Journal 2: Field trip reflections

Saturday 4/13 12:30 pm, Salt Creek, 50°, Cloudy with blue sky peeking through

As we all walked as a group towards Salt Creek, the first thing that caught my attention was the island formation of trees that stood separate from the main land. 

I took this photo at 12:38, not long after we got there. I was struck by how cool this looked. I had never seen a land formation quite like this before. 

I was amazed by its beauty and confused by its location. How did it get there? Was it at one point connected? Did it move? It must have been connected to the main land at some point, since the vegetation on top mirrored that of the land. Perhaps at some point that chunk of land shifted during an earthquake, or the piece connecting it to the main land was somehow destroyed and eroded. It is likely that geological forces were at play. These would be considered abiotic factors. As we kept walking, Tim pointed out two pairs of Harlequin ducks to a small group of us. This was my first real opportunity to examine birds with binoculars. They were beautiful. I kept walking and came across a sea anemone.

This is a sketch of the first sea anemone that I saw. There were quite a few, with some varying in color. I touched the tentacles and they felt sticky. The sea anemone also moved when I touched it, with the tentacles closing in.

Another organism that I came across was a mossy chiton.

This is a sketch of the mossy chitin. It was submerged in water and I didn’t pick it up. I did touch it though, and the edges felt rough.

At one point, around 1:58 pm, an adorable female harlequin duck rode a rather large wave. After I walked a bit further out and having seen a few organisms, I decided it was a good time to sketch the landscape since the sun started to come out. I sat down on a rock, surrounded by what seemed like hundreds of thousands of mussels.

This is a picture of only a fraction of the many mussels on the ground. I couldn’t move forward without stepping on them and I had never experienced that before. My only experience with mussels is eating them, not walking on them.

This is my sketch of the landscape from where I was sitting. I was facing the direction of where we came from. The air smelled salty and it was little breezy. It felt like being on the beach, especially since the sun came out.

            Many of the mussels had barnacles on them. I wondered if this was a parasitic relationship or not. Perhaps it is mutualistic, or maybe it’s an example of commensalism. These are considered biotic forces.

            After I completed my sketch, I continued to walk with some friends. One of my friends and I came across this half eaten dead fish which was surprising to say the least. It freaked me out a little, but I was more curious and intrigued than grossed out.

 

This is an image of the half missing dead fish that was perched on a rock. I genuinely have no idea how it got there or whether it was manually moved or not. It was a very surprising find. I think I would have a difficult time identifying it, considering some of it is missing and it looks to be rather old.

 I continued to walk with some friends, occasionally picking up rocks and putting them back. One of my friends came across a six-rayed sea star and picked it off the rock.

This is a sketch of both the frontside and backside of the six-rayed sea star. We were surprised by the fact that it had six legs, as opposed to the typical five that you see on a sea star. The back of it felt surprisingly rough.

Around 3:48 pm, when we regrouped, I noticed a seagull repeatedly flying up, dropping something, and picking it back up. I watched it from my binoculars and at first and I couldn’t figure out what it was doing. I then realized that it might be trying to break open some sort of shellfish, so it could eat whatever was inside. That was really cool to witness.  

Sunday 4/14 7:29 Moments in time trail, 42°, Blue skies with some clouds
I started my Sunday off on the bird watch. The first bird I saw was an American robin. I saw one later in the day that I drew because I didn’t get a great look at the one I saw earlier.

This American robin was hopping around, occasionally picking at the ground. It was a beautiful bird; the yellow beak and the orange chest were a stark contrast to its black body.

On the bird watch, Laurel used a bird calling app and we first heard the Pacific wren. After she played the call, we heard a Pacific wren reply back. This was my first experience being on a bird watch and it was honestly kind of magical. Hearing the wren call back was so cool. I also liked the way Laurel compared the call to the sound of a tape rewinding. I was never one to pay attention to bird calls but now I’m always listening for the Pacific wren. As we continued our walk, we came across a point in the trail where there was a great view of Lake Crescent.

This was the view of Lake Crescent at 7:29 in the morning. The peaks of the mountains of trees were dusted in snow. It was gorgeous, and I’d never seen anything like it before.

It was curious that the snow stopped at such a specific point in the mountain. Perhaps this has to do with the climatological forces of temperature and clouds. This is an abiotic factor. After breakfast, we did our group assignments and I got to take a good look at a calypso orchid.

This is my sketch of the calypso orchid we saw. I didn’t see any others and it was one of the only colorful flowers present. It had a beautiful purple color to it.

In learning about the calypso orchid, we also learned about mycorrhizal fungi. Mycorrhizal fungi have a symbiotic relationship with Douglas-firs as well as the calypso orchid. This is what allows the calypso orchid to bloom where it does. Tim said that if we were to move the calypso orchid to a backyard, it would not thrive because of the absence of the mycorrhizal fungi. This is a biotic factor. I also came across what looked like a gilled mushroom.

The shape of this mushroom was interesting. I typically think of a dome-like top when I think of a mushroom, so it was interesting to see that the top concaved up.

About an hour later, someone came across an albino banana slug.

This is the sketch of the banana slug. It was very pale and unspotted. It had a faint yellow color, almost appearing white. It had a rubbery texture.

After we congregated and dispersed to go our separate ways to hike, I decided to take the Storm King trail. It was very steep at first with a lot of switchbacks. I didn’t go all the way up, but I stopped at this viewpoint to have lunch and sketch.

This is my sketch of the landscape view I had from the Storm King trail. It was similar to the view I had down by Lake Crescent but from a different angle. I enjoyed sketching the landscape, but it soon got cold and started to rain.

On my way back to Nature Bridge, I stopped to look at (supposedly) the tallest Grand fir in the world.

I took this photo from the trunk of the grand fir. I thought it would be a good angle to capture the height of the tree. It was pretty tall, but the trunk was not very wide so it was a relatively unassuming tree. 

We ended the trip by reconvening by the campfire area and discussing some of the cool things we saw.  I had such a fantastic weekend and I would gladly do it again.