June 2nd, 11:49am
The weather at the site was warmer than the last time I went- a really sunny day about 78ºF with a light breeze. It being earlier in the afternoon, the sun came through the trees pretty strongly.
Today, I tried to venture off the trail a little further. I walked a trail loop, looking into the brush on either side and stopping to turn over the occasional log or stone to look for interesting critters. There were a ton of centipedes and even quite a few orange-banded arions, the species of slug that I identified at my last visit. This time around, I spotted a large patch of wild blackberries! Most of them weren’t ripe yet, but I was lucky enough to grab a few. It seemed that most insects were taking cover in the shade just as I was on the trail. There were a couple more people this time around, I saw three folks in the field. One had a vivid-colored skirt and a cream-colored blouse.
On the way out of the trail, a small garter snake crossed the path in front of me. I tried to catch a picture, but he didn’t seem to want to say hello. I noticed as the trail got closer to the water, the ground was covered in sand. The rest of the area was dark, moist soil and the contrast was a bit confusing. I took a look at the data from last summer’s floods, as I remember talking about sediment deposits in a lab at the center a while back. It seems that the flooding from the river lifted sand and deposited it over the area lining the shores. This was surprising, as the trail was roughly 15ft above the water’s surface.
I really liked taking pictures in the field, it was nice to just be able to capture things with a camera without worrying if they would be easy enough to draw. I think that the sketching exercise was a little more detail oriented, and this assignment had me take a lens that was zoomed out, in a way. I really enjoyed going through and adjusting/editing the photos afterwards!