On Monday John and I
monitored three transects at Baker River and three at Anderson Watson. It was a
nice day out around 80 degrees with smoke in the air and close to no breeze;
but the flies were out and about. At Baker River we saw foam flower and miners
lettuce at all transects. Fireweed and buttercup were present in some areas but
nearing the end of blooming. Baker river didn’t have a huge amount of diversity
in flowering plants overall.
At Anderson Watson we had to
go off trail to get to a couple of the transects which was adventurous and fun!
Except for the flies once again in the 80 degree weather. Daisy, white mountain
heather, foam flower, and five leaved bramble were moderately present. Bees
were all around us collecting pollen in large part from the most abundant
flower however– the pink heather. We also saw a few arnica flowers, queens cup,
and hawkweed here. Overall not a hugely diverse transect.
Transect two was more diverse
but had many similar plants to the previous one including five leaved bramble,
pink mountain heather, arnica, white mountain heather, and daisy. We also noted
a few others such as pink monkey flower, lupin (which the bees loved!),
partridge foot, slender bog orchid, veronica, sitka valerian, and sitka
mountain ash which was almost done blooming.
The third transect was
primarily made up of pink mountain heather and this is where we found too many
bees to count. They were mainly visiting the pink heather but also the sitka
valerian and white heather a bit. The majority of the bumblebees were
melanopygys but there were a variety of others as well. Also within this
transect we found hawkweed, marigold, arnica, and white mountain heather.
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