Bike Ride

I am still planning on getting to some posts about the wolf tracking trip soon, but I had some cool experiences while riding my bike recently and I still have some work to do with the photos I took in Idaho.

I've ridden my bike along the Snoqualmie Valley Trail where it goes near by Fall City a couple of times this past week. The first ride I went up to the bridge going across Tokul creek. It was quite pretty with the sun going down on the horizon, the bridge high above the creek, but with sizable trees reaching up above the bridge. On the way back I heard some sort of animal call - I suspect an insect - at several places along the trail. The rhythm of it reminded me of a chickadee call, but almost toneless and coming from fixed places, the closest one I heard seemed to be on the ground.

Today I rode north towards Carnation. On the way back I stopped and watched a couple of 4-point bucks eating apples on the edge of a field near some houses. One of them seemed much more cautious, it looked in my direction for quite some time (there was a row of trees and shrubs at the edge of the road between us so I think it was difficult for them to see me clearly) while the other continued to eat.

A ways back up the road a decent sized black bear popped out onto the road ahead of me and loped along for maybe 100 yards before looking back to see if I was still coming, then heading off up the hill next to the trail. It had come out of the woods next to a large meadow, I don't think there were any apple trees down there, but there were quite a few blackberries brambles which seem to just be coming into their prime around here.

Maybe I'll keep up the bike riding.

Bug Inspector

There were some transients (I wonder if that is a preferred term) under the bridge today. Three grizzled men sitting in the shade, talking and relaxing. I went about my way looking for tracks and after awhile one of them asked me what I was looking for.

I said "animal tracks" and one of the others exclaimed "See?! I told you! He's one of those bug inspectors!"

The first guy said he had thought I was tweaking.

They asked what kind of bugs were around there and I told them what I knew, though explained that I was more of a mammal tracker than a bug tracker. The first one joked about mosquitoes making tracks on his arm and mentioned that there had been animals through a couple nights before. I think the "bug inspector" one had been sitting under the bridge when the tracking evaluation did some stations there and probably picked up on the fact that we were discussing bug tracks (among other things).

I'm not sure what kind of tracks these are, think they might be a beetle.

Slug Art

My impression was that this is the trail of two slugs interacting.

Stonefly Tracks

At the tracking evaluation this year we had some stations under the Fall City bridge. I go tracking there fairly often and most of the stations were things that I was used to seeing there - though that didn't always mean I knew what they were. In particular there was one station of tracks that the evaluators determined were made by a millipede (and indeed looked like tracks I have seen a millipede make, however I mistakenly remembered pill bugs as making similar tracks).

There are probably at least four (more if you go down to the wetter areas) major groups of invertebrates that commonly make distinguishable tracks in the sand there, but of those I had only been fairly confidant of slug tracks (which made up another station). While we were going through the stations though, I found out what another of them was. I had been seeing tracks like those above most of the times I looked for them under the bridge. That day though this insect flew up and landed then went puttering around on the sand so I could see it making the tracks.

One of the other trackers there recognized it as a mayfly (order Ephemeroptera). After looking at pictures of mayflies though, I thought they looked too different (pretty much all the pictures of mayflies I found had them with their wings up or out). I decided to look up stoneflies (order Plecoptera) since in my mind they were similar and those pictures looked a lot more like it.

Though it's not easily visible in any of the pictures I took, I could see that the two grooves down the middle of the trail were made by a short forked tail.

Afternoon Walk

I haven't been getting out on walks much lately. I have been outside a bit, but recently that has been more for spending time gardening or harvesting wild edibles.

But it is sunny this afternoon so I decided to (slightly) extend my walk to the post office. The post office itself is actually the site of some interactions I've been following.

There has been a pair of pigeons that have been trying to nest in the rafters just in front of the entrance since much earlier in the spring. Somebody at the post office appears to not appreciate it as every once in a while I would find the nest scattered on the ground below - a couple of times with broken egg. I don't really blame them as the pigeons create a bit of a mess on the sidewalk right where people walk through. I did wonder though, why they didn't put up a deterent to keep the pigeons from nesting there at all instead of periodically dashing the pigeons' hopes. At some point in the last couple of weeks they finally did that, putting up those little spikey strips on top of the rafter beams. It seems to have worked - sort of. Actually it seems to have created more diverse habitat. There are now house sparrows nesting where the pigeon had been, building there nest around the spikey projections. The pigeons have moved just to the outside of the crosspiece on the same beam and have begun a nest there. But they are no longer over the cement and the house sparrows don't seem to leave as much of a mess. I'll be interested to see if the post office leaves it at that.

After checking the mail I went down along the river and under the bridge. I have gone there pretty often, though this was the first time in a few weeks. The river was pretty high - I guess because it has been raining the last couple of days and perhaps the snow is melting more now. There were quite a few interesting tracks in the sand, though most of them were not photo-worthy. Lots of different birds, rat, frog, raccoon and the largest possum tracks I have ever seen. The first possum tracks I've seen there in quite a while.