4th Nature Walk
For my final nature walk I decided to do it at my home in rural Maryland in order to see and record varying plants/animals from the ones in Massachusetts. Because it is almost December and the weather is getting colder, it was difficult to find many insects. However, I was able to find some very large black beetles (horned passalus beetles) in our firewood pile as well as stink bugs that frequent the indoors in the colder months. In addition, I found an eastern gray squirrel, which was not uncommon since my house is located in a very wooded area. Beyond that, the most interesting living things I could find in the forest were fungus (asian beauty) growing on tree stumps and an odd looking film growing on top of the stream water where a tree had blocked its flow. This film was recognized by iNaturalist as "genus arcella", which is a kind of freshwater free-living amoeboid protist. While this definitely could be something else (inaturalist is just a hypothesis since I was unable to take a close up picture of a single amoeba), it was interesting to see such varying kinds of life, even in the cold. The forest I was in is also home to a huge number of deer and birds, but I was unable to get a picture of either during my walk. Unlike looking for plants on a walk, searching for insects and animals was a much more challenging and time consuming task. I had to walk further and look in more remote and quiet places for small animals that may have been hidden. With adaptations such as flight, speed, camouflage, and more, animals and insects are better adapted to avoid potential predators (which, in this situation would be me).
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