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So I went over to my culvert on Sunday. The first thing I realized was how horribly underprepared I was. This environmental biology thing is hard.
The area I had chosen was too large. I wanted to observe the life in the ditch from the edge of the bridge back to the bend in the stream where the huge plants are.(Monterey cypress, pampas grass, and what turns out to be gunnera tinctoria) This is an area about two-thirds the size of the lot my house is on. I also quickly figured out that I had no easy way of determining number of individuals of plants, since most of the plants in the creekbed are of the groundcover sort. So for all of those I figured out how much land they covered.
I needed, but did not have, a measuring tape and a decent magnifying glass. I did have the wit to find an aerial photograph of the place and make a sketch map from it. I guess the picture was taken a while back, because the path of the stream is not identical. I had to adjust that on the map.
I ended up choosing a couple of different places and counting individuals in them, but I'm not at all confident that I got those right. I haven't sat down with Jepson to identify the hard stuff (the grasses and the yellow-flowered asteraceae, notably). I will before the end of Saturday.
I'm pretty confident that with the possible exception of the yellow-flowered asteraceae and the algae in the streambed, there are no native plants growing in that drainage ditch. I think. It also seemed strangely bereft of animal life. I heard two different frogs, and I saw a segmented worm-like invertebrate and a bee-like thing going around the iceplant flowers, a water snail, a tiny fly and a tinier fly. The soil was damp, despite the fact that we got less than 10% of the "normal" rainfall this year.
To bed: more tomorrow.
The area I had chosen was too large. I wanted to observe the life in the ditch from the edge of the bridge back to the bend in the stream where the huge plants are.(Monterey cypress, pampas grass, and what turns out to be gunnera tinctoria) This is an area about two-thirds the size of the lot my house is on. I also quickly figured out that I had no easy way of determining number of individuals of plants, since most of the plants in the creekbed are of the groundcover sort. So for all of those I figured out how much land they covered.
I needed, but did not have, a measuring tape and a decent magnifying glass. I did have the wit to find an aerial photograph of the place and make a sketch map from it. I guess the picture was taken a while back, because the path of the stream is not identical. I had to adjust that on the map.
I ended up choosing a couple of different places and counting individuals in them, but I'm not at all confident that I got those right. I haven't sat down with Jepson to identify the hard stuff (the grasses and the yellow-flowered asteraceae, notably). I will before the end of Saturday.
I'm pretty confident that with the possible exception of the yellow-flowered asteraceae and the algae in the streambed, there are no native plants growing in that drainage ditch. I think. It also seemed strangely bereft of animal life. I heard two different frogs, and I saw a segmented worm-like invertebrate and a bee-like thing going around the iceplant flowers, a water snail, a tiny fly and a tinier fly. The soil was damp, despite the fact that we got less than 10% of the "normal" rainfall this year.
To bed: more tomorrow.
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Sometimes I put one into photos I'm taking to show the scale.
If you are required, as I am, to hold a radiation counter one foot from the object you're measuring, that's two dollar bills.
If you don't have any cash on you, I suppose a credit card is a standard size, too, but I haven't memorized it.
Lack of measuring tape
I've used my eight inch hand spread over the years when trying to figure out whether something will fit in a certain space or dimensions of some piece of furniture. I use it most often, though, when I'm at the Goodwill trying to figure out the waist measurement on a pair of jeans with a size label too faded to read.
Sure a tape measure is easier, especially if you're measuring something that's a large multiple of eight inches.
You need to have a bag with all your culvert widgets in it that you take there and bring back and never, ever, NEVER take things out of to use for "just a minute" because you have something happening at home that you need that magnifying glass for.