Observer: Kaitlyn Rice
Date: 17 September 2008
Time: 1935 hours
Location: Between the Hatfield Library and the Sparks Center
Weather: It is cool and there is a slight breeze.
What sort of shrub is that?:
My location is a bit obscure today. I am located in a section of grassy land between the Hatfield Library and the Sparks Center. My goal in choosing this spot was to observe the interaction between the students walking by and the nature that they are passing. The grass that I sit on has been mown, though unevenly. Perhaps it was not mown unevenly. Perhaps instead, there are several types of grass here and some grows quicker than others. What do I know about grass? I do not know much and that is for sure. At any rate, there is more than just grass here. There are several varieties of bushes as well. They are growing behind where I sit, and, as I think about it more, these “bushes” are awfully tall to be considered bushes. Maybe they are short types of trees? Again, what do I know? I need to start bringing my field guide with me though, that is one thing that I do know. Anyway, the tallest is probably around thirteen feet. I think it is the shape that throws me off and makes me think of a bush. It is not in any sort of cone shape, with a wider base and tip at the top. The entire plant is more one width the entire way up. Its leaves are, for me, the most intriguing part. With a closer look, I notice that they span in a circular fan around the top of the branch, and then again at the bottom of the branch. The leaves at the top though, all circle and are faced and raised upwards. In the circle surrounding the bottom of the branch, the leaves face upward, but droop down towards the earth.
Date: 19 September 2008
Time: 1350 hours
Location: Walking between classes
Weather: lovely day, sunny but not too hot
Observations in Motion
I have decided to make one of my observations about what I perceive between classes. My basic route consists of making a trip over the skybridge from my dorm at Kaneko, to the completely opposite side of campus. For the most part, I use this walk as a way to wake from my sleepy state of being. Once I get to the Collins building, I appreciate the warmth, as it is usually still a little bit chilly outside. My next stretch is a walk from Collins over to the Smullin building for my Themes in Political Theory class. This walk is my personal favorite. Instead of going with most of the human traffic, I usually choose the path that goes in front of Waller and Eaton. On this particular morning, there was a squirrel on the lawn in front of Waller. As the people walked past the squirrel, it scurried away of course, but they are always the most fun to watch leap across the grass. Continuing on my walk, I just enjoyed the sunshine before I went back inside. My classes are both in the same general building and so there was no walk outside from my third and fourth class. To get to my final class though, I have to walk back to the west side of campus to Olin. When I walk this way, I do go with traffic and walk between the quad and Waller and Eaton halls. Though there are more people this way, I enjoy this walk too. The trees that tower overhead provide a protection from the sun and this is especially nice to have as the sun gets more and more directly overhead. My final walk of the day, in the afternoon anyway, is back over the skybridge. Usually it is a long and arduous trek, but today it was very interesting. I could hear something in the trees on the west side of the bridge. It was rustling inside, but not making any noise other than that. Thinking there may be a squirrel or something of that nature, I glanced inside and saw instead a bird. It had a blue body except for underneath and that was all gray. Looking it up when I got back, I found that it was most likely a Western Scrub Jay.
Date: 21 September 2008
Time: 1340 hours
Location: Star Trees Perimeter
Weather: Nice temperature, mostly cloudy, but some blue sky can be seen to the west
Star in the Day:
I am here at the star trees, though not directly underneath of them. I made my stop underneath already and took a picture that will not only be in this blog, but will also be put onto various other websites so that other people can see just how cool Willamette is. Anyway, I am to the west of the center of the trees, in the grass. As I sit here, I think about what is beneath me: the roots of these enormous trees must span for tons of feet and they probably intersect each other. It is an interesting thought, to me anyway. As I sit here cross-legged, there are people that are walking underneath of the trees. A tour guide brings curious visitors underneath and tells them about the idea that if you are to kiss someone underneath the Star Trees, then you will marry that person. She followed with an interesting fact that about 80% of Willamette graduates do marry each other. Back to my observation though, I glance up, having to tilt my head all the way back to see just how far up these Giant Sequoias go. I do not know the exact height, but they are definitely very, very tall. Glancing back down, I note the tremendous width of their trunks as well. Most interesting to me though, is the manner that the tree’s branches swoop down. Like arms tired of holding their needles and pine cones, the branches, especially towards the bottom, create a dramatic tone to the already intriguing Star Trees. As I look away from the trees and to the lawn in front of me, I see crows searching in the grass for food. Sort of to my right and behind me is the historic Waller Hall. While I am doing my scanning of the landscape, I notice that the air is getting a cooler temperature. Looking to the west, I notice that there are definitely some darker clouds brewing and I decide to call it good.
Date: 20 September 2008
Time: 208 hours
Location: Skybridge
Weather: Chilly, but decent for being 2 A.M.
Morning Nightmares:
Morning observations, and boy do I mean morning. It is a little past 2 in the morning right now and I am back in my room after watching some CSI: Miami with Jane and Collin in Sheppard. Upon my journey across the campus, more specifically the skybridge, this morning, I noticed something that, at first, sincerely terrified me. As I spent time making my way across the skybridge though, the shock and horror was overcome by wonder. My path was made directly through the middle of the bridge and it is for the reason that, as I looked closer to the light and the beams that stretched across the bridge, I noticed spiders in almost every single one. Their webs were all generally the same, extended into each corner of the intersections of beams. The spiders themselves were all about the same as well. They had, from what I could see, the same color and about the same size. This uniformity made it appear more like an army, setting up for attack than anything else. Again, though, as I looked closer at these spiders in their homes, I began to have questions run through my mind. One of the first ones was, where do these creatures go during the day? I was glad that I was not wondering where they went to spend their evenings, as that would be more creepy. Why do the spiders only seem to build their webs on the beams that have lights? This one made sense to me though. Many bugs are attracted to the light and so they would be more apt to fly into a web that is close to a light than a web that is not close to the light. Ultimately, no matter how much I told myself that I was okay with being up there and sharing the skybridge with those spiders, I was especially glad to be off of it.
Date: 21 September 2008
Time: 1715 hours
Location: Mill Stream behind Goudy Commons
Weather: Sunny and a nice temperature.
Special Discovery:
I am at the Mill Stream behind Goudy Commons and it has just finished raining. The gray clouds from this morning have passed over Willamette University and into the east. The real reason that I came to this spot is because earlier, coming back from my first journal entry, I noticed that the ducks had been sleeping near the bridge and I wanted to pay them a visit. When I walked over here, Mr. Tyler Starr was already at the spot, observing the same ducks, but I sat down anyway. They were headed back up the stream, but while they were still in front of us, I noticed that they were very social. None of them really strayed too far from the others. Occasionally, one would stand and flap their wings and I wondered why they did this.
As I am looking down to the water and rocks below me, I notice something on the rocks. There are lots of small black—things—on the rocks, but only on those that are submerged. I am going down for a closer look!
Yes! Just as I suspected and hoped, there are tons of little snails attached to the rocks, though not very tightly. They have created distinct trails from dragging themselves across the rocks and they vary in size. Perhaps the most interesting thing to me is that they have the same types of shells as the one that I found at the Willamette River. This is what I made my first observation on and so it was exciting to see this shell again, only this time in use. I wonder, is this what the duck’s diet consists of? Because they only choose spots directly under water on the rocks, does this mean that they are suffocating when I pick them up? I tried to make my holding periods short, only glancing at them and then putting them back down to minimize their time above water. Just in case.
Anyway, I could go on, but as the sun sets, I know that I only have a certain amount of time to get this observation online.
*In addition, I would like to note that I was sincerely disappointed to see that Eloise observed the same types of black snails today too. She did not seem as excited as I was.
