Ravenna Park Walking Tour

Seeing how we've reached the end of the quarter and had the opportunity to learn so much about this small but beautiful park, it's time to provide you all with a short walking tour to really give you a taste of what Ravenna Park has to offer.  Getting to Ravenna Park isn't difficult, simple head down Ravenna Avenue until you hit 55th Street and once you see the baseball fields head past them towards the forest!  You'll begin your walking tour at this park entrance past the baseball fields, marked with a number one on the map.  Then proceed on the trail to the parks interior and be sure to stop at each numbers location to see the variety of stations which I've detailed below!

1. Birds

As you enter the park and walk past the baseball fields you'll come to a large grouping of trees in a rather open area that signals the entrance to the forest.  Here, trees such as the bigleaf maple, black cottonwood, western hemlock and Douglas fir provide excellent bird viewing opportunities.  The openness of this spot allows for easier spotting of many species that call Ravenna Park home, you'll often see American crows, American robins, song sparrows, black capped chickadees, white-crowned sparrows, Bewick's wrens, spotted towhee and more!  The birds here will often be flying from branch to branch calling out each ones respective songs.  Bird songs whether to serve as a warning to other males or simply attract the attention of females always provide a wonderful backdrop to Ravenna Park.  In order to maximize your odds of seeing birds and to get the prettiest jumble of bird songs possible it's recommended that you visit the park in the morning or at dusk.  While many birds certainly stay active throughout the day, some birds will go into hiding during the peak of daytime so they can better hide from potential birds of prey which may be looming overhead.

This open field before you enter the forest is a great first observation point for bird watching!

Easy to spot because of their bright orange bellies, the American Robin is a common sight in Ravenna Park.

Crows are also frequently seen the near the entrance to the woods, here's one perched on an informational sign.

2. Flowers and Bees

If you go at the right time of the year, as you begin walking through the forest and down to Ravenna Creek you will be greeted with a number of blooming wildflowers all around you.  Perhaps the most noticeable and wonderful smelling of these flowers is the Nootka Rose, this flower is easy to distinguish from others with its bright pink pedals and small thorny stems.  A number of other flowers are visible in this part of the trail too, tiny and bright yellow buttercups are prominent near ground level, and other flowers from fruits such as the thimble berry may still be visible as well.  Earlier in the springtime flowers from the red flowering currant, salmonberry and dandelion will also be in bloom, but these flowers are often gone by the time June rolls around.  Flowers are an ideal place to see honeybees and bumblebees, these insects play a very important ecological role in this park by pollinating the flowers.  The bees and flowers have a mutually beneficial relationship, in where the bees are able to sustain themselves off of the nectar from flowers and by moving around from flower to flower, and by spreading their pollen they also ensure the continued survival of these flower species.  Bees provide pollination for all kinds of plants, many of which are crops essential to the survival of humans.  If you see a bee, do not be afraid, the honeybee and bumblebee are not aggressive and will only sting if they feel threatened.  Today many scientists believe that our bee numbers are decreasing and this could one day prove detrimental to our agriculture, so please be kind to the bees as we benefit from their existence just as much as the Nootka Rose does.

A fuzzy bumblebee enjoying the pollen of a dandelion. 

The white flowers of the thimble berry.

Aromatic and beautiful nootka rose.

3. Crows fighting

Throughout my time exploring this park there has been one major wildlife presence that is highly noticeable every day i come here, and that would be the large group of American crows which inhabit this park.  Crows are ubiquitous throughout the United States, they can be found in most towns and people often associate them with mischief, and for a good reason.  The crows in this park can often be seen chasing each other around, sometimes getting into squabbles mid flight which cause them to tumble through the air as they loudly "cawww" at each other, watch and wait long enough and you just might see a crow fight for yourself.  Much like other birds, crows could be fighting over a variety of things, be it over a mate, food privileges or territory crows can often be aggressive towards each other.  Strangely enough, it seemed as if though the crows would sometimes settle their differences after a fight and end up sitting next to each other peacefully on a branch, which leads me to believe that some of these crow fights might be a form of play for them.  Unbeknownst to many, crows are some of the most intelligent wild animals on the planet.  Crows live in tight knit family communities and mate for life, their families are so close that they've been observed as having gatherings around the corpses of their fallen comrades, resembling a funeral of sorts.  Studies have also shown that crows are capable of problem solving in much more advanced ways than the average bird is, they've been known to even use sticks as tools for obtaining food.  Additionally, crows have excellent memory and facial recognition abilities, sometimes manifesting in the form of grudges against humans who mess with their nest or food supply.  

4. Swamp plants

Ravenna Park consists of a ravine with a small creek running through it, this creates a rather wet situation for the earth in the ground surrounding the park which creates ideal conditions in which a number of wetland plants can thrive.  As you walk along the trail and come to the creek you'll eventually reach a split which crosses the creek off to the right, take this path and soon after take a look to your left and you'll notice a massive colony of skunk cabbage.  If you're unable to see the plants, just take a good sniff and you'll likely find them, skunk cabbage has an infamous smell which gives the plant its namesake.  While funny smelling, skunk cabbage boasts impressively large leafs and a rather interesting bright yellow flower which grows out in the center of the plant.  In addition to skunk cabbage you'll find a number of other plants here which are conducive to swampy environments such as giant horsetail, common horsetail, western sword fern, lady fern, devils club and more.  As the spring has progressed this area of the park has experienced a substantial boom in the size of its plant life, the skunk cabbage which were once easily spotted from the side of the trail must not share space with the ferns and other plants which now block off its view.

Lady ferns have grown quite a bit this spring.

The Ravenna Creek works to nourish all kinds of plant life.

Between the overgrown ferns and giant horsetails you can easily spot the giant leaves of the skunk cabbage.

5. Bugs

Springtime brings more than just plants back into the forefront, many bugs which have been in hiding throughout the cold winter months start coming out again (as one might notice in their kitchen!). Ravenna Park provides ample opportunities to see a variety of invertebrates, but one must do a little searching low to the ground if you really want to see some bugs.  Shortly after the skunk cabbage patch you'll find a number of muddy areas off the side of the trail with plants growing, these conditions are ideal for spotting several different kinds of insects.  In my time documenting Ravenna Park I've seen pill bugs, spiders, daddy long legs, centipedes, earth worms, ants and more.  Sometimes in order to see the good bugs you might have to dig down into the ground a little with a stick, but rest assured they are there! Observe a pill bug and how they roll up into a protective shell when they feel threatened, or notice the way in which ants interact with each other in the never ending search for food to take back to the colony.  Keep an eye out for what looks like collections of spittle on leaves as well, spittle bugs are very common in Ravenna Park and if you wipe aay the foam you'll reveal a small green bug which many consider quite cute.  Just be sure that you avoid picking up any dangerous spiders, black widows, brown recluse and hobo spiders are all Northwest natives and their bites can be a rather unpleasant and poisonous experience!

Daddy long legs clinging onto the underside of a buttercup.

A common pill bug scurrying along a twig.

Easy to miss as it blends in with the ground quite seamlessly, keep an eye out for centipedes! 

Foamy patches like this on leaves are a tell tale sign that a spittle bug is there.

6. Fungi and lichen tree
Moving on deeper into the park you're likely to find a number of fungi and lichen.  For the most impressive fungi displays possible, this park is best visited in late October or early November.  However, that's not to say that there aren't plenty of fungi and lichens to observe in Ravenna Park during the spring time.  Almost any time of the year, large and impressive artists fungi can be seen growing on the sides of dead or dying trees, as seen on one of the big lead maples pictured below.  These are a perfect example of the recycling effect that fungi play in the ecosystem, essentially digesting old trees and returning nutrients to the soil so that old wood does not pile up on the ground and future generations of plants are able to grow with ease.  Other small brown mushrooms are growing in colonies around the park as well, and keep on eye out for the amanita muscaria, a distinctive mushroom with large red caps and white dots.  Be sure not to eat an amanita muscaria (or any other mushroom you find, unless you're an expert in identification), these mushrooms will not only make you sick but send you into a terrifying state of delirium.  Because the air quality of Ravenna Park is highly influenced by the heavier amount of pollution which is present in the city as a result of high traffic, lichens do not grow as strongly here as they do in places like the Olympic Peninsula.  Nevertheless, soft moss and other leafy lichens can still be found all over the park.  

Artists fungi growing on an old bigleaf maple.

The tree also supports a number of common moss species such as orthotrichum lyelli.

A small patch of the iconic Amanita Muscaria. 

Little brown mushrooms.

7. Human impact

Although beautiful, Ravenna Park is rather small and you're never too far from the developed world when walking through its trails.  The ravine which runs through the park once contained a number of gigantic trees and was a healthy old growth habitat, even when people inhabited the Seattle area in the early 1900s.  However, a series of suspicious and illegal logging occurrences which are rooted in historic controversy and corruption saw the disappearance of these old trees.  Since then the city has toyed with the idea of using it for a storm water drainage project, but eventually it became a well established city park and has undergone a productive restoration with the help of the park service and many community service groups.  Human activity is still apparent in the park, you'll walk underneath the 20th avenue bridge which runs right over the ravine, offering a classic 'under the bridge' experience.  A number of graffiti displays and even squatters from time to time can be seen under the bridge, so it's best that you avoid lingering in this area for too long.  Other signs of human impact on the park can be seen in the trash and empty cans which are occasionally found on the side of the trail, left by careless park visitors.  So please do the park a favor and pick something up if you see it, provided it's not too disgusting or dangerous to grab!

The 20th Avenue bride which goes right over the park.

8. Ravenna erratic

The Puget Sound region of our state is an area whose geology is shaped by massive ice sheets which dominated the landscape during the last ice age.  These massive sheets of ice carved out the region into the dramatic landscape we have today, dominated by drumlins, lakes and cliffs.  The Ravenna creek which runs through the park and into Lake Washington originates in Greenlake, a small lake in the city which is a leftover feature from the last ice age as well.  As you continue through the park following the gurgling creek you'll eventually reach a small footbridge which will take you to the other side of the water; cross it and you'll soon find yourself up close and personal with a large boulder.  This boulder is known as the Ravenna erratic, it too is a product of the ice age activity in this part of the world.  Erratics are large boulders carried by ice sheets from different areas of the continent and are eventually dumped off somewhere as the ice melts away leaving behind all the debris which remained locked up in its icy grasp.   Rather impressive in size, this erratic is home to a number of fuzzy lichens.  Other erratics can be seen around other parts of the city such as Wedgewood.

Approaching the boulder on the foot bridge

Lichens abound.

At times water will collect on the top of the erratic.

9. Species interaction

The forest is a place of constant change, where the end of one life often means the beginning of many others.  When walking through old growth forests you'll often encounter many fallen trees or stumps which have begun to decay and provide a home for many smaller plants.  This is a classic species interaction which the death of a large dominant plant ends in the benefit of new life.  In Ravenna Park, right after encountering the erratic and heading down the trail you'll find this long dead stump which has now provided a base in which a variety of new plant life can thrive.  Growing in this old stump you'll find a red huckleberry shrub, some western sword ferns and plenty of grass! These plants are able to take advantage of the decaying matter of the nurse stump to provide them with may of the nutrients they need to begin their lives.  Sometimes in other forests nurse logs and stumps will provide new trees with the sunlight they need in order to ensure large growth, as the falling of larger trees will often clear up the forest canopy which hinders the growth of many shade intolerant species.  This particular stump also harnesses a number of insect species if you're willing to dig around inside the dirt beneath the plants!

A number of species call this stump home.

Western sword ferns.

10. Disturbances

Sometimes disturbances in the park are seen by careless human activity such as trash, fallen plants from people stomping around or stray cats messing with local birds and mammals.  But on other occasions a simple disturbance to a tree such as the nailing of a sign to ensure bikers don't use the trails can result in rather interesting phenomena.  Here we see this tree growing around the sign in a manner which makes the sign look like it's being eaten by the tree, all the while bending and seriously damaging the sign.  Displays such as this are very telling of the kind of force and power that are behind the growth of plants, and reminds me somewhat of the classic example of a weed plowing through concrete so it can reach the light of the surface.  This sign is somewhat comedic in nature, and examples of this sorts can be seen in other places around the city as well.