Cloudy, Rainy, Chilly
After a long car ride we finally reached NatureBridge, I was excited to eat my lunch but even more excited to explore around the trails and see what was in store for us for the rest of the day! We started out as a class on The Moment in Time's Trail and we were able to ID and see some really cool wildflowers like Fairly slipper orchards which were purple/ pink in color and were quite small. I noticed how much thicker and taller the trees in this forest were compared to trees in Ravenna Park or Union Bay Natural Area as well as Lincoln Park. The Douglas firs, Western Hemlocks, and Western Red Cedar, as well as Grand firs had a lot of moss around there branches, actually there was a lot of moss everywhere! The moss explains how the Olympics receive a lot more moisture and rain than forests/ parks around Seattle. The stair step moss was very abundant in the area. We came to an area where there was a lot of wester red cedars, a long with a lot of sword ferns, which was a good indicator that there was good nitrogen rich soil. We also stumbled upon some vanilla leaf, when dried smells like vanilla! I would have never known, it was three leaf compound. While we were in the area I learned that the forest especially one like this, an old growth forest is very complex. A lot of organisms have symbiotic relationships like old snags and logs provides structure for other trees to grow on like western hemlock. They provide an elevated structure off the forest floor so there is less competition for trees using theses snags or logs (nurse logs). We walked a couple ways through the moment in time's trail and found some trillium! The flowers of this plant were white and so pretty. I never seen Devil's club, so I became excited and a little bit frightened when I saw this tall stalk plant with armored thorns covering its every surface area. Next we split up into groups and depending on your interest in where you want to hike to, Storm king, Marymere falls, or Barnes creek is where you and a group of others go on to explore. I joined a group to hike up Storm king. This hike was a tough one, it was an inclined hike and there was a lot of interesting plants as we hiked! A dramatic change I noticed as we got higher in elevation was that there was more abundant Salal around, which means the soil was nitrogen poor. We also stumbled upon what seems to be a pea vetch, and a pincherry? There was also a lot of red huckleberry, and we were able to spot a evergreen huckleberry, which had darker colored leaves. Continuing up the hike we found TWIN FLOWER! Which was cool because Tim gave us some background about it being Linnaeus's favorite flower. There was also Madrones, ocean spray, baldhipped rose, and monkey flowers . We also spotted some native pigeons in a clearing, and on the way down a raven!
Fairy slipper orchids! (not the best picture)
Trillium!
The view of Lake Crescent when we reached close to the top of Storm King
Devil's Club
Red huckleberry
Monkey Flower
A panorama shot of Lake Crescent at 7 am on Sunday April 28
The tallest grand fir
A pea vetch we found when while we were on our way up Storm King
A shot of Marymere falls!
Sunday April 28, 2013
Sun breaks, cloudy, chilly
We left Nature-bridge around 930am and were on our way to Salt Creek and Tongue point! Here we found a lot of interesting organisms and loved every moment of it.
An example of disturbance, where patterns or patches on the mussel beds have experienced tidal storm waves
A picture of a limpet
Pacific Blood Star
A small crab, I wasn't able to ID
An example of scarring from predation
A hermit crab eating a snail! Predation
Two Chitons!
A nudibranch
Goose barnacles! an example of facilitation?
Huge anemones !
A panorama shot of tongue point
Ochre sea stars!
Competition: A lot of anemones crowded together
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