Week Five

Sunday May 11, 2014
Partly Cloudy
57 Degrees
11:47 AM
Ravenna Park Erratic

          Today things were nice the sun is starting to break though and things look lush. The green in the park seems to be even brighter today than last time and is even thicker and more complete looking. I always refer to the big leaf maples when looking around and I like to see how they are coming along. Today they are more full than last week, the leaves are slightly bigger again but they did not progress as far as over the last couple observations it seems they are starting to get to their full growth and the leaves are soft and new, there is not hole or tears in them as you would see on a tree thats had its leaves for a whole season.
          From a close scale you can tell that the creek is starting to settle the water has resided some and with this upcoming week supposed to be pretty nice it will more than likely continue to dry up. The understory has grown a lot in the last week and is looking more full than last time some of the shrubs are concealing the river bank and covering over the top of the river itself like a tunnel for the water.
          On a larger scale it is again greener than the last week, the canopy of the forest seems to be closing and forming a ceiling over the park, it keeps the lower part in the shade and seems to withhold some of the moisture from the past rains, it is cooler and almost crisp, the air down here still has a little bite from the morning. There are a lot of birds and I saw some robins on the way in making me think about the robins that are nesting near my house right now. You can hear the chicks as their mother brings back the food overtime and they start chirping like crazy to try and get the food that their mom has brought back.
         The focus for today was to find some invertebrates and the first place I checked was an old tree stump that appeared to have been burnt at one point but now was rotten and clearly deteriorating. it was soft and porous and it seemed like a great place to find some creatures!

The burnt stump that I first looked though to find the creatures There was a lot of good things here and the soft rotten texture of the wood made it easy for organisms to get into crevasses and make homes.

 A Potato Bug or Common Pillbug (Armadillidium Vulgare) -- At 1/3'' these organisms have convex bodies and grey shrimp like plates and 7 pairs of short legs. They can roll into a ball and their head has 2 short antennae. It feeds on decaying plant matter and is common under rocks and logs.

 A baby Banana Slug (Ariolimax Columbianus)
Length 5-10'' body is soft and cylindrical; yellow often with black spots. Eyes are stalked and they have a large breathing hole on the side of their right front. Usually they live on moist forest floors, but i found this little guy in the log right next to the potato bug, I wonder if they live in mutual benefit or if they were competing for space.

 This was a small bug that I found on a leaf near the stump we were looking in, it looks like a small common Ground Beetle (Eleodes Species) or some type of gnat or fly i looked around on the internet and could find anything that seemed to match it. maybe it is an invasive species not native to our region I have seen them around before I will continue to look around about this one.

 Millipede (Harpaphe Haydeniana) The Millipede is around 3 inches long and is gray brown or black, they are rounded with short antennae and dozens of segments each with 2 pairs of legs. They are slow moving and rolls into a small spiral ball when threatened releasing a stink. They live under leaves or stones and logs and are often seen crawling around. In this picture it is hard to find the Millepede but he is upside down almost in the exact middle of the photo just crawling back into the mud.

 This was another log nearby that had been gashed out and it had some spiders inside it that had made webs around the gash. It is another good example of habitat that would contain a lot of diversity and insects.

 Another Potato Bug





 Earth Worm or Night Crawler (Lumbricus Species)
Earthworms are found usually around the same environment that we found our other bugs in moist soils meadowlands or woodlands and yards. They can be up to 5 inches long their body is soft and cylindrical and has about 150 segments. they are a purplish orange and they aerate moist soil. They are commonly found on the surface of the soils after heavy rains and they feed on decaying plant matter. This one was found on the pavement crossing the sidewalk, It seems like this would be a surface that these creatures would try to avoid.








Below are some sketches of the organisms we found: