Swamp Trail, Puget Power & Tradition Lake Loop — Sunday, Mar. 3, 2024

The trails on Tradition plateau are not too muddy and are all snow-free. Even though it has been cool, from day to day there are noticeably more plants coming up, lots of bed straw, bleeding heart, large-leaf avens, Pacific waterleaf, youth-on-age, and more I can't identify. I saw my first horsetail shoots coming out of the water on the swamp trail and the first flower buds on a mouse-ear cress (photo 2). The cutleaf or evergreen blackberry (photo 1) takes on beautiful colors in the fall and winter. Sun breaks on a wet day make for fun water drop photos (3 & 4).

2024 spring milestones on Tiger Mt:

3-2 first shoots, great or northern giant horsetail, swamp trail, water-covered portion (Equisetum telmateia) 

3-2 flower buds, mouse-ear cress or thalecress, gas line trail (Arabidopsis thaliana)

3-1 flower buds, currant (probably red flowering) just above East Sunset Way trailhead 

2-27 red huckleberry in bloom, multiple trails, (Vaccinium parvifolium) parvifolium means small-leafed 

2-27 Pacific waterleaf shoots (Park Pointe)

2-27 sitka willow flower buds (gas line trail, end of Big Tree trail)

2-25 cherry plum blooming (Tradition Lake loop)

2-24 first moths (small, tan-orange, same species that came out first last year)

2-24 colt's foot in bloom, poo poo point trail 

2-22 salmonberry flowers (Swamp trail)  

2-22 tall Oregon grape flowers open (Power Line above Sunset Way) 

2-17 stinging nettle shoots

2-14 colt's foot flower buds (Poo Poo Point trail)

2-13 colt's foot (Petasites frigidus) shoots appear (section line, they must have been many days earlier on the Poo Poo point trail)

2-13 red elderberry leaves (Sambucas racemosa)

2-8 tall Oregon grape flower buds (Mahonia aquifolium)

2-2 oso-berry flower (Oemleria cerasiformis)

2-1 male Pacific Wrens singing for mates and territory