Blog From The Bog

This Is For The Birds!

Birds were everywhere today.  It didn't seem that way at first, as there was only a single lonely ring-necked duck swimming around in Marlake.  But by about two o'clock in the afternoon, birds seemed to appear from everywhere, especially around the orchard.

Juncos were in the grass, on the blue gravel, and in the trees, accompanied by dozens of black-capped chickadees and ruby-crowned kinglets.

There must have been at least ten robins hopping around in the grass and leaves looking for yummy things to eat.  Four varied-thrushs were hopping around the ground at the very edge of the bushes.

I saw at least a dozen ducks swimming around in Brooklake, including a beautiful bufflehead.

I spotted this gorgeous flicker sitting up in the very top of a tree.  I think flickers are one of the most beautiful birds every created.

A downey-woodpecker was working away in the very next tree.

This was a great day for bird watching.  Instead of seeing birds in ones or twos, I saw birds by the dozen!

Teri Lenfest

 

 

 

Beauty in the Wetland

According to one of our local weather-forcasters today was supposed to be rainy, with a possiblilty of light snow at higher elevations.  Although West Hylebos Park is at the top of our hill, our hill doesn't appear to be as high as we think it is when we're trying to drive up it coming from Auburn.  Whenever the weather-forcaster predicts snow at the 1,000 foot level, I always expect to wake up and find the ground covered with white, but it's unusual when that occurs.  Not only did it fail to rain or snow today, I woke up to clear blue sky.  There wasn't a cloud in sight.  That called for a trip to the wetland, so off I went.

As the day progressed, clouds moved in and the temperature dropped.  My fingers and toes were frozen stiff in just a few hours.   I started losing the light as the sky grew increasingly overcast and finally was forced to call it quits by about 3:30 in the afternoon.

The moss and lichen produce such vibrant greens at the time of the year.  They splash the wetland in every shade of green it's possible to imagine and some you'd never dream of. 

Still life in dying leaves. 

In the early afternoon the light was so perfect that it made the colors in the fungi practically pop.

Still life in fungi.

The new boardwalk is just beginning to acquire a little patina.  It's starting to blend in with the wetland nicely.  In another year or two it'll be absolutely perfect.

Still life in greens and browns.

Teri Lenfest

December in the Wetland

I agreed to do The Blog From The Bog for one year, January 2010 to January 2011.  This is December 14, 2010.  Next week I'll be leaving town to share Christmas with my family, so this may, or may not, be the last blog I do for the year.  Today, I met a visitor to the park who remarked that no matter what time of the year he chose to visit the wetland, it was always beautiful.  And yet, I run into people every day who have never visited the wetland in winter because it's cold and wet and dead and bare and dreary. 

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  It can be found in every place, at every time, if you only take the time to look for it.  December in the wetland has a character all it's own:  the flowers and berries are gone and most of the wildlife has snuggled into nice warm dens for the winter.  Beauty exists all around us, at any time of the year, if we take the time to look for it.  To prove that, I'm just going to leave you with photographs that I took in the wetland today, the 14th of December.  Mother Nature is much better at expressing herself than I am.  Sit back and enjoy.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Teri Lenfest

 

Fungi in December

Even though the fungi season is pretty much over, there are still a lot of beautiful fungi hanging around in the wetland.  Here are just a few that I found today.

These are goners, teminated by the storm, but still manage to create a beautiful piece of art in the wetland.

This is a perfect little caramel parasol, fit for an Indian prince or rani.  It makes me think of tigers and elephants and fine silk saris.

These are so fine and delicate.  Sometimes they make me think of clams.  At other times, I think of angels wings.  Then, there are times when they make me think of fine ball gowns made of gossemer silk.  They are nothing short of lovely.

This is a stately matriach, a shelf to carry the busts of heroes, meringue to top a key-lime pie.

These are frilled, like the edge of Victorian bustles or gowns, flowers carved in ivory, more angels wings!

A diadem of gold peaking beneath the leaves, waiting for Athena to place it upon her brow.

These are as soft and furry as kitten's ears.

Butterscotch tidbids anyone?  Treakle, if you're British.  Brown sugar and butter melted to perfection.  Yum!

She picks seashells by the seashore.

An amphitheater for fairies.

Bon bons waiting to be picked.

Teri Lenfest

100-year Storm Event

We've had an incredible amount of rain lately.  I actually thought my bedroom windows were going to break last night because the rain and hail were slamming into them so hard.  The storm woke me up in the middle of the night and I couldn't get back to sleep again.  That, on top of last week's pineapple express should have created a bit of havok in the park, so I was eager to get out there and take a look around this morning, despite the fact that the weather forecasters were predicting showers all day.

According to the news, we've just experienced a 100-year storm event.  It would have been fun to have seen where the park bench wound up after the storm, but Dana and Scott saw the last photo I posted of the bench. with it's front feet dipped into Marlake, and decided that the smartest thing to do was move it.  LOL!  I can't blame them, even if I was using the bench as a ruler.  Ha!  Ha!

This is what Marlake looked like this morning.  Yes, that's a raindrop on my lens.  The showers seemed to hit me about every ten or fifteen minutes, but they were very light compared to what we've been getting in the last week.

There must have been twenty or thirty juncos over near Rebecca's house.  They were in the trees, on the fence, and all over the blue gravel trail.  They seemed to be everywhere!  A lone black-capped chickadee flitted from branch to branch to branch to branch, never pausing, always in motion, making it completely impossible for me to photograph it.

A lone bufflehead swam around in Marlake.  I don't know where all of the other ducks went, but I guarantee you that they were smarter than I was, as they were probably someplace safe and warm, while I was out wandering around in the rain.

I wasn't completely alone though.  Along with the juncos and bufflehead were about half a dozen robins.  Robins seem to stick around the West Hylebos Wetland all year long.  Where I grew up on the east coast, robins were a sign of spring, but not here.  Here, robins are year-round residents.  Their bright orange breasts light up the wetland at this time of the year.

I ran into four different people on the boardwalk today.  One was the Federal Way Animal Control Officer.  He made a complete loop of the boardwalk, looking for evidence of a bear; and, not seeing any, declared the park bear free.  I also ran into a gentleman with a Russian accent.  I seem to run into him almost every time I visit the park.  He moves very quickly, with a phone plugged into his ear, talking up a storm, apparently doing business while he walks.  This is the first time he's stopped long enough to make a comment.  He said that he'd run into the Animal Control Officer on the boardwalk and had been warned that there might be a bear in the park.  He expressed the opinion that he thought a bear in the park was ridiculous.  Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it isn't there.  Bears are very shy.  They don't want to run into you any more than you want to run into them.  A wise person knows how to be safe in an area where they might run into a bear.  Do you?  If not, please refer back to prior posts (around August) where I give step-by-step instructions about what to do if you run into a black bear.  Be bear smart!  You never know!

I ran into another gentleman who said that he'd never seen so much water in the park.  Yep, we had a pineapple express followed by a 100-year storm event - there's a lot of water in the park.  Water, water, everywhere, and nary a drop to drink.  I wouldn't drink it, at any rate, as it's likely to be contaminated by road run-off and other chemicals.

This is what Brooklake looked like today.  The water was almost up to the edge of the observation platform.

This lone mallard was the only creature I saw at Brooklake and he was fast asleep.

The wetland was very busy being wet and beautiful today.  It seemed to sprinkle on me every ten or fifteen minutes, but I'm so glad I made the trip.  The park was absolutely stunning today!

Teri Lenfest

Bear in Park

Okay, this is for all of you nay-sayers.  I just received this email from Dana, who is a caretaker at the park and lives in the old Marckx house at Marlake.

And, I quote:  "BTW, I actually saw the small black bear!!!!!  It was running full tilt, like a blur.  I was coming home after dropping off Cody at school at 7:30 a.m., driving down our road when I saw it run from the south side of our house, across the road and through the meadow into the woods.  A couple of minutes later I figured out why he/she was going so fast.  I looked out the back window and a coyote was back there, winded, and looking back.  It was cool."

Told you so!

Teri Lenfest

Muskrat at Marlake

Adele Freeland and I have decided that the creature living in Marlake is a muskrat and this is why.

We know that muskrats have been living at Brooklake for decades.  Muskrats are large rodents.  This particular muskrat is about the size of a housecat.  They have thick brown fur.  Their tails are long, thick, and scaly.  They have tiny eyes and ears.  They live in marshes and lakes, as well as along, or in, other bodies of fresh water.

Muskrats use the reeds and cattails that grow along the edges of lakes to build homes, called lodges, as well as feeding platforms.

I found the lodge at Marlake.

Muskrats burrow holes.  There's a very distinct hole burrowed from the edge of Marlake almost to the walking trail in the area of the bridge.  It's the perfect size for the animal I've photographed at the lake.

Muskrats can eat all of the cattails in one area, leaving an open area where the water is shallow.  This is called an "eat-out".

The cattails used to run in a straight line along the far side of Marlake, with an area cleared in front of the memorial bench so that people could sit there and enjoy the view.  On the right side of this photograph you can clearly see evidence of an "eat-out".  All of the cattails have been eaten forming a large rounded area of shallow water.  I see the muskrat hanging out in this particular area a lot.  This is where I took the photograph at the top of this blog.

The muskrat has cleared a number of trails through the cattails from the water to the far shore of Marlake.  All of the trails are zigzag trails.  There must be an unwritten muskrat law that prohibits them from clearing trails that run in a straight line.

So far, all of the evidence I've collected points to the fact that this cute little rodent is a native muskrat.  I haven't seen one at Brooklake in a very long time and wondered where they went.  Apparently they've decided that Marlake is more to their liking now, which is great for all of us, because now we can see them a lot more often than we were able to before.  This makes me very happy.

While I was at Marlake photographing the lodge, I discovered this beautiful red-winged blackbird sitting on a cattail with it's reflection mirrored in the lake.  What a gorgeous sight and sound!

Teri Lenfest

The Mammal Tail

 

Since we won't be seeing the sky for a while, I thought I'd leave you with a nice patch of blue that you can stitch into your memory circuits.  It could be a while before the sky looks like this again.

According to our weather forecasters, a pineapple express is due to sweep in tomorrow afternoon and stick around for the next week, dropping three to ten inches of rain on us.  Unfortunately, my camera is not water resistant.  I actually checked around yesterday to see if I could get a waterproof case for it.  I can, if I'm willing to cough up $230 for a plastic case.  I can't do that, so the pineapple express is going to shut me down for it's duration.  Therefore, I decided to make a run to the wetland today while I had the opportunity to do so.

This is what the bench at Marlake looked like before I went down to Los Angeles for Thanksgiving.  All of the area where the tall grass is growing used to be beneath the surface of the lake.

This is what the bench looks like today.  It looks like it's dipping it's front feet into the lake.  If we're going to get three to ten inches of rain in the next week, the entire bench could end up in the lake.  That should be interesting, don't you think.

Marlake was full of ducks today.  Scott and Dana said they saw a loon in the lake yesterday, but it wasn't there today.  There were at least two male mallards with at least two females each.

There were at least six pairs of ring-necked ducks.

As well as this beautiful female hooded merganser.  Scott says he didn't know there were so many different kinds of ducks until he moved to the edge of Marlake.  It's amazing how many species visit this lake at one time or another throughout the year.  Strangely, Brooklake was completely devoid of ducks today.  Everyone was hanging out at Marlake instead.

Now, for what you're all really waiting for.  Yep, I got a photograph of the mammals tail.  Notice that I'm still identifying the creature at marlake as an unidentified mammal.  Actually, it's a rodent, but that's another story.  The problem is the fact that beavers, muskrats, and nutria look so much alike.

No one had been able to get a good photograph of the creature until this photo that I took several days ago.  Sadly, you can't see the tail in the photograph and the size and shape of the tail is vital for the identification of this animal.  When I went to the park today, my primary reason for going was to search for this little guy and see if I could get a photo of it's tail.

Talk about cooperation!  For the first time since I spotted this animal, it was deliberately swimming around with it's tail in the air.  I managed to snap this photo.....

 

As well as this photo.  In the other photographs I took, when the tail was in the water, it looked broad and flat and horizontal to the surface of the water.  I even thought it looked bushy, which completely threw me off, as none of the suspected creatures had bushy tails.  This must be an illusion caused by the water.  When sticking up out of the water, the tail is anything but bushy.  It's long and thick and bare.  So, we're back to the muskrat, nutria possibility.

This is an NPS photo of a muskrat taken by Bryan Harry.  It looks like the animal I've been watching in Marlake with the exception of the fur.  Of course, the fur on the animal I photographed was wet and this appears to be dry.  Could that account for the difference?

This is a photograph of a nutria I got when I googled nutria.  It's fur looks the same as the animal in Marlake, but the tail doesn't appear in this photograph.  Nutria are supposed to have thick, long, naked tails though and that appears to be what our animal has as well.   

And, so, the great mystery continues.  What is living in Marlake?  Muskrat?  Nutria?  My vote, based on the fur and tail, has switched back to nutria.  What do you think?

Teri Lenfest

Big and Little Mammals

I saw more than the usual number of squirrels active in the park today, despite the cool, drizzly weather.

When the Douglas squirrels see you, they usually emit an loud alarm signal and take off running.  They can vanish in a flash!  This little squirrel didn't seem to care whether I was there or not today.  He stopped for a few seconds and stared at me, then went on about his business as if I wasn't there.

On the opposite side of the park is where a big tree came down.  This is where I saw the squirrel last week that was going back and forth under the boardwalk.  The Douglas squirrel I photographed above was very intent on this fallen tree.  There appears to be a hoard of fir cones in this tree and, now that the tree is on the ground, it's become very easy to raid this hoard.  I don't know whether this particular squirrel is the owner of that hoard of cones or if he's raiding someone else's hoard, but he was intent on gobbling down as many cones as possible and couldn't have cared less whether I was there or not.  As far as he was concerned, he'd found the mother lode and he was going to take advantage of his luck.

Today, I was lucky enough to get a really nice shot of the mammal that's taken up residence in Marlake.  It sure looks like a beaver or muskrat to me.  What do you think?  He's really shy and disappears at the slightest sound or movement.  He can stay under water a very long time, at least long enough to swim across the lake and take cover in the reeds.  And, once he's hidden in the reeds, he's not about to come back out until he thinks you're gone.  That's one smart little mammal.  I wonder whether he knows that most of his ancestors were turned into hats?  I don't want this cute little guy to be made into a hat. I'd much rather watch him than wear him!

Teri Lenfest 

Birds, Birds, and more Birds

I was hardly in the park five minutes today before the blue jay set off the alarm.  He then proceeded to follow me from tree to tree to tree, squawking like a police siren.  I was sure that any creature within a mile of me would have headed for the hills at the first squawk of the siren, so really didn't expect to see much today.  Boy, was I in for a surprise!

One nice thing about this time of the year is the fact that all of the beautiful nests in the park are so visible.  I just love them! 

Two pairs of mallards were swimming around in Brooklake, but so was this gorgeous ring-necked duck.  Unlike the mallards, who turn tail-up when feeding, the ring-necked dives completely under the water.  Isn't he a beauty?

There was also a pair of gadwalls swimming in Brooklake.  I've seen the female for about the last month, but this is the first time I've seen the male.

A flicker was feeding on the ground beneath a tree in the meadow.

While a downey woodpecker pecked away in the top of the same tree.

And a black-capped chickadee flitted around in between the two.  This was a very popular tree today!

Several gorgeous varied thrush's occupied a tree not far away.

And I couldn't resist taking another photo of the long-billed duck that's been swimming around in Marlake.  This duck looks like it's wearing a clown-bill.  You just have to wonder what on earth her mama mated with, because the length of this duck's bill is way out of proportion to the rest of her.  She's one crazy looking duck!  Adele Freeland has identified this duck as a northern shoveler.

Teri Lenfest