Weekly Journal 2: Field Sketching

Weekly Journal 2: Field Sketching
Location: Carkeek Park, South Trail Bluff

Time: 7:00-8:30 pm Sunday April 13

Weather: sunny, clear, breezy and warm

                Since visiting my site last week not much has changed on a large scale. The same towering trees can be seen creating a canopy of leaves with similar cover as evident by the amount sky visible through the leaves. One of these trees I am able to identify since our trip to the Ravenna Park lowland forest, it seems to be a Red Alder based on the similar leaves that I observed at my site. The shrubs and small flowering plants seem to be the same approximate higher and width in comparison to the landscape around them.  However, the closer you look subtle changes to the forest environment are more apparent. I spotted several new species this week. The most exciting was a female Pileated Woodpecker which I tried my best to capture in a memory sketch because it was too fast for me to capture with my camera. I also saw several smaller black birds which were hard to identify without a closer look. Hopefully in the upcoming weeks I’ll be able to observe this species from a closer distance. I also observed some new plant growth. It appears that there are new fern leaves which have started to uncurl as they become more mature. These ferns look like young Western Sword Ferns. The Salmonberries at my site have also changed. While their characteristic bright pink flowers are visible in other areas of the park, the flowers which were open at my site last week have since closed and the scrubs do not have many new blossoms. Other flowering shrubs have new buds, so it is likely that I will be able to see them flower in the upcoming weeks. For the majority of the time spent at my location this week, I worked on trying to capture the environment through a series of simple field sketches.