I noticed the (presumably) Anna’s Hummingbird female visiting under the porch again today. Connor had mentioned seeing her recently (within the past few days) as well. I’m not sure if she has started coming back after a hiatus, or if we just happened to miss her visits for a while.

Earlier this year I started moving old journal entries from 1998 into the weblog. I didn’t get too far, but what I did get done has started showing up in the “On this date in…” links. When I read the 4 June 1998 entry about a hike up Gavan Hill over to Harbor Mountain, I realized that was as bright a line as any in my journey towards becoming an obsessive sort of naturalist. Although I didn’t realize where it would ultimately lead, it was the first hike I went on with a (brand new) SLR camera that I hoped to use to take pictures of flowers and stuff. My motivation at the time was very much the photographic side of things. I’m not entirely sure where it came from, but I think in part it was inspired by my dad’s interest in photography, including nature photography. It was not something he spent much time on, but do remember being aware of it. What I didn’t understand until long after was how it would change the way I paid attention to the natural world. Nor did I realize I would feel compelled to try and find names for the things I photographed, and how that process would provide a certain kind of reinforcement that trigger some of my obsessives/compulsive tendencies.

I still remember being back in Pullman the following school year showing photos to my classmates in statistics classes who were in the botany program, hoping they could give me names. I even took a trip to the WSU herbarium for help. Now I understand how unrealistic it was to think they would be able to give me names of the plants/flowers I had photographed, but at the time I was pretty naive in my thinking.

There are still some remnants of those efforts to be found on my older site. One example is a picture of Cooley’s Buttercup from that hike. The title is correct, as I’m pretty sure I added it in when I finally figured out what the flower was. However, the caption still reads:

I found this flower while hiking in the alpine on 4 June 1998. This plant was not very large. It has been suggested to me that the leaves make this look like a buttercup of some sort, though another person pointed out that it is not unthinkable that the flowers don’t necessarily go with the leaves which the picture seems to put them with.

Of course now I recognize that plant immediately, but at the time it was completely new to me. The people I asked about it had no doubt never seen it, as it has a limited distribution (both in terms of habitat and overall range). So I wrote down what I could based on the answers I received to my questions. I think I ultimately figured this one out by photo matching in Pojar and McKinnon’s Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast.

To What Do I Aspire?
This summer I had the opportunity to go on a hike with Richard Carstensen (seen in the photo above). He has spent a lot of time in the woods throughout Southeast Alaska and it was very interesting to talk with him. One of the things that came up early in the conversation was his curiousity about how I would describe my interests, especially as they relate to natural history.

I have always tended to be a curious individual with diverse interests. Over the years many things have caught my attention for at least a little while. I gradually realized that there was far more in this world that was interesting than I would ever have time to learn and that if I really wanted to have some chance at a deep understanding of something, I would need to limit my investigations in some way. In the end, I decided that my limits would be geographical. Some people get really into beetles or birds or wildflowers or rocks or clouds, I want to get into this place. I do not want to learn about all the beetles or birds or plants or rocks or clouds, but I am driven to learn about the beetles and birds and plants and rocks and clouds that can teach me about this place and those who are my neighbors here.

This place is key. I have only a passing interest in things that live elsewhere, except inasmuch as they are fairly directly related to this place. It’s even worse though, the fact is, I have very little interest (to the point of it being an active disinterest) in even leaving this place for any length of time…

At some point in my ramblings I paused to catch my breath and he asked if the following statement fit my sense of things: “…a generalist in subject matter, but a specialist in place.”

This statement is as accurate is as any I had come up with to describe my aspirations, and it’s certainly far more concise.

I had the opportunity to get up Indian River Valley with Scott Harris and Richard Carstensen. Richard is a naturalist who lives in Juneau, but has done work all over Southeast Alaska. He made the comment that to be a naturalist, you must be a generalist in subject matter, but a specialist in place. I thought that was a pretty good way of describing my goals as a naturalist.

Later in the day there was a gathering of (former) SJ faculty, so we borrowed a friend’s car. We ended up being a bit early, so we drove out to Starrigavan and back, but did not get out to look around.

Weather: It was mostly sunny, on the hike and around town. However, when we drove out to Starrigavan, there were pretty good rain showers falling. It made for a very bright rainbow, but of course I did not have my camera. There was a nice sunset this evening, as well.

Birds: I think I heard a Red-tail Hawk up Indian River valley. I heard a call like a strange eagle (and no yodeling). That’s what turned out to be the hawk last time, so I figured that’s what it was this time. I did not see it, however.

Other Notes: There was plenty of bear sign up in the Middle Sister muskegs. There was fresh hair on the rub trees we passed. I also saw fresh tracks in the mud, including some the size of a cub. We did not actually see any bears, however.

There was a place along a cut bank where a fine sediment deposit was exposed. The deer seemed to favor this over the nearby riverbed cobbles. They appeared to have dug out places in the sediment. Richard thought it might be used as a mineral lick. It was not immediately clear what the source of the sediment was. It was the color of ash, and a closer look suggested it had been deposited by the river.

Another interesting thing we observed were ancient channels that appeared to have been inactive for quite some time. I had noticed these before, but never really thought about them much. Richard suggested they might have formed during the little ice age. It was interesting to listen to him talk about how waterflow (both current and past) effect how the forests grow.

Though I was nervous about finding it (after I took a much different route than I have previously), we did get to the big hemlock and used some fancier equipment to measure it. We took the circumference at the standard 4.5 feet off the ground (instead of doing the diameter as high as we could reach, as had been done previously when I was involved in measuring it). That added several inches to the circumference. However, using a laser distance measuring tool and the inclinometer from a couple of different locations, we found the height to be 156 or so feet. This was several feet shorter than we had estimated previously. Our canopy measurements were quite similar to previous measurements. All told, our score came out to 535. The current record holding tree (on the Olympic Penninsula in Washington) is 549.

It was an enjoyable hike with Scott and Richard. It was not something I had thought about before, but as I was talking with Richard, I realized that a significant majority of my woods experience is with the Indian River watershed (including ridges above it). As such, I really don’t know how it compares to other locations in Southeast. What’s ‘normal’ for Indian River may be unsual elsewhere, and vice versa. It was interesting to have his perspective informed by the time he has spent in the woods throughout Southeast.