![\"PA080296\"](\"https:\/\/people.williams.edu\/biol225\/files\/2009\/10\/PA080296.jpg\")
<\/p>\nEric Outterson<\/p>\n
Professor Hank Art<\/p>\n
October 9, 2009<\/p>\n
3:00 PM<\/p>\n
4:10 PM<\/p>\n
55\u00baF<\/p>\n
The Familiar<\/p>\n
I arrived at Stetson Woods today knowing exactly how to be prepared.\u00a0 I quickly greeted a breeze-free mist and my ever faithful stratus companion. I told him, \u201cI almost thought you wouldn\u2019t come this week!\u201d\u00a0 Seattle\u2019s weather seems to enjoy excursions to Stetson Woods exactly when I do.\u00a0 Ignoring my anything but fair-weather friend, I stepped down into the damp soil where I encountered another acquaintance, a mosquito.\u00a0 After making sure that there would be no bad blood between us I moved along, confident that I knew the neighborhood well.<\/p>\n
An unfamiliar chipmunk, however, greeted me with a quiet \u201ccheep\u201d and quickly darted under one of the many large schist rocks that sit on the hillside near Thompson Chapel.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Eager to be better acquainted with this shy personality, I lowered a stick into his hiding spot, only to hear \u201ccheep\u201d from an adjacent rock.\u00a0 He quickly darted out from under this rock and under scurried another.\u00a0 I searched hard, but had no luck finding him. I followed the central swath of rocks and realized that for every visible surface rock, there were at least three or four concealed beneath thin leaf and soil cover. I could see why the chipmunk could escape from me so well.<\/p>\n
With my friend gone, I had choice but to listen to see where he would turn up.\u00a0 Unfortunately, all I could hear at first were noises caused by people; cars started up and passing pedestrians talked about missing Mountain Day.\u00a0 Strangely, there wasn\u2019t even a light breeze to ruffle the leaves in the trees.\u00a0 For the next ten minutes the woods failed to produce sound.<\/p>\n
I decided to take the time to dig in the dirt around the site.\u00a0 I encountered many asymmetric leaves that appear to slippery elm, but I can\u2019t seem to pinpoint the tree.\u00a0 In combing the bramble for evidence of the tree location, however, I unearthed more signs of human influence.\u00a0 Mosses and leaves had helped a large block of cement masquerade as another piece of schist.\u00a0 I wondered if the Stetson woods were ever a drop site for used construction materials.<\/p>\n
Suddenly, two successive bird calls interrupted those thoughts. \u00a0The first called from high in the canopy (with a quality of sound I thought similar to a crow) that started high and then dropped in pitch \u201cBee-ooo.\u201d\u00a0 The other had a similar falling sound made a \u201ctcheeew, tcheeew\u201d sound.\u00a0 I thought I heard a third, but it was the familiar and (subjectively) cute \u201ccheep\u201d from a chipmunk I\u2019d stepped near.<\/p>\n
Aha!\u00a0 I saw where he was this, time and I wasn\u2019t going to let him get away without getting his picture!\u00a0 Unfortunately, auto-focus only caught pictures of branches in his front before he disappeared by a tree stump.\u00a0 Examining where he had disappeared I realized that the six to eight inch schist and decaying root system provided a perfect cover for the small mammal.\u00a0 Using a small stick, I could reach straight easily two feet into a tunnel system..<\/p>\n
Brushing off leaf cover in an 8 foot radius I was able to spot 3 different escape routes the chipmunk could have chosen.\u00a0 The most prominent emerged beneath the roots of red maple on the southern edge of the site.\u00a0 The hole initially appeared to be a modest two inches wide, as many leaves and thin roots obscured entrance.\u00a0 Brushing them aside revealed a burrow 12-14 inches in diameter and at least 2 feet in depth with a few pill bugs, millipedes, and ants.<\/p>\n
Suddenly, my ears ring from the four o\u2019clock chapel chimes. I was ready to give up on this chipmunk when suddenly four crossed my path.\u00a0 Two stopped face to face inches apart with the other two looking on.\u00a0 As the chapel bells began to play an unfamiliar song, one fell, exposing its large white belly and then began to wiggle upright.\u00a0 The upright chipmunk leaped onto the recently fallen one and three or four seconds later, they and their two companions scurry off.<\/p>\n
As everything quieted down again, I was stunned.\u00a0 My visit had begun with great predictability and quiet but ended with orchestrated scene.\u00a0 The seemingly familiar Stetson Woods still has a lot left to show me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Eric Outterson Professor Hank Art October 9, 2009 3:00 PM 4:10 PM 55\u00baF The Familiar I arrived at Stetson Woods today knowing exactly how to be prepared.\u00a0 I quickly greeted a breeze-free mist and my ever faithful stratus companion. I told him, \u201cI almost thought you wouldn\u2019t come this week!\u201d\u00a0 Seattle\u2019s weather seems to enjoy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":227,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12614],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-10-stetson-hall-parking-lot-woods"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/biol225\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/biol225\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/biol225\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/biol225\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/227"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/biol225\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/biol225\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/biol225\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/biol225\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/biol225\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}