Date: May 16, 2015 - 8:00am to 6:00pm
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| Landscape photo of the Yakima River Canyon |
This weekend, our class traveled to Eastern Washington with the purposes of birding, identifying plant/flower species, as well as hoping to uncover lizards or scorpions. Overall, the day started off overcast but got much sunnier later on.
Our first trip started off with following the Yakima River to Ellensburg. It was about an hour and a half drive from Seattle. Once we arrived at our first location at the Yakima River Canyon, we were met with majestic sights of the dry terrain of the mountains. Although we did hike, we spent most of the time listening and observing birds. I had a difficult time seeing the birds that Jorge pointed out, but I did see the turkey vulture flying above us.
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| Second landscape image of Yakima River Canyon |
Tall sage brush can also be seen all over the Yakima River Canyon, as exemplified in the pictures below. An interesting component of the tall sage brush is that it has a fruit-like object scattered among the leaves. If Tim hadn't mentioned it, I would've never guessed that there's an insect nestled in the middle of the "fruit" as protection and nourishment.
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| Tall sage brush |
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| Fruits of tall sagebrush |
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| Insect in one of the fruits of the tall sagebrush |
After our short trek up the mountains during the bird-watching session, we started walking back down the hill for lunch. Along the way, we took a small road that led underneath the bridge that we crossed earlier to get to the mountains. Below the bridge, we observed at least thirty birds flying back and forth to rest on the rungs below the bridge. It was interesting to observe their flying movements, they would hover every so often before finding a place to land on the rungs. It was difficult to capture a picture of the birds since they were flying so quickly.
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| View beneath the bridge |
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| A few birds captured on camera flying below the bridge |
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| Perspective of the Yakima River Canyon from the left side of the bridge |
Once we finished with our birding component of the trip, we started heading on our second trip of the day. My main highlights from this entire trip were definitely from this part of the trip when we traveled to Umtanum Ridge. This area was full of flowers that ranged from bitterroots to thyme buckwheat. Below are some pictures of these flowers I was able to capture, the thyme buckwheat had multiple colors: white, reddish, and yellowish colors.
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| Thyme Buckwheat |
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| Thyme Buckwheat |
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| Thyme Buckwheat |
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| Thyme Buckwheat |
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| Thyme Buckwheat |
My favorite flower from this trip was the bitterroot for its fragile and gorgeous appearance. I thought it was incredibly intriguing that this fragile looking flower could thrive easily in such a dry habitat.
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| Bitterroot |
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| Bitterroot |
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| Bitterroot |
In addition to the flowers at this area, we also uncovered as many rocks as we could in hopes of finding a scorpion or lizards. We always made an effort to put the rock back in its original position to cause the least disturbance in the habitat. After about thirty minutes, someone was able to spot a scorpion as shown in the picture below. Tim ended up using a tool to hold the scorpion up by its tail. The second image shows it curled up in a paper funnel.
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| Scorpion being held by its tail/stinger? |
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| Scorpion laying in a paper funnel |
After observing the scorpion, one of the girls in my class discovered a horned lizard crawling over rocks. Once she held it in her hands and other people held it, the lizard seemed catatonic. It stopped moving and only budged when it moved from one person to the next. I can imagine how frightened it must have felt.
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| Small horned lizard |
After holding this lizard and then setting it free on the ground, another horned lizard was found. This time, this lizard was much larger in size and seemed less catatonic. However, it did keep still for a long time.
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| Second horned lizard |
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| Second horned lizard - close up |
As we left this second part of the trip, I also sound a bee making swift movements at our van.
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| Bee |
As for our the third part of the trip, we only traveled by car for a few minutes before we arrived at our new location. While half of the class observed the caddisfly, my group hiked on the trail leading to the waterfall.
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| Waterfall |
It was about a twenty minute hike and we only spent about two minutes at the waterfall. Although it was very beautiful, I'm not sure if it was worth the twenty minute hike when we barely stayed there. Other than that, I had a really great day during our second field trip!
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