Nature Noticings

Autumn seems a little late this year; maybe it's the dry weather. Finally, though, the trees are really starting to turn. I love it when individual leaves change color in patterns, like the perennial geranium leaf below. It looks like the green color is being sucked down the veins toward the center of the leaf and the stem, leaving the red and purple behind to create a fringe. Perennial geranium leaf This reminds me of something I learned in a biology class somewhere along the way. In the autumn, I seem to recall, plants pull the chlorophyll in from their leaves before the leaves fall, and save it for the next spring. Chlorophyll is the green pigment that aids in photosynthesis. Looking at this geranium leaf, I can almost imagine the plant sucking down the chlorophyll into the stem like a milkshake going through a straw. As it turns out, I didn't quite have things right in my memory. In reality, the chlorophyll is broken down into simpler molecules while still in the leaf. Howe...

There is something mesmerizing about patterns in nature. Wasp nest chambers When living things create the patterns, we can nod at evolution: the pattern must aid in the survival of the organism somehow, by creating useful structures or conserving resources. Even if no mind is involved, there are genes controlling behavior and orchestrating the pattern. Honeycomb coral slime mold When patterns occur in something non-living, though, it feels more mysterious. How can blind chemical or mechanical processes result in intricacy and beauty? A few weeks ago we had the chance to explore Larrabee State Park near Bellingham. There are beautiful eroded rocks along the coastline, sandstone worn by the waves. The sandstone is called the Chuckanut formation, and it is well known to local rock nerds for containing Eocene plant fossils, 34 to 54 million years old. In some places, huge palm fronds have been preserved. The sediments were originally deposited on a tropical coastal plain and were later upl...

We've just returned from an amazing trip to southeast Alaska. Alaska is full of many wonderful, big things: ice-sculpted mountains, huge trees, humpback whales, orcas, black and brown bears, mountain goats, tidewater glaciers. Dawes Glacier has a wall of ice some 300 feet tall above the waterline, and it extends about a thousand feet down under the water! Big! But of course this blog is about (mostly) the small, weird things, and so I want to talk about my love of the muskeg, a habitat of many things that are small and strange. Muskeg near Wrangell, Alaska Muskeg is a First Peoples word in common usage in Canada and Alaska that means a grassy bog or swamp. We suspected that bogs were near when we were hiking around Ward Lake near Ketchikan. The river feeding into the lake was the color of strong tea. Some bog plants, such as sphagnum, leach tannins into the water, staining it. You may have heard of tannins in wine; it's the same group of compounds. Tannins not only add color,...

 As I write this, the moon is almost new again, and we are again due to have some of the lowest tides of the summer. This month, my schedule prevents me from getting my feet wet, but I have gotten out for the last several low tides at Constellation Park, Golden Gardens Park, and Fauntleroy Ferry dock, all in Seattle. I have seen wonderful things, and also some rather horrible things. Let's start with something small and horrible. Skeleton shrimp (family  Caprellidae ) are not really shrimp, they are members of a group called amphipods. Skeleton shrimp While fearsome in appearance, they are very small; the ones I've seen are less than an inch. Their terrifying appendages are largely used just to cling to seaweed so they don't drift away. The males of some species use their burly front limbs in fights over mates. Some even have poison glands in their front limbs - but they are not dangerous to humans.  Also fearsome but quite small is the gaper (or horse) clam ( Tresus capa...

One of the joys of noticing (and delighting in) the weird and obscure in nature is that sense of validation and camaraderie when someone else notices (and delights in) the same thing.  I love exploring the old forts that bracket Puget Sound, particularly Forts Ebey, Worden, and Flagler. They date from the late 1800's, so are hardly ancient, but exploring them helps sate my longing for distant European castles.  Several years ago at Fort Flagler on Marrowstone Island, I noticed stalactites growing from the concrete ceiling in one of the batteries. I was delighted, and recorded them in my nature journal. Calthemites at Fort Flagler, Marrowstone Island Recently, I read  David B. Williams new book, Wild in Seattle . I felt that spark of validation and camaraderie when I saw that he had a chapter about concrete "cave" formations. " I've seen those!" I thought to myself, "I love those!"  Now I know that they have a name. The concrete "cave" fo...

 I've been waiting for the princess to appear this spring, and here she is at last. The princess tree is also known as the empress or foxglove tree ( Paulownia tomentosa ); this tree is in a neighbor's front yard. The cloud of lavender flowers overwhelm the emerging leaves. The flowers remind some of foxgloves, but to me they have a more tropical look. I want to tuck one behind my ear and order a Mai Tai. The leaves will grow to be plate-sized, adding to the tree's tropical vibe. As striking as the flowers are, my affection for the tree focuses on its seedpods. Several autumns ago, I was taking a nature journaling class about seedpods and fruits. As I roamed the neighborhood in search of subjects, I collected some princess tree seedpods.  I love how they look like little creatures with open mouths, and their subtle brown colors. Some of the seedpods I found had not opened yet, so I cut one in half to draw a cross-section. Then the magic happened. It was my favorite kind of ...