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Pikes/Pines | Plants and Birds and Rocks and Things — Six tools to make you a Capitol Hill natural historian

summer spangled

When I was eight years old, I stumbled out of my local library, teetering under a stack of bird field guides. At the time I didn’t know it, but this was luxury afforded me by the hard work of generations of ornithologists and artists, but I never took them for granted. Today, aside from my binoculars and camera, my field guides are probably my most prized possessions.

A good natural history field guide is stuffed with information about natural history information and awash with plate after plate of gorgeous paintings or photographs of the subject. They light up your imagination with the promise of exploration. The books I collected growing up are still in my library along side field guides on reptiles, mammals, butterflies, wildflowers, trees, minerals, and even animal skulls, to name a few. Wondering what a small mammal skull I found is, I find an answer sitting on my shelf. Enough said, field guides are essential to naturalists. However, lets say you don’t have the time, money, or debilitating obsession to find yourself hoarding thousands of pounds of books (oh how I hate moving)? What if you merely want to make a quick reference?

There are apps, and there is the library, but I’m thinking of an even simpler resource. The internet is great, but not any old website is reliable. Wikipedia is decent, but get down to the nuts and bolts of identification and falls short of regional information. So, this Pikes/Pines, I decided to provide you with a good list of websites for naturalizing on the hill (who knows, maybe I’ll talk favorite books sometime too). There are undoubtedly more but for brevity’s sake here’s my list.

Birds: Ebird – One part citizen science project collecting bird observations, one part database. Ever wonder who has seen Purple Finches on the Hill, where, when, and how many? One can easily find out. Go poke around, it’s awesome. And consider contributing yourself, it’s easy, fun, and will mean there’s more information out there.

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A look at observations of Purple Finches recorded on eBird on the Hill.

Birdweb – A project of Seattle Audubon, this is a great page about only Washington State birds. Find out when and where species show up, about their breeding habits, and much more.

Wing and Tail Image Collection – Tthe University of Puget Sound’s Slater Museum of Natural History has a wonderful collection of bird specimens and is a leader in the collection of bird wings and tails (when a specimen is prepared normally, you do not have access to the wing, which is a major source of information). This could very well help you ID that bird feather you found.

Mammals: Burke Museum’s Mammals of Washington – Simple, straightforward guide to the mammals of Washington. A good summary of native and non-native species, as well as external links to get more in-depth.

Plants: Common Trees of the Pacific Northwest – A very cool resource that doesn’t ignore introduced and cultivated trees. Tree wise, the Hill is fairly diverse and a mystery tree is just as likely to be non-native as native. It even leads you down a dichotomous key to help, at least, get you to the genus of the tree you are considering.

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Use this site to sleuth out the trees around you.

King County Native Plants (and Noxious Weeds) – A stepping stone for getting to know native plants. Also has an excellent resource for understanding noxious weeds in our county.

Mushrooms: Mushroaming’s Pacific Northwest Mushrooms – Maybe it’s just me, but I think mushroom enthusiasts are rad. Daniel Winkler is a considerable resource and this is a great page on edibles. However, I insist you not harvest and eat wild mushrooms solely based off of this page.

Reptiles and Amphibians: The Burke Museum’s Amphibians and Reptiles of Washington State – One of the better online guides out there. We may have a paucity or (possibly) complete lack of native herps on the Hill, but they’re nearby.

Geology: The Burke Museum’s Geologic History of Washington State – Yes, the Burke is the best and they do it again with a well written and interesting geologic history of the State.

Washington Department of Natural Resources Geology Page – Chocked with imagery from all over the state, I love this page for learning about our very foundations.

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One of my all time favorite images of Washington State. This is a map created by the DNR, showing the basic makeup of the state’s geology. Look at us: Quaternary (2.5 million years ago to present) glacial deposits.

Birds always take the cake, a result of their being prevalent, easy to observe, and having a faithful amateur following that drives good, public information. You’ll notice I have no invertebrate sites here. That’s because there’s few non-technical resources available (and almost none online). I do however, hope the resources I have managed to dig up here are useful in your naturalist explorations of the Hill.

P.S. I would love for you to share other good sites you know in the comments and/or suggest future subjects. What do you want to hear about on Pikes/Pines in the future?

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