Käyttäjän achen29 päiväkirja

I walked around the Houghton Garden and the two bodies of water (one a bigger pond and one a smaller stream). It was sunny outside, however in the garden, the foliage created shade so it felt cool and there was a slight breeze. There were many trees (like pine trees and Sawara False Cypress), larger rocks, and other plants in the area—very green, though the ground was covered with brown fallen leaves, dirt, and rocks. I walked around for about an hour total, mostly because I wanted to try to get a picture of some animals. When I walked around, I could hear a lot of different types of chirping which signified to me that there were birds and insects in the area. However, I was not able to get a picture of any of the birds quickly enough to get a clear, discernible image because it couldn't get close enough without them flying away. I also heard and saw multiple squirrels and chipmunks in the area as I walked around, but it was very difficult to get closer to them before they ran away. Luckily, I was able to get a picture of a chipmunk toward the very end of my walk after trying so many times. Also, I realized that one of the chirping noises, or more like squealing, that I heard was coming from the chipmunks because the one I took a picture of made a lot of noise as it was running away. I was excited to find some different organisms living near and in the pond and bodies of water but I was not able to find much. There were some small black, narrow fish in the smaller stream area but they would swim away before I could take a picture. I saw two different types of fungi and took pictures of both, however one type (which was a singular fungus that was much larger) couldn't be identified so I did not include it. Throughout the walk I noticed the biodiversity and was trying to think how alpha, beta, and gamma diversity would be determined. I have had to determine the alpha and beta diversity of an ecosystem before, however the areas had much lower species richness. In a given area, even small, it appeared that the species richness would be high and the beta diversity would be high as well. Estimating gamma diversity seems complicated. Overall, it was fun wandering around the area and going every which direction to try to explore the diverse area and the species within it as much as I could.