The Daily Bucket is a regular feature of the Backyard Science group, a place where everyone is welcome to note the observations you have made of the natural world around you. Fledglings, insects, blossoms, fish, climate, reptiles and/or amphibians: all are worthy additions to the bucket. Ask questions if you have them and someone here may well have an answer. All we ask is that you let us know where you're located, as close as you're comfortable revealing.
May 28, 2013. Seattle.
The Forest canopy closed sometime in the last couple of weeks. I missed the day this year, likely too distracted searching for the owl families. Last week I found that I had no shadow on the trail I depend on for bright winter light.
Now shaded, the shrubs on the Forest floor continue to develop. Oregon Grape (Mahonia nervosa) bloomed back in March, when the forest floor was still bright.
March 28, 2013. Oregon Grape (Mahonia nervosa).
It has set fruit now, which will continue to ripen red-purple over the next weeks. I find even the ripest berries to sour.
May 23, 2013. Oregon Grape (Mahonia nervosa).
Oregon Grape mingles with
Salal (Gautheria shallon) throughout the Forest, but especially under the half-deciduous/half-evergreen canopy on the dry western slopes of the Forest peninsula. In some places the two form a waist high barrier almost impenetrable even for the most determined bushwhackers.
But Salal waits until the canopy closes before it blossoms.
May 23, 2013. Salal (Gautheria shallon).
A month or more will pass before the fruit ripens - seedy, deep purple and much sweeter than its companion.
Both are evergreen and should be able to harvest the light that streams down from the open winter canopy. I don't have an answer as to why they blossom in different times, one before the canopy closes and the other one afterwards.
Other berries grow on the Forest Peninsula, and I have favorites. All are deciduous, some breaking dormancy in late winter and the very earliest spring. Osoberry (Oemleria cerasiformis) is one of the first to blossom, every year at the end of January. The flower buds begin to swell just as the last Red Alder leaves fall and the deciduous canopy is open to whatever light can stream down - late December most years, when light is limited to eight hours a day here at the 47th parallel. The leaves follow quickly, the first green of every year. By now they have utilized every possible ray of early season light. Most of their fruit has set, ripened and been picked off by the forest birds and their leaves have begun to fade. By midsummer many of the Osoberry bushes will be almost bare.
May 23, 2013. Yellowing Osoberry leaves (above) and green Thimbleberries.
After all the years I've spent walking in the Forest one would think that I'd learned to anticipate the first
Thimbleberry (Rubus parviflorus) leaves, but every year I am surprised. They seem too fragile for early March. The leaves ripen as the canopy closes. Every year their blossoms emerge just as the Big-leaf Maple and Cottonwood leaves are big enough to filter green light down to the forest floor, setting fruit in dappled shade. The fruit will ripen when the shade becomes cool.
View from the Stump.
April 27, 2013. The Forest, Seattle. View from the Stump.
May 21, 2013. The Forest, Seattle. View from the Stump.
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In reviewing this essay I realize that it's a bit disjointed and kind of fuzzy around the edges. I've only recently begun to think about the way the forest as a whole breathes throughout the year. This is just a start. Thanks for indulging me.
Everyone is welcome to add their observations to the Bucket. You all on the east coast get started commenting!
I'll be in around 1 PDT, and then away until dinnertime.