Week 5 Journal

Invertebrates and Site Update

5/13/14

Sunny

6:00 PM

68 degrees F

The skunk cabbage at my site seems to be completely gone now, presumably it was taken over by the giant horsetails which are obviously the dominant open space species here. The horsetails take over the real estate of many other plants too, many ferns, thimbleberry bushes, and flower species have been pushed out of the little meadow that is most of my site. 

The Brown Creeper that I discovered last week seems to have completed the building of its nest. It has created a nice and seemingly safe place to raise its young under the flaky bark of its tree. Its interesting how difficult it would be to notice if I had not seen the bird actually fly in. 

The slopes at my site within 30 feet of the stream are still quite wet where I expected them to be more dry now due to the hotter weather. As I was searching for invertebrates I got my shoes stuck in the mud at least five times. There is some evidence of slope failure there judging by the overturned maple.

Invertebrates:

 Here is a photo I snapped of the yellow and black centipede found at my site as it was moving. It traveled quite quickly and never stopped. Terrain never seemed to be an issue for it as it just trampled over any obstacle in front of it.

Here is one ant I found away from its nest. Interestingly I didn't see any others around it so it must have been lost considering they usually travel together. 

Sitting on one of the thimbleberry flowers at my site was a honey bee. It was quite docile and ignored my presence as I drew it. It had a few full pollen sacks on its legs and looked like it would probably go drop off its load soon.

I had the pleasure of being bitten by a mosquito as the daylight was beginning to fade and they were out in force at the time. I took this opportunity to draw the mosquito. It hadn't sucked enough blood to show in its stomach yet. It flew away before it got full which I thought was interesting; something must have spooked it or maybe it just didn't like my blood.

As I was exploring my site for inverts, I happened to smash up a rotting log in hope of finding a grub. I have experience with this species from splitting wood at my family's Leavenworth, WA home and figured I could find the grub of the long horned beetle in the dead wood. When I pulled it out it wiggled around pretty vigorously for its fatness and seemed very unhappy I pulled it from its home. When I put it back after drawing it began to burrow back into the wood.



Other invertebrates I encountered at my site include many flies, they varied in size but never stayed still long enough to analyze, I think some were horseflies. I also ran into a couple bunches of flying gnats (dipterid nematocera) I belive. They stayed together in clusters as they flew, hovering about six feet from the ground.