Journal Entry 2

4/1-
Weather: Another overcast day, however without rain as the day before had been. Very cold in the morning, probably around 40 degrees, but warmed up a good amount later in the day. However, being that we went higher into the snowy region and then spent the rest of the day down by the water of Nisqually did not allow for much warmth.
After a quick breakfast and lunch production, we headed farther north from Pack forest and closer to Mt. Rainier into the Longmire Trail Here we hiked through snow covered trails to see a number of other conifers. While we did see other specimens, like some interesting algae and lichen in or near the hot sulfurous water that bubbled up at one point in the trail, along with hearing some chirpy birds high up in the trees, we saw little besides the conifers because most plants were still several feet below the snow.

After leaving Longmire, we went toward the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge for a day of bird watching. While it took some time to get out of plant ID mode (we still spent the first few minutes at the back of the group trying to identify a number of trees and shrubs), we eventually got into the habit of spotting birds and identifying key characteristics. We saw owls, chickadees, yellow rumped warblers, spring sparrows, robins, great blue herons- one with adult mating plumage with an all blue head and one sporting juvenile plumage with a simple white head, a bald eagle, a barn owl(?), a harrier hawk, a big black cormorant of some kind and numerous others I forgot to write down. It was really quite remarkable how much we were able to see in a relatively short time. The most striking observations for me were the bald eagle, which was spotted from across an entire lake sitting in a tree, but was spotted exactly because it was such a massive figure that even way off in the distance, perched in a leafless tree, the bird managed to stand out against the sky as a large dark lump. Additionally, the great blue heron population was pretty significant, as we saw both the adult and juveniles up close, as well as a couple others across the water. In addition to those, we managed to see a garter snake slithering through the rushes along the shore, a black pacific chorus frog and some more plants like the elderberry growing along the boardwalk.

Publicado el 01 de mayo de 2012 por keenan44