On 4/26/2012 I took part of a three part session on birds at the collection storage and study area at the Burke Museum on campus at the University of Washington. I would argue that this "back" area of the museum is actually more interesting the displays shown at the museum itself. If you can handle the smell of some dead meat and a bunch of bird taxidermy. On our visit there were three different sections of the session that were led by Prof. Tewksbury (Parasitism), Mr. Rower (Sexuality), and Susan Waters (Population).
What I learned from Mr. Rower's section:
-The different (more vivid) color between the gender in birds is usually on the males. The male birds have this physical trait to impress/attract females for mating. This is known as color dimorphism.
-There is also size dimorphism in which male birds are typically larger than female birds due to male competition with other male birds for mating rights.
-Some female birds are bigger than the males because the males are the ones that do parental care while the females go out and search for food and protect the nest area. Therefore the female birds have become biologically bigger than their male counterpart. *NOTE: this is most common with shore birds and/or birds in the arctic area.
-Birds from the tropics tend to have some diverse color formations and patterns due to competition of both male and females over mating and territorial rights. Though the same species of birds from the tropics that resides in North America have a duller and different color dimorphism between its counterpart from the tropics.
-Fairy Rens molt (change feather colors) according to mating seasons to attract mate(s). Usually from grey to a bright blue.
What I learned from Prof. Tewksbury (Parasitism)
-Weever eggs have distinct patterns and are colonial nesting birds. Weevers lay their eggs in other Weever nest because they don't want to raise their own chicks. Though some opposing Weevers "egg dump" the intruding Weever eggs.
-The Brown-Headed Cow bird lays 40-60 eggs per year. Puts all of its eggs in other bird nests (parasitism). Their egg shells are thicker than normal bird egg shells to protect the developing chick from the host bird. They also tend to lay their eggs in nests that are occupied by small birds.
-Brown-Headed Cow birds use a "mafia" technique to insure its chick is taken care of by chucking the host birds' chick(s) off of the nest and intimidating the host bird into taking care of the cow birds chick.
-The host bird tends not to "egg dump" Cow bird eggs due to the chance that it may be their own egg.
What I learned from Susan's section (Population)
-Population is important to conservation biology and species management and control.
-When analyzing animal population you must consider if the population is stable, decreasing, or increasing.
-A museum data collection of a wide variety of species is needed to studying and understand biological, and social history of numerous animal species.
For the second day of our field trip for the Natural History class of the University of Washington we visited the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge in Washington. The weather that day was moist, cloudy and mild with small hints of very light showers.
What I learned from my visit at the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge (including observations):
The Nisqually Wildlife Refuge is located at the end of the Nisqually River where it mixes with Puget Sound. The area is a wetland mixed with a riparian forest that has wooden boardwalks and dike trails for visitor convenience. Though there are some graveled trail and also a few lookout areas. During our visit we were focusing on the birds in the area. Some of the birds I observed were Mallard Ducks, a Red-Tailed Hawk (Buteo Jamaicensis), a flock of Canadian Geese (Branta Canadensis), an Osprey (Pandion Haliaetus), and a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias). I noticed that the wildlife in this area seemed to be reasonably comfortable around people as I approached the geese they didn't react to me getting closer and also the red-tailed hawk was perched on a branch fairly close to the boardwalk trial and didn't seem to mind all of us walking by so close. Though most of the geese were in the shallow creek beds as shown in my observation. There were also various tall tree at the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge. The most common trees were the Cottonwood and the big leaf maple. Kate (classmate) also happened to find a Garter Snake (Thamnophis) slithering in the grassland area of the wildlife refuge by the dike pathway (pic tagged). We also spotted a Pacific Tree Frog by one of the look outs as well by the base of a tree. I also noticed that most of the shrub-like plants grew by the creek beds near the boardwalk trails such as the Salmon berry that I took a picture of.
On the first day of our field trip for the Natural History class for the University of Washington we spent most of the day hiking through the trails at Pack Forest. The weather was heavily clouded with a few sprinkles of rain, but with no accumulation, temperature being in the 50s (F).
What I learned and observed at Pack Forest:
Pack Forest is a secondary forest with very few old-growth trees and is at the point in the process in which the forest looks young filled with saplings, but still the majority of the vegetation had age to it. The forest was heavily covered in layers. The bottom layer with shrub like plants, flowers and weeds, the mid section with fairly young trees no bigger than 10-20 feet tall (mostly Red Alders), and the canopy filled with the older trees (mostly Douglas Fir, Western White Pine, Western Hemlock, and Big Leaf Maples). However the forest was covered in moss and lichen from bottom up and expressed the richness and quality of the environment in this area. Also one of the volunteers (apologies I forgot her name) explained that lichens are a combination of fungus and algae and are fairly susceptible to pollution, which is why lichen are not very fond in the city, but grow well in areas such as Pack Forest.
On the days of our visit to Pack Forest the trails were very wet and muddy, however as you go further into the trail there are very small creeks and just water flowing down from hillsides due to rain. The deeper we walked into the forest the more uncommon species of plant we found. For instance we found some Western White Trillium and Yellow Violets, which were not found earlier in the trail. Also diverse species of mushroom were also found further into the forest such as the Morel Mushroom (looks like a brain). Another uncommon species of plant found further into the forest was the Pacific Madrone. Long, skinny trees with a reddish/orange color with bark that has been peeled off revealing the "rubber-like" wood that was very dense and also very smooth.
Overall a great experience to hike in a forest and have people share knowledge on some of the wildlife and vegetation of a local area. Although my wet socks made things slightly uncomfortable.
On the second half of our first day at the field trip to Pack Forest our Natural History class visited Mt. Rainier National Park and took a walk through the Trail of the Shadows. As we drove into higher elevation there were more signs of snow, and it was a bit sunnier. However it was still fairly cold, temperatures being in the 40s, but the wind chill made it feel worse. Due to high elevation there was about 2 feet of snow on the trail making it slight difficult to walk in if you sank in.
Most of the forested area consisted of Douglas-Fir, Western Hemlock, and Western Red Cedar. Some of the uncommon trees that we observed on the trail were the Western Yew. In comparison to Pack Forest there were not many shrub-like plants in this area, probably due to the elevation and colder conditions. However the undergrowth of this area consisted of many nursery log areas that held a lot of young trees and also many different types of fungus and lichen growing on the fallen trees. The trail also goes through a marshy area where a few mallard ducks stayed and I also noticed some beaver dams near the stream that we bridged over. In the marsh area there were also some mini hot springs where the water was bubbling. Also due to high mineral deposits the mud in the marsh area was this rich bronze color, just like the copper colored stream seen earlier on the trail. After the marsh portion of the trail we walked through the last bit of the trail that was in a meadow area. Though we could not get a good sense of the vegetation in this area due to the high amounts of snow covering the ground.
Weather: Cloudy mid 50s. Few showers.
Habitat: NW Trek Wildlife Refuge
On April 14th my family and I took a trip to the northwest trek wildlife park where we went on their bus tour through their refuge and also walked around various animal stations. The first section of the tour involved caribou, bison, moose, elk, trampetor swans, and common white-tailed deer. Some of the interesting things I learned from this section was that elk have canine teeth, and also that moose can swim well and even dive down 18 feet into the water.
After the tour we walked around the refuge and found four interesting animals that were being shown. The golden eagle, gray wolves, river otters and grizzly bears. An interesting thing I learned about the golden eagle was they are born white and develop a brown color as they age as well as having "golden feathers" on the back of their heads. An interesting thing I learned about the grey wolves were that they travel packs of up to 30, and that there is also a male and female alpha in the pack.
Grizzly bears were a controversial issue in this area with there being "about 1000 grizzlies in the western US" as noted by the grizzly bear station. Though they are in captivity, insuring the lives and the future of grizzlies, I think conservation through refuges are justifiable.
An interesting note I took on river otters were that they use their stiff whiskers and dexterous paws to locate prey.
Today we went through three different station sections of the UW Greenhouse with three different leaders, Susan, Josh and Mr Ewing (I believe that was his name). With Susan we went into the first room on the right of the green house, which was dry and inhabited by many cacti and strange looking plants. The Welwitschia stood out the most in this section it thrives in dry areas but has the ability to soak up tons of water when it does rain so that it thrives for a long time. Susan mentioned that the welwitschia has adapted to live where it is inhabited, but doesn't mean that that are is the most suitable for that plant.The second section involved many leafy green plants in a humid area of the greenhouse led by Mr Ewing. This section included the Lodoisia pam tree and its double coconut (had a huge seed), and the Monstera deliciosa a plant from Mexico. An interesting thing about this plant is that it grows vines where it is dark and searches for trees so that it can become "phototrophic".
Josh showed us the Synsepalum dulcificum or “miracle berry” that changes your sensory perceptions to make it so that sour lemons taste sweet. This blew my mind, and it really work really fast. Josh also presented the ghost chili pepper. We learned that the heat of a chili doesn’t affect our taste buds, it affects the pain receptors in our brain.
Species List:
Lodoisia maldvia
Monster delisiosa
Western hyasin
Dischidia
Welwitschia
Venus fly trap
Serasenia
Epiphyte
Dracula orchid
Soma sensory berry
