dhuangava917 的日誌

My third nature walk with the theme of plants and focused on finding, bryophytes, polypodiopsida, gymnosperms and angiosperms. I walked around the school throughout the day and took some pictures and walked around for 40 mins around the Pine Tree Preserve and Reservoir. and A majority of the plants on campus seem to fall under the angiosperms or gymnosperms as there is grass, flowers and all sorts of vascular plants while the pine trees in the Pine Tree Preserve are considered gymnosperms. It was more difficult to find bryophytes and ferns or polypodiopsida. They were tucked away in a small corner on the other side of the preserve. Moss was quite difficult to find as they weren't really growing on a living trees, but I found one by chance near the reservoir on a fallen tree trunk.

The angiosperms I found were often maple trees and Dogwoods that produced fruit or flowers around upper and lower campus. More angiosperms included oak or acorn trees, ground ivy and bedstraws. Ground ivy and bedstraws along with other angiosperms didn't always have flowers to make it obvious that they were angiosperms.

The walk was fun to see the diversity of life around campus and how many variants there are of a certain genus. It was a great day to walk around campus as the weather was nice and warm compared to the rest of week.

I went on my second nature walk today, this time by the Pine Tree Reserve by Boston College for about an hour. I was not expecting to find such a large variety of fungi around trees, tree stumps and rocks. There were a lot of pine trees that had flaky barks that layered on top of each other which was really cool.

I'd say I found about 5-9 unique species of fungi. It was interesting to see how there are different types of fungi and the way they grow with the different spore shapes and color. I noticed how many like to grow around tree bark and sometimes even on rocks as they tend to have a symbiotic relationship with trees and plants. I was unable to find any mushrooms of the sort at the reserve unfortunately. Their spores were ring shaped and had different colors for each ring within the spore that were mostly dark in color.

Overall the walk today was very enjoyable today with great weather and a myriad of observations.

My walk was located just outside of Boston College by the Chestnut Hill driveway and the area by the reservoir and that’s adjacent to the driveway. I explored a little into the woods a little bit but was too hard to navigate due to the fallen branches and uneven ground. The weather was amazing as it was nice and warm and sunny which made it the perfect day to walk around.

This is my first nature walk and my first Inaturalist walk. I enjoyed the walk a lot more than I expected. I walked way more than the minimum requirement of 30 minutes. I found myself looking at trees and looking for wild organisms despite the fear I had. I was avoiding all the insects and many rough paths due to the improper gear I had. It was nice to look at nature and being in a different environment with leaves falling and small animals roaming around.

I was most fascinated by this large gray and brown bird but was unable to get a good photo due to how fast they were. There was a small hamster or squirrel that had a striped brown and black back that was extremely sensitive to sound and agile. It burrowed between the fallen tree trunks and ran around small and tight crevices to escape. Throughout this entire walk, I was looking for animals and trying to be as silent as possible. Despite my efforts many of them were too agile. Overall, the walk allowed for a breath of fresh air and was enjoyable.