Growth of a Fungus: a Puzzle

I went out to a friend's neighborhood to look around in the woods for signs of wildlife. The housing development is right next to large forested areas and there have been problems with bears raiding garbage so she is interested in helping her neighbors be more aware of the animals around them - hopefully with increased awareness will come increased responsibility.

While on our wander through the woods I noticed this bracket fungus with an alder stick going through it a little more than an inch in from the edge. The stick was detached from its tree, but was still fairly firm with much of its bark remaining. Fallen alder branches seem to rot fairly quickly in our wet northwest winters, so I suspect that this branch had fallen since last winter. It was quite firmly encompassed by the fungus though. I have never seen anything suggesting that a shelf fungus would grow so quickly to engulf the limb like that in less than a year. The only alternative that comes to mind (which also seems unlikely to me) is that the stick remained upright and in sturdy condition for the years it might take the fungus to grow that much.

Any ideas?

Canine Tracks

While out tracking the other day near North Bend, we came upon these canine tracks. They look a lot more like a wild canine track than your average domestic dog track, but they are quite a bit larger (these were just over 4 inches with the claws) than coyote tracks which are the only really common wild dog nearby.

Earlier this year I went to a presentation Linda Bittle gave about a research project she's been doing - tracking domestic dogs. Based on the information she presented I think these may be tracks of a Great Dane - a large dog and a hare-footed one. Hare-foot dogs have longer middle toes so that they stick out in front of the side toes more than the more common shapes of domestic dog tracks and give them a more similar appearance to wild canine tracks.

I'm hoping that Linda will leave a comment with her thoughts about these tracks.

Blackberries

It's been an interesting blackberry year. As hot at as it was earlier in the summer patches that had good water had spectacular berries. However, there are a lot of drier patches with plentiful but small blackberries.

A few weeks ago I ate some trailing blackberries up along the pass that were some of the best berries I have ever eaten. They were in a recently logged area and so got plenty of direct sun. They seemed to be in a fairly dry area so I'm not sure if trailing blackberries don't need as much water or if there is some feature of that area that kept it better watered earlier in the season.

Pika in a Rock Stack

Pika (Ochotona princeps) are a type of lagomorph that like to live in rock piles in the mountains. They are very vocal, making a high pitch squeek as an alarm call. Apparently they also sing during breeding season and the fall.

It is possible (just barely) to see a pika in the blog-sized version of this picture. I recommend clicking on the image to enlarge it for a more reasonable challenge though. I think the uncropped version might make a fun jigsaw puzzle.

Caterpillars

A few weeks ago I was out scouting locations for a tracking class and I noticed these caterpillars. They really seemed to like this plant, as every plant like this I noticed in that area was demolished and had up to a couple of dozen of these caterpillars on each plant. Unfortunately the remnants of the plants were not familiar enough that I could figure out what kind of plant it was.

I tried to identify the caterpillar on cool identification site, but though it returned a result (Utetheisa bella) the pictures of that species look enough different from mine that I suspect they are not the same critter.

Hiking Mount Si

Looking down the haystack 'path'

Mount Si seems to be the classic Seattle hike. Generally if you live in Seattle and like to hike, you've hiked Mount Si at least once if not several times. At least that is the impression I get. I like to think of myself as a hiker, though if I look at my actions for the past several years, I'm not sure how accurate it is to apply that label to me. I get out and do naturalist wanders frequently, but not so often do I go on what I would consider a hike. But after living in the Seattle area for 4 years, I finally got around to going up Si yesterday.

I would call the hike moderately strenuous - 4 miles each way with an elevation gain of a bit over 3000 feet. Fortunately battling my carpal tunnel syndrome has helped get me in better conditioning in recent weeks (exercise seems to improve my symptoms for some reason), so I felt reasonably comfortable. The weather was cool and overcast, I'm not sure if that was a detractor for hikers, or considering the recent heat wave perhaps it was a motivator. At any rate the trail was very well populated, even quite a few people still starting up as we were reaching the bottom in the late afternoon.

I enjoyed walking up through the woods - it reminded me a bit of some Sitka hikes. Unfortunately the view from the top consisted of thick clouds - guess I will have to go up there another time when the visibility is better.

I was quite curious about the hay stack (a large rock outcrop at the top of the mountain). Last year I had talked with a friend who had warned me about how crazy it was and how it shouldn't be attempted. Of course that just made me more interested in giving it a try. I thought it was fun (apparently there is more than one trail up, I'm not sure of the relative difficulties of the others). I enjoy going up stretches like that in part because they are exhilarating but not exhausting. Julie at first decided she was not going to risk the climb, but when I got to the top and looked back to see if I could see her at the base I was surprised to see her half way up. We even managed to coax her up the last twenty or so feet to the very top, quite a brave performance.

View at the top of the haystack

Barred Owl

The other day I was walking through the park near my house and I heard a stellar's jay making noise and some winter wrens chittering all from the same area in the woods up the hill from me. I was curious what the racket was about, so I stopped and watched for a minute or two and was rewarded with the site of a large bird flying up into a large cedar near the kerfuffle.

I slowly made my way up closer to the tree. At some point I had made enough noise to have alert the birds, the jay flew off and I made my way with slightly less care (it was difficult to proceed quietly through the dry leaves and sticks). I worked my way around to a pretty good view of the barred owl. It saw me, but didn't seem to care too much. I expect it was quite used to people considering it lived in an actively used park in the middle of residential areas.

The winter wrens continued chittering, though they didn't seem overly concerned with the owl (or with me). I did witness a bit of chasing of each other and some preening going on, so perhaps their irritation was mainly male aggression and the owl being there was coincidental.

In the past few weeks I've seen owls several times. The rest were out of town and were all great horned owls. I feel more kindly towards the great horned owls, but this was my favorite owl sighting of the bunch because it is the only one where I think I was aware of the owl before it was of me and it wasn't just blundering luck that I ended up seeing it.

East Side of the Mountains

My hands are starting to recover a bit so I intend to start posting some from my recent trips, though still will probably not type too much.

The other week while taking time off from work to recuperate I did a bit of exploring south of Ellensburg. On the weekend we did some tracking near Wenatchee and near Snoqualmie Pass.

This picture is from the camping trip near Ellensburg. There were quite a few fancy flowers in bloom, hopefully I will get around to identifying them and posting about them later. The weather was good though a bit cooler than I was expecting - particularly with the wind. I managed to collect a couple of ticks, not surprising considering the places I was exploring, but didn't get as many as I did the following weekend.

Nature Quiz of the Week 26

Setting: Last October, just east of Snoqualmie Pass.

1. What species of tree is this?

This is a red alder (Alnus rubra). Note the bright color of the inner bark that gives it its scientific name.

2. What happened to it?

The damage to the bark is typical of an ungulate rub. Because of the height on the tree (which is a little difficult to ascertain in this picture) I believe it was from an Elk (Cervus elaphus).

3. Approximately how old is the damage?

The damage was fairly recent. As the wound on the tree ages the color will dull significantly, also note the fresh bark that has fallen on top of the vegetation on the ground. There are several leaves on top of the fallen bark which suggests it probably hadn't occurred within the past few hours but it had definitely occurred that fall. I have not studied the relevant clues enough (e.g. how quickly the color dulls in the bark) to feel comfortable being too much more specific than that. But take a look at Dancingfrog's interesting analysis in the comments.

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Nature Quiz of the Week 23

I'm going to branch out from just asking tracking questions, hopefully we'll both enjoy the increased variety :)

Setting: I took this picture last week in the park ravine not far from where I live in Kirkland.

1. What two edible spring greens are pictured here (you may have to squint and/or click to enlarge to see the smaller of them clearly enough)? (Bonus points for botanical names).

The larger plant is a dock (Rumex sp.),there are a lot more species of dock in Washington than I realized though (at least according to USDA plants database.

The smaller plant (though they are much larger now) is nettle (Urtica dioica).

2. What are some ways to prepare these plants for consumption?

Josh had some good tips about this in the comments. I don't have a lot of experience consuming either of these plants, though I have eaten them both. I would not particularly recommend eating either of them raw.

I have enjoyed the young dock leaves in a stir fry. I've also eaten the seeds (along with the husks) in baked goods with reasonably good results.

I sometimes use nettle in soups. It can be fresh or dried. Similarly you can use fresh or dried nettle for an infusion (tea). It is supposed to be loaded with important nutrients.

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Track of the Week 22

Setting: last weekend just east of Snoqualmie pass. It had snowed the previous night and snowed several inches while we were out there (this was a taken a little before we left).

I think I did a little better with these pictures than the last couple of times I took pictures in the snow, but I still haven't fully got the technique of taking decent track pictures in the snow.

We trailed one animal from the road into the woods and found this intersecting trail. The ruler at the bottom of the picture is approximately 6 inches. The trail here is more or less side-hilling along a mild/moderate incline.

1. What species?

River otter (Lontra canadensis). The size of the tracks, the loping gait (quite common to mustelids) and the slide all contribute to this identification.

2. What's going on?

The otter loped into a slide here. While otters aren't the only animals (or mustelids) that slide on the snow, they seem to be more inclined to do it than most other animals, even doing it on a level trajectory like here.

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Track of the Week 21

Setting: Just east of Snoqualmie Pass this weekend. Unfortunately my snow photography could use some practice. I think I've got the tracks showing up pretty well, but at the expense of the ruler (which is about 6 inches long).

1. What gait?

This is a classic bound. Notice the two (hind) feet at the top inline with each other (though they can be a bit offset) and the two staggered (front) feet at the bottom (though in general the fronts of a bound can be inline or even more staggered).

2. What species?

This is the classic track pattern of the lagomorph family. While the toes show up a bit here, often all that is visible is the outline of the feet (though in some substrates all you might see is the claw marks).

One of the reasons I wanted to put these tracks up for a track of the week was to show an example of how useful gaits can be in identification. Looking at individual tracks of these species can be deceptive: it is possible to confuse them with anything from a squirrel up to a cougar or a dog. But pull back and if you can see the track pattern it is almost unmistakable.

Because of the location and size we can identify this as a snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus).

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Track of the Week 20

This track is a little obscure, see what you can figure out.

Setting: In the woods in the hills just east of Snoqualmie pass mid October 2008.

1. What species?

The main thing that is visible here is the heel pad. The only thing that large with a heel pad that shape in our area is a bear. It is theoretically possible for it to be a grizzly, but highly unlikely because they are quite rare in Washington. If there were clearer toes and/or claw marks I could say with even more confidence, but am still quite sure that this is a track of a large black bear (Ursus americanus).

2. Which foot?

I am less confident about this answer given the lack of detail in the track, but here goes: The track is facing toward the left side of the image. With the relatively abrupt hind edge of the track, I believe this is a front track. The left side of the heel pad appears a bit wider. It seems that generally the outside of the front heel pad tends to be wider, so I think this is the track of a front left foot.

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Track of the Week 18

Setting: Mid January 2009 in the Snoqualmie valley. There was great tracking in the silt deposited by the flood.

1. What species? (At least three if you look close)

These are some of the nicest weasel (Mustela sp.) tracks I have seen in person. Because of the size I think they are short-tailed (M. erminea) rather than long-tailed (M. frenata) which also occur in our region. I'm not sure if there are morphological features that distinguish the species. From what I have heard it can be difficult to distinguish them even with specimens in the lab (without the use of DNA).

To me, weasel tracks sometimes look like tiny dog tracks, other times like rat tracks. In this case, if you look closely though you can see five toes showing (clearer on the right side). Often, as is the case here, I don't see much in the way of heel pads showing up.

The smaller trail going across the picture is vole (Microtus sp.) Same sub-family as the muskrat last week. Note the thin finger like toes, also that it is moving in a trot which is a common gait for this group of rodents and unusual for other common rodents in this area.

In the lower right corner there is one track that appears to be the hind track of a smaller rodent, perhaps a deer mouse.

Also there are at least two trails left by invertebrates, perhaps earth worms.

2. What gaits?

The weasel is moving in a 2x2 lope and the vole is moving in a straddle trot (a trot with the hind feet falling outside of the front).

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Track of the Week 17

Setting: Middle of December a couple of years ago, down by the river near Monroe Washington.

1. What gait?

This is a walking gait. Note the even distance between sets of tracks, the relatively wide trail, and relatively short stride.

2. Who?

These are muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus) tracks. Muskrats are the largest members of the vole family. Like other voles it has long narrow toes. Like most rodents it has three closely grouped middle toes on its hind feet with two toes out to the side and four more evenly spread out toes on the front feet.

3. Which feet?

Each set of tracks is a hind/front pair. The hinds show the middle three toes strongly and, on the first two particularly, just barely show the side toes or any heel pad. The front feet are just beyond the hinds so the muskrat was moving in an understep walk.

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Track of the Week 14

This post is a little late. I drove over to Idaho yesterday and didn't have the energy to feel like putting together a post when I got here.

Setting: I took this picture the other day after the first of the recent snows in our area.

1. Which foot?

This is a front left, the thumb is just visible toward the bottom of the picture.

2. What species?

Homo sapiens.

Bonus. Approximate age?

I think this is a juvenile based on the stubbiness of the fingers. Additionally, I suspect they were wearing gloves based both on the details of the track and the conditions where/when the track was located.

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Low Tide: Starfish

A friend and I went down to the beach late the other night for one of the big low tides of the season. Fortunately her headlamp was strong, because mine was in real need of a battery change - I kept forgetting I even had it turned on because it didn't make much of a difference unless I was holding something a few inches from my face.

We saw quite a bit of cool and pretty things. I may post one or two more later on. A friend suggested this intertidal website for identification purposes. I'm not convinced that what I have pictures of are necessarily the same exact species (and I think some of the species I took pictures of are not on that website), but it seems like a pretty cool resource.

One thing I notice about these starfish is that they have a larger white spot just off center. If I had only seen one of these starfish I probably would have assumed that it was just a random spot, but it seems to be on all of this sort of starfish. I wonder what it is?

Birds in Arbutus

It snowed in Seattle a couple of days ago and the weather has actually been cold enough for it to stay around. So yesterday afternoon I went for a walk to enjoy the snow and see what tracks were out.

I didn't end up seeing many wild tracks, but as I walked down the road there was a cacophony of birds coming from every pacific madrone (Arbutus menziesii) I passed. I'm not sure if it is because they need extra energy because of the cold, or if the cold made the fruit more delicious, but they were gorging on the small red fruits of the tree.

Track of the Week 13

Setting:
A couple of summers ago along one of western Washington's rivers.

1. What species?

This is from a cougar trail. Kitty did a good job of explaining why they fit with being cat tracks and the size and location narrow it down to cougar. For further explanation of feline track characteristics check out the explanation with the bobcat tracks here and the bobcat tracks there.

2. What is the likely gait?

Cougars move in walks very commonly. It appears to me that this is a portion of a direct register walking trail. The hind foot landing on top of the front, there doesn't appear to be much disturbance to suggest that it was moving in a faster trotting gait.

3. Which foot?

This was a slightly tricky question as there are actually two feet here. Kitty correctly identified the more prominent track as a hind foot. The fact that it is on top makes that the likely option, it is also a bit narrow which suggest hind rather than front foot for cats.

The second toe from the top of the picture seems to be the leading toe which would mean these were on the right side of the body.

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Stonecrop

This is another plant I saw on my trip in the cascades this summer. It was relatively common in the valley just below the big glacier. I like these plants, but I don't see them very much. Seems like it might be only the second or third time I've seen them in the wild. I think this one might be spreading stonecrop (Sedum divergens).