've started posting more observations I struggle to find people to help ID some of the less obvious organisms. But a trick I've found is to post something wrong - at first I was just trying to get the correct family or genus, but I've found if you post a species as a guess you are more likely to get someone who is excited to correct you, heh. Though I worry about possibly contributing incorrect info that way.

I wish there was a good way to add sketches to the journal. I suppose one could add sketches as, or to, observations, but I'm not sure how well that would go over. I've been taking a shot at drawing some of these garden buddies over the last couple of days.

About 8 weeks has elapsed since I last walked in Carkeek, and so many of the plants that were barely out in April have now already surpassed their bloom time, although there was enough around to see what had been, if not in full flower. Got one nice shot of the lovely Youth-on-Age bloom.

We entered at Norcross and immediately heard a bunch of birds, most of which we couldn't see but which Merlin helped ID. Along with the usual robins, song sparrows, towhees and crows, we heard Swainson's thrush, Pacific-slope flycatcher, nuthatch, creeper, chestnut-backed chickadees and Wilson's warblers. We also heard and saw ravens almost certainly protecting a nest/encouraging fledgelings. Merlin believes ravens are uncommon here, but really they aren't - occasionally they even fly over our house in Ballard. Most of these birds didn't show themselves, and even the robins and sparrows aren't interested in our crummy iPhone photography, so all of these are instead uploaded to Merlin.

I had a wish to find some liverwort and I saw some crescent-cup immediately on the wet side of the park on some mossy stairs. On the drier north-side trails, we came across a deer - she wasn't especially concerned though she kept well ahead of us and headed off on a deer path as we continued on ours.

Also on the dry side I found what I believe to be red root rot (porodaedalea) on a Douglas fir. A light scratch on the underside did not show a persistent dark mark. Contrast this with one of the many artist's conks I saw on the wet site (downed leaf maple) which did easily mark.

Last week I had the chance to wander the lower intertidal zone of Golden Gardens during the extreme (-3.7) low tide on June 6. In general I don't think of GG as a great spot to tide pool, but at that depth one could actually find some interesting things.

It was cool to see a very young (if dead) Dungeness crab and to find some tucked away anemones in the sand and alongside eelgrass beds. I also got a nice look at some less found giant kelp - the holdfast at the bottom of the algae. Moon snails and cockles left detritus behind as well.

Hoping to make it to Constellation over at Alki for the next super low tides in July - they won't be quite as low, but over there there will likely be more to see.

Finally able to take this course this year. I'm looking forward to spending a fair amount of time learning about the geology and flora of Washington state (at least through the eastern edge of the Cascades) during this program, as I feel more knowledgeable about local birds (less face it, there aren't nearly as many!) and because plants generally hold still while one fumbles to photograph them, which is truly NOT the case with most fauna.

I've been struck by moss and lichen and am collecting all sorts of photos as I wander and am attempting to at least find a family for each one - not easy as so many need to be viewed under a microscope or at least a dissecting scope to really get specifics, and I'm not sure I know how to see all of the differentiators yet anyhow. But I've got my handlens and a loupe and will make some attempts.

Fun things today are Enchanter's Nightshade, and extremely modest little plant for the name, and finally getting some good photos of Lady Fern, which just wasn't far enough unfurled 2 weeks ago when I went through Carkeek Park.