Phenology (aka Natural Observations)

the song of cicadas

Hey Fen, when are you planning your next foray to the park?

It’s the official beginning of raspberry season in northern Rhode Island!

My girlfriend and I stumbled upon a medium sized, but highly plentiful patch of black raspberries yesterday. Most of the raspberry bushes around are almost ripe, but this patch seems to get some good sun. We spent under an hour and a half picking and came out with exactly two pounds of berries. The resulting smoothies were great, as will be whatever we end up making with the rest of them.

Also found some blackberry patches that are almost ready to be picked, and wild blueberries might be good in a week or so.

Wow totally didn’t see this till just now. Next foray to the park, I don’t know, any weekend (friday/saturday/sunday) usually works quite well for me, except this one as I’m heading down to Coos Bay.

Cherry trees dropping their cherries right now. Salmon and blueberries abound. In Michigan I picked Mulberries.

Well, I’ll be in Wisconsin myself (funeral for my grandpa).

Saturday afternoons work really well for me, though! How about next weekend?

Anyone else from Seattle interested?

[quote=“BlueHeron, post:85, topic:174”]Well, I’ll be in Wisconsin myself (funeral for my grandpa).

Saturday afternoons work really well for me, though! How about next weekend?

Anyone else from Seattle interested?[/quote]

I’m new here, but very in to finding people to do this kind of stuff with. I’ve mostly been foraging by myself, except when my lady friend feels like coming along. It’d be great to be IDing things with others. I’m in Tacoma, but am usually in Seattle on the weekends.

Oh, PS, today I went to the Blueberry Park, but the blueberries aren’t ripe yet, so I ate some Fireweed greens, collected Red Clover tops, Red Elderberry, Oregon Grapes, and tons of Rainier Cherries. I also found some Tiger Lillies the other day, tried to dig up the root, but the ground was really hard, and i broke off the stem before I got to the root, which was surrounded by tons of other stuff, and I got discouraged, not knowing what the root would look like. that day I also got a good amount of yarrow, and Red Huckleberries.

Red elderberries eh? What do you use them for clickety clack?

I’m hopefully available for park fun next Saturday. My good friends b-day is that evening though so we’ll see. Rebecca, keep me posted will ya?

You betcha. (I am in the upper midwest right now, trying to blend in ;))

I arrived in Seattle today and as I walked home I noticed a large migration of some type of black bird flying in a I think North East direction. Anyone know what I saw?

Did they click and whistle a lot? Did they have heavy-bullet shaped bodies, with wings so short as to almost look triangular? Yellow bills? Did you see them at dawn or dusk?

They were rather silent, only thing I may have heard was a raven call, but that may have just been a raven.
I saw them at dusk, I didn’t see yellow bills that I remember.
I want to say it looked like a redwinged blackbird in shape/size or crow.

From Pojar: “Red elderberries, though small and seedy, were a highly importand food for the peoples of the central and northern coast, although few people use them today. They should always be cooked, since the raw berries may cause nausea.” it goes on to basically say that jelly and wine are good red elderberry products. oh, and i think i’m gonna be shuttling between olympia and bellingham this weekend, so probably won’t be able to do discovery park this weekend. but weekdays are generally free as well if anyone’s interested.

Redwing blackbirds are quite a bit smaller than crows but about the same size as starlings that look black, especially while flying. They are often in large groups, sometimes ENORMOUS fucking groups. They are common in domesticated environments, from cities to farmland. I’m no expert, but I think migrating birds would have done so by now. The ones that go north for nesting during the summer would want
to be set up at this point. Maybe not all species though. Starlings hang out year round, but fly together looking for food, and to trees where they make a huge racket. That’s my guess.

I did however see my first flock of southward headed geese last week so fall migrations could be starting. You could also look at pictures of brewers or yellow-winged blackbirds for more options of something in that sizerange of bird that flocks and creates a lot of sound.

As is typical for August here in S. BC, the air is very smokey from forest fires. The moon last night looked almost red through the smokey haze.
We had a real good rain last night and this morning, so the air is a bit clearer today and hopefully the fire danger is way down as well.

I picked my first Saskatoon/Serviceberry the other day in Spokane. it definitely wasn’t fully ripe, but was still pretty good. a little later, I found Kinnikinick for the first time. nasty little berries, and I don’t smoke, so it was way more exciting for just knowing it than anything else. But today, I went to a new place in Tacoma (Chambers Creek), and got a bunch of hazelnuts that were planted around some County building as an ornamental/watershed thing. I also picked a Cattail top for the first time, and haven’t figured out what to do with it yet.

Kinnikinick tea is good for your kidneys.
Our saskatoons are pretty much over. Any that are left on the bushes are starting to look like raisins. We got a ton of them and another ton of huckleberries this year. Best year in a long time.
Choke cherries are just starting now

shit. wish i’d known that. fortunately my kidneys are fine, but thanks for the info, i’ll be sure to remember that. do you just dry the leaves and do standard infusion type of thing?

wild grapes – muscadines – run rampant in these eastern woodlands. they produce sparsely it seems, but i ate the first ripe grapes of the season two days ago. some had even started to ferment a little (i gathered them from the ground – the vine hung 25 ft in the air). yum!