Natural Observation, Journal 3 (field trip at Olympic National Park)

Date: Saturday (April 18) and Sunday (April 19)

Time: all day long

Weather: mostly sunny

Temperature: 54 degrees on average
Location: Olympic National Park

Figure 1, at Mount Storm King, overlooking Lake Crescent

This field trip was simply an awesome and unforgettable experience. By spending two days with nature at Olympic National Park, I realized how much I'd taken for granted when I was traveling around in the past. There are always things to learn and nature tells you everything about what happened and what is going on.

Figure 2, a blown-down trunk (my guess is Douglas fir)

Figure 3, the far end of the fallen tree

Our first main natural spot is Lake Crescent. Right after we entered into the old growth forest, we found a blown-down trunk laying down on the ground, as figure 2 shown above. From what I noticed, there weren't any new planting species growing on this huge fallen trunk. So, I concluded that it was not a nurse log yet, one kind of legacies where parasite interactions happen. It must have fallen down very recently. I was able to walk along the trunk to its far end and took pictures. When I got to the far side, I found that all those roots seemed pretty new. There was still nothing growing there. However, I'm sure that it'll become a nurse log in the future.

Figure 4, not a typical snag actually, since it was made by human beings

                                         Video 1, a hairy woodpecker cleaning its nest

Figure 5, artist's conk

As we moved on, we found many snags, another legacy of old growth forests. Interesting, not all of them were made by nature. The first one we saw was actually made by human beings. In figure 4, most parts of this western red cedar had already been cut. According to our professor, who happened to be in this picture, the hole underneath the top of this stump was made by early settlers inserting springboards to the trunk. By doing this, they could step on those springboards and avoid cutting the thickest part of this big tree and still got most of its wood. The next snag we found was much different from the first one. It wasn't made by human beings, probably by wind. After this tree was destroyed, some species would lose their homes while others would build their homes. Hairy woodpeckers are certainly the ones that benefit from those destroyed trees. I posted a video above about a hairy woodpecker cleaning its nest. Our TA told us that the woodpecker was trying to build an relatively clean environment that was better for his babies inside the hole. What he was doing was taking out poops out of the nest. Finally,  As shown in Figure 5, one snag was affected by an artist's conk. This was another example of parasitic interaction in which the artist's conk hurt the plant by simply living on it. As time goes by, the artist's conk will take enough nutrients out of the plant and they will die together.

Figure 5, a madrone

Figure 6, madrone's variation, manzanita

After our professor and TAs taught us diverse types of natural knowledge for about 2 hours, it was our turn to discover what was around and draw a landscape thumbnail and an organism. I chose to hike on the trail of Mount Storm King since I wanted to be able to overlook the amazing Lake Crescent and draw a thumbnail of it. I found many plants species as we hiked up the trail. There were tall and dull Oregon grapes, lots of pacific madrones, and some pacific madrone's variations called manzanita. Overall, the manzanita looked so similar to a pacific madrone. However, it was smaller in size, more like a shrub. Also, the trunk of the manzanita was slightly more reddish than that of madrone. Another thing that is interesting about madrones and manzanita is that both of them like growing in dried spots. For instance, when we were at the bottom of Mount Storm King where weather was pretty wet, we could barely see any madrones or manzanita. Nevertheless, as we moved on, the weather got drier and drier. As a result, we began to see more and more madrones and manzanitas. After we hiked up to where we could go, I drew a thumbnail of Lake Crescent and a sketch of a yellow cedar.

Figure 7, thumbnail of Lake Crescent

Figure 8, sketch of yellow cedar

                                          Video 2, white-crowned sparrow singing

Figure 9, bird's feathers all over the ground, evidence of predator-prey interaction

After a five-and-a-half hour sleep, we got up at 5:30 am for a bird walk since birds are most active in the morning. Even though I still felt super sleepy, this one-hour bird walk was unforgettable. The first bird we saw was white-crowned sparrow. Being able to listen to its song was very important to me as I heard that song all the time on my way to Union Bay for sailing but I hadn't figured out what kind of bird it was. As we roamed around in the forest, we heard some songs and calls of varied thrushes and pacific wrens. It was too bad that we couldn't see them since they were always moving quickly at the canopy level. We also found some evidences of predator-prey interaction, which were many feathers laying on the ground as shown in figure 9. Our professor told us that it might be an American robin being preyed on by a common crow. So, as we finished our bird walk, we moved on to Salt Creek, the famous intertidal pool.

Figure 10, Dall's acorn barnacles

Figure 11, pacific goose barnacles

Figure 12, an Ocher sea star eating a blue mussel

Figure 13, a giant green anemone

The most important lesson that I learned at Salt Creek was the zonation of organisms. Since one day has two high tides and two low tides, organisms here have to be able to withstand waves and avoid drying out. So, different organisms live in different zones. Mainly, there are four zones: high tide zone, mid tide zone, low tide zone, and subtidal zone. When I got there, the first zone I noticed was the high tide zone. Since the environment in high tide zone is the harshest, with heavy waves and long exposure to sunlight, organism living here are mostly barnacles and mussels. As figure 9 and 10 showed, those barnacles could fix themselves to the ground to prevent from being blown away by waves or winds. Also, they could expose themselves to sunlight for a relatively long time. As for mid tide zone, there were some amazing organisms. For example, I saw an Ocher sea star at this zone. What was amazing about this Ocher sea star was that it was eating a blue mussel by covering the mussel with its whole body and stretching out its stomach to digest. Isn't that amazing? Not only sea stars, but also anemones could be found here in mid tide zone. The one that I found is called giant green anemone. When I touched it, it tried to catch me by its sticky tentacles. If I touched the edge around it, it would contract its tentacles. After playing with this special organisms for a while, I drew a sketch of it. After seeing the high tide zone and mid tide zone, I tried to explore the low tide zone where I was supposed to find something else. However, I was unable to get there since the waves were pretty strong. I even dropped my field guide twice when I was trying to find out what was there in low tide zone. So, I didn't take many photos of organisms at low tide zone and subtidal zone. Nonetheless, I did see some kind of kelps which I couldn't identify.

Figure 14, sketch of a giant green anemone

Figure 15, some kind of kelps that I couldn't identify

Figure 16, a common raven, much more awesome than a common crow

There are still so many things I didn't write about here in my journal. If I were to write about every single one of them, it would take me forever to include all of them since there are so many awesome things we experienced in this trip. Being with nature is such a cool thing to do!

Figure 17, the sunset we saw on the ferry back to Seattle