Time of Day: 2pm- 3pm
Weather: Clear blue skies, Sunny Spring day
Temperature: about 74 degrees Fahrenheit
It was a gorgeous day to be out enjoying nature! There was many birds out chirping and I was able to spot a couple today around my site. I saw many American Crows, and smaller birds as well but they were to quick for me to identify. I was able to head to the beach part of Lincoln Park to enjoy some of the nice weather by the water. As I found a dry drift log to sit on, I looked around the area where I sat and saw a female Mallard duck sitting about 2 feet away from with 6 little ducklings nearby. I was so excited to see ducklings, they were just the cutest ducklings ever. I watched them closely for about 15 minutes as they walked across the pavement to reach the lawn area. As what seems to me like the ducklings were feeding, an american crow was nearby and began to find it's way closer and closer the the ducklings, but the mother duck was able to scare the crow away for the time being.
Back to my location, I was able to spot a lot of new plants that were growing or the same plants blooming. I never noticed this before, but a lot of the understory had a plant that had leaves as whorls and in the middle there was single thin stems the held a flower with pedals of 6, it looks similar to a Starflower?, but at the same time im not quite sure. For awhile at my site I thought Bracken was a certain type of fern, but no there is just a lot of bracken. I checked on the same thimbleberry and salmonberry to see if they grew any more flowers or started growing their berries. The thimbleberry has finally grew it's white pretty flowers, but not berries yet. The salmonberry has lost most of it's flowers and started to grow berries and a couple berries have ripped (at least in color). The Indian Plum seemed to get a little taller but not by much, and the elderberry has not yet gotten it's berries but it seems that it has been cut or trimmed or some disturbance to the tree/shrub. I also noticed a couple little bald-hipped rose starting to grow, and one in particular at my site that was quite large and had bloomed it's flowers already. I think I mistaken this bald-hipped rose, on week 4 for a Nootka Rose. The thorns were more fine than armored and sharp like the ones on a Nootka Rose.
Repeat picture of my location
There was a lot of these plants in the understory, possibly Starflower?
Thorns and leaves of the bald hipped rose (smaller plant)
Thimbleberry starting to form its flowers or berries
Salmonberry! with it's berries starting to ripe
Some more Salmonberry with its berries
bald hipped rose flower!
Thimbleberry flowers!
female mallard duck and her ducklings!
It was very hard to find invertebrates in my location, maybe I was not looking in the right places but I was able to find at least 3 !
Possibly a banana slug. I found this slug inside of an old snag or old tree that has fallen down. It was yellow in color and didn't quite have a lot of black spots like most banana slugs but it did have some black lines or dots on its body, though they weren't very apparent. The slug's eyes were stalked or were attached to antenna-like form that was part of its front of the body. This slug was not very active while I was observing.
I found this pillbug under a nearby log or branch by the fallen tree. It was probably feeding on the log because pillbugs tend to like moist damp areas like the underside of this log. If I tried to touch the pillbug, it would roll up into a ball, which I like to call them "rollie pollie ollies". They have seven pairs of legs I think and segments or parts of their body that allows them to roll in a ball.
This is not a normal earth worm that we usually see. I found this type of worm underneath a rock, it was very, very, very small. It had a translucent color or a clear whitish body. The tends to like damp areas as well, because underneath the rock, the soil was damp and cool. This worm was very "even" throughout his whole body or segments. As I observed this worm, his motions were very squirmy and sometimes slithery.
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