Licton
Springs Park, 6/5/19, 3:06, Partially cloudy and breezy, 62°
Part 1:
My site has changed a lot from the
first time I visited. Everything is now taller and greener, and many things are
in bloom now.
These are the photos of my site from
the first week (1 sq. meter spatial scale and 50 sq. meter spatial scale respectively).
You
can see that there’s quite a bit of green, but it looks pretty bare. You can clearly see between the trees and you can clearly see the water.
These are the photos of my site
from the second time.
These picture are from the second time I visited. You can already see a good amount of growth, especially around the red alder tree that is central to the 1 sq. meter spatial scale image. Everything is a bit greener and taller, and the water is less visible from my standpoint.
These are photos of my site from the third visit.
These pictures were taken on a much sunnier day, so it's a bit hard to make out the differences in phenology. You can still tell that there is a lot more growth, though. You can hardly see the water from the 50 sq. meter spatial scale now.
These are photos of my site from the fourth visit.
These photos are from my fourth visit. It is not as sunny so you can really see the green-ness of the site. There is definitely more growth and you can't see the water from the 50 sq. meter spatial scale anymore.
These are photos from my fifth visit.
These were taken on my fifth visit to my site. I wanted to capture the height of the salmonberry in the first photo, and how it completely covered the base of the tree. This is a stark contrast to the first photo where there is very little coverage. There isn't much of a noticeable difference between this week and the previous week, but if you look closely, you can tell that everything is a bit taller than before.
These are images from my most recent visit (today).
My site has really changed a lot. The amount of growth that occurred is pretty incredible. The first week images show a lot more brown while the most recent week images show a lot more green. There is physically less ground to stand on now, since there has been so much growth around the red alder trees. You can't see the creek in either of the photos, even though you can see it in both pictures from the first week.
Red-berried elder is the first species I chose to document.
I chose to document this species because I never noticed it at my site before. As I was walking, though, I couldn't miss the red berries that stood out against the green leaves. This is the first time I saw these red berries.
Yellow iris is the second species I chose to document.
I chose to document this species because I'm just really happy to see the yellow flowers. In the first week that I visited the site, I couldn't identify these. I'm glad the recognizable yellow flowers are blooming now.
Salmonberry is the third species I chose to document.
I chose to document salmonberry because this was one of the species that was at my site that I couldn't identify the first week. I saw a purple flower but I didn't know that those were indicative of salmonberry. It's really cool to see the actual berries out now. I've been waiting for this!
Horsetail is the fourth species I chose to document.
I chose to document horsetail because this was really the only species I could confidently identify the first week. When I first saw them at my site, they were pretty small, maybe half a foot tall. Now, some of them are quite literally my height. This horsetail was probably around 5 feet tall which is pretty crazy.
It's pretty incredible to see how much my site has changed over the course of 9 weeks. I rarely get the chance to see this kind of change actually happen before my eyes, in a way where I can measure the progression of growth.
Part 2:
1. I kind of grew attached to my site
through my weekly observations. I started to look forward to visiting it after
class. I was genuinely curious about what I would and could find since I could
actually see how things were changing week to week. I really appreciated the
fact that I could take time out of the week to just be alone with nature, particularly
in a place that I really got to know. It was meditative in a way. I really got
to know the whole park better when I was looking for birds because I walked
around the park maybe 3 or 4 times that day. It was great, though, because I
really appreciated the park that day. It was also cool to learn about Licton
Springs in class because I didn’t know it actually had that particular
importance when I chose it. I chose my site out of convenience of location to
my class at North Seattle College, but I’m really glad I chose this place. It’s
a beautiful park with a rich history.
2. My sense of the Puget Sound region
has changed drastically this quarter. I will be honest and say I really did not
know anything about the Puget Sound coming into this class. Being an out of
state student, I was never exposed to it. This class has given me a deep connection
to this place. I actually wrote about this in an assignment in another class. I
referred to this class and talked about how this class changed the way I see everything
around me, and how it’s given me so much knowledge about this place that I
thought was home. This knowledge has created an intimacy and closeness with this
region that I didn’t realize was possible. To be able to understand the reason
behind the hilliness (thanks to drumlins) and locations of bodies of water (the
weight of the glacier) is really incredible. Before, I didn’t really know
anything about the natural history of the Puget Sound, but now, I feel deeply
connected to it and I have so much appreciation for this place.
3. I think that there are two parts to
intimately knowing a natural place. The first one is to understand it. One must
understand its history, including its historical importance and management. This
includes its formation and historical use. One should ask who was here before
me? Who was here first? Why is it the way that it is? Who/what shaped it to be
the place that it is today? This will likely involve indigenous relations to
the natural place, which comes with a great amount of knowledge about the
species of it. The second part is to be physically immersed in the natural
place. Repeated exposure to a particular place is what creates a connection,
kind of life what I experienced at my site at Licton Springs Park. It wasn’t as
grand as Lake Crescent or Ebey’s Landing (which were both so lovely and
incredible), but I do feel more intimately connected to Licton Springs because
I repeatedly visited it. A natural place doesn’t have to be breathtaking for it
to be valuable to someone.
4. I feel like my most important
personal outcomes are my attachment to this region and my species identifying skills.
I already spoke to my attachment to this region, so I’ll focus on the latter. I’ll
start by saying I literally cannot go anywhere without noticing birds now. If I
see a bird, I will automatically try to identify it. If I can’t identify it, I
observe it at the very least. I even do this with crows now. I used to
intentionally ignore crows because I wasn’t the biggest fan, but after having
the lecture on crows and just learning about birds, I watch crows now. Another
good example of how this has changed is something that happened yesterday. I
was walking with a friend and I spotted a dark-eyed junco. I stopped walking
and just observed it out of pure interest, and my friend had kept walking, not
knowing that I had stopped to stare at this little bird. When she looked back,
she laughed because now I am known among my friends for being a bird watcher. I
also do this with plants, too. I notice the difference between different types
of ferns now, and when I see a tree, I always try to identify it. Nature
observation has never been something that I did regularly, but now it seems to
be part of my daily life and I’m very grateful for that. I’m thankful for this
knowledge and I love being able to actually recognize these physical, tangible
things around me.
5. My overall perception of nature and
natural history, and the place of humans in nature, has definitely changed this
quarter. I’ve always had a great appreciation and love for nature, but now I
feel like I understand it more. I feel closer to it. I can say that I love
nature and the Puget Sound region and really believe it. I believed it before,
but now I have a deeper understanding and closer relationship to it. I’m so
glad we discussed the role of humans in nature and natural history. By talking
about indigenous practices and involvement with the nature in this region, it
feels as if we dispelled some stereotypes of indigenous peoples and nature
itself. “Wilderness” and nature is not always this untouched, pristine place.
People have been here for a long time and have altered it in ways we didn’t know.
A perception of mine about humans in nature that has stayed the same is the fact
that we largely impact our landscapes. We have seen how different ecosystems
have been largely impacted by human use and it is our responsibility to
minimize damage. “Damage” can be a subjective thing, but my point is that
people are very good at changing things without thinking about the
consequences, and that we should understand the impacts of our decisions before
we make them.
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