First day at Ravenna

Growing up with a small family consisting of my parents and my older sister, no one really exemplified interest in the outdoors except for my mother. One of her hobbies was gardening and cultivating our backyards with fruit trees such as pears, plums, and cherries. She also loved planting flowers, she had a particular love for sunflowers and tulips. Apart from my mom’s interests in gardening, no one else in my family displayed a particular fondness for the outdoors. When I was little, I was deathly afraid of insects so I preferred to stay inside as much as possible. My family rarely planned trips so camping or hiking never happened.  Trips to the beach seemed to be the only family trips we made that seemed to be focused on the outdoors.

                However, my disdain for the outdoors slowly changed after I took a camping trip with a group of close friends – although I don’t remember where it was specifically – I do remember that I gained a better appreciation for nature after this trip. It was a refreshing change from my daily life with having access to technology 24/7. My interest in interacting with nature further increased as I began taking environmental studies classes at the University of Washington during my sophomore year. One of my first classes was Urban Farming and a portion of the class was to engage in service learning by volunteering on a community farm. I ended up volunteering at Marra Farm and it was an amazing experience. All of the supervisors at this site were friendly and genuinely enjoyed teaching volunteers about their work. I was able to learn a lot about different topics such as cover cropping and the importance of fertilizer by engaging with a community passionate about healthy eating. Another portion of this class was traveling to Whidbey Island for one weekend to visit Skyroot Farm. We spent a large portion of the time listening to other farmers relating their best practices in keeping up a farm. After dividing into smaller groups, my group also had a hand in helping an elementary school create new plots for sixth graders to begin planting their own crops. All of these first hand experiences with working outside and having dirt on my hands made me feel like I was making a difference. It was such a refreshing change from working in an office every day.

As of now, my favorite hobbies includes hiking and camping which is one of the reasons why I decided to take a natural history course this quarter! I am incredibly excited about the class field trips we will go on as a group as well as learning more about the Pacific Northwest and in turn, hopefully gaining more insight into my backyard surroundings.

Temperature: 56° F, cloudy weather

Date: April 7, 2015 – 5:30PM

During my first day observing Ravenna Park, I chose a small area about a two minute walk past the ball field. Sitting down on a bench near the creek and the road where at least 2 or three joggers pass through every five minutes, I noticed a crow in the stream that cawed every few seconds. Each caw is accompanied by a nodding movement of its head and chest. The crow consistently poked its head down underneath the water surface, probably looking for food. Sounds of the waves crashing and lapping over the tree logs is consistent among the background noises. After about five minutes and a crowd of rowdy children passing through the pathway with their parents, the crow went further down the stream where there is an abundance of foliage and started bathing itself. Although I couldn’t see them, other birds began chirping interspersed with the sounds of someone hammering in the background. Bikers and dogs are very common in this section and it was really entertaining watching the dogs dash back and forth to each log. After 20 minutes passed after I sat down, the sun got even more prominent as the clouds retreated. A fly and a bee flew past my face at one point.

Once the crow finally disappeared from my point of view, I began observing the ground around me. The ground is very coarse with tons of broken branches lying around everywhere. There are tons of huge boulders to the left of the creek with moss all over them, especially for the rocks closer to the stream. However, there is limited moss for the rocks directly in contact with the stream. On my left side is the road where passersby cross which is also the direction of where the sun is hitting my face. More sounds of birds chirping starts off again. Although it’s not consistent, the birds seems to make an effort to chirp all at once. I began observing the trees and vegetation on my left side and noticed the humongous trees with moss covering the majority of its trunks. Below the roots of the tree trunks are cement blocks filled with moss, moss that can even be found below the dead brown leaves covering the bottom layer. Among the brown layer of leaves are patches of what looks like fronds of some type. These leaves are leaning down from the tree trunk and some are sprouting from the top layer. There seems to be miniature versions of these fronds on the bottom layer - a lighter shade of green as well as some patches of grass.

The view on my left side (left side of the pathway)

A close up look of the fronds

On my right side, there seems to be an even a wider variety of trees and plants. The trees are just as tall on my left side but with less foliage and no moss on its trunks. I'm able to see the roots clearly as it protrudes from the ground with no other vegetation except dirt covering it. I noticed a lot of interesting plants that I plan to identify as the quarter moves along. As the distance increased away from the creek and the sides of the road, I noticed that the vegetation became greener and much more abundant in clusters. After awhile, I try to focus on the smell of this environment but I can’t find any better word than describing it as woodsy. The sun eventually disappears behind the clouds again and the weather gets much chillier.

Below are some photos of my site for which I hope to document drastic changes throughout my time in this natural history course. These are the specific areas. 

 

An overall look at the specific site

A closer look of the site

Another zoomed in image of the site