Saturday, April 13, 2013

Introduction


Some Wildflower Walks, Drumheller Springs Park, Spokane, Washington, USA, 2013

Introduction
The ‘pages’ listed on the right are photographic records of my 2013 wildflower walks in Drumheller Springs park, Spokane, Washington, USA.

The process of this project is ‘learn by doing’. I am not a photographer. I am not a botanist.

I have learned some botany over the 6 years of this project. I used to know a little about photography but I am very impatient with it and am greatly appreciative of contemporary ‘forgiving’ cameras. Some camera knowledge is forced on me. The botany is more fun.
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My objective is a little different in 2013.

In 2012 the focus was on photographing as many blossoming plants as I could find in  Drumheller Springs Park, to identify them as best I could and to record the date of the first observed blossom.

2012
51 Walks, 178 Plants And A Few Bugs – Some Mosses, Some Landscapes

At the bottom of the introduction to the wildflower walks of 2012 is a list of the 178 wildflowers photographed in 2012 in the order in which they were observed and with the date of observation.

On the right side of the page is a list of my 51 wildflower walks in 2012. I am only allowed 20 ‘pages’ so there are often several walks crammed on a page.

The wildflowers don’t bloom on the same day each year. There may be a couple of weeks or more difference from year to year. I believe there will be more difference early in the year and less difference at the height of the wildflower season. Mid-May to mid-June, but I don’t know that for sure.

The flowers don’t even bloom in the same order each year … or so it seems from these too casual observations. There is a rough order to their blossoming.

My 2012 walks can be a very rough guide to what flowers you might see in Drumheller Springs Park on a given date. Other environments will be earlier and later.

Yeah, it would be better if I listed the plants by their optimum blossoming time. And it would be nice if I had a date for the last observed blossom. Those are jobs for the next generation of workers on this project.
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In 2010 I started working on the idea of ‘photo-biographies’ of plants.

In the winter of 2012-2013 I got serious and sketched photo-biographies for fourteen of the earliest native plants from my available photographs over 6 years and from my current knowledge. The sketches are very rough indeed. Many of these photographs are from early walks in Riverside State Park. All of the plants are present in Drumheller Springs Park.


The idea of my walks in 2013 is to fill out the photographs I do not have for my photo-biographies, to refine the ones I have as best I can and to start work on more plant photo-biographies.

I am not a disciplined person. I will continue to follow interests of the moment with camera and text.
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What I wanted when I started this project in 2007 in the 1991 burn at Riverside State Park with my daughter, April, was ‘An Environmental Calendar’ with information about every element of the environment I could think of, the weather cycle, migration of animals and insects, the cycles of the river and river life, the cycle of the plants. Needless to say it didn’t take long to realize I would not get that done in many lifetimes.

Eventually the environmental calendar was reduced to the plant cycle and the plant cycle at one location, Drumheller Springs Park.

Disclaimer: I am not a botanist. Too many plants are unidentified. Some are surely misidentified. Take it upon yourself to repair my errors.

Continue disclaimer: I only intended to walk the park every 5 days in 2012. It didn’t always happen. And every five days is not enough. My walks in 2013 will be occasional.

Continue disclaimer: The park is 10 or 12 acres and has diverse environmental niches. I never cover the whole park on a single walk.

So … there are lots of corrections and additions to the work to be made. There is lots of ‘stuff’ in the park I didn’t see and will never see.

I am old, on the edge of very old. I won’t get it done. It’s your job, if not now, soon. Do it.

Later, slatsz