Spider Collector's Journal: 2008

Here's the 18th page of narratives of fun (and not so fun) trips to collect spiders for research at the Burke Museum. Most also appeared in Scarabogram, newsletter of "Scarabs: The Bug Society." Dates of field trips head each paragraph. Maps showing the location of sites within Washington state follow the grid system outlined in the Washington Spider Checklist. A large part of this year's trips will be part of the newly-funded Elwha River Project, led by Prof. Ted Pietsch (who also organized the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin projects). The object is to do a baseline inventory of the flora and fauna of the shores of the Elwha River for later comparison when two dams and reservoirs on the river are removed. RETURN TO INDEX

Where you see this button in a field trip account, click it to get a page of collecting site photos!

15-16 I 2008: It was before dawn on an icy morning after a snowy night (just like the beginning of a Sherlock Holmes story) when Trevor Anderson showed up to collect me and Ted Pietsch for our first assault on the Elwha River. Our plan was not to actively collect but to scout out sites along the river where the habitat was good and we could actually get access, so as to be prepared for intensive collecting when the big project actually starts. First we drove all the way up into the national park, where the road ends at Whiskey Bend trailhead far above the river. No river access there without heavy-duty hiking (not on today's agenda), but we sighted a surprisingly active black squirrel. After much driving back and forth in search of a nonexistent road shown on the topo map, we found a good multi-habitat site between the Elwha ranger station and campground, habitats frozen solid today but with little snow on the ground. Then downstream to easily locate a site on the lower reservoir (Lake Aldwell) with good boat access to promising islands. Construction on a new bridge blocked access to promising sites below the lower dam. A public trail on private land at the river mouth took us to beautiful beach and swamp (both alder and willow) habitats - with three different human polar bears surfing in January! After a brief visit to the Lower Elwha Dam site (see album) we retired to our rooms for the night, satisfied with the day and the amazingly dry weather.
After breakfast the next day, we went to the river mouth in the Lower Elwha Indian Reservation, across from yesterday's beach site, and found a different swampy forest that could be productive if the tribe turns out to be interested in participating. Then much driving around (enlivened by Wrong-Way Anderson's habit of, shall we say, exploring all options before taking the right road), all in vain search for access to some state land along the lower river. Giving up on this, we found one more good site on the east shore near the upper end of Lake Aldwell, then put in pitfall traps in riparian maple on Forest Service land just south of U.S. 101, reached via a dirt road that made me glad I had rubber boots. More pitfalls were placed at the previous day's boat launch site and in a salal habitat near the lower dam (see album) where I also took a token leaf litter sample. Finally we returned to Port Angeles in search of the office of the North Olympic Land Trust, almost as challenging to locate as some of those river sites. But it was worthwhile since Allison Lutz of the Trust gave us several leads for possible river access through private land. All in all, a worthwhile scouting trip with 8 good study sites firmly located (though only 6 spider species in the litter sample).

27 II 2008: The need to service pitfall traps led me reluctantly to accompany Trevor on the second Elwha trip on a day with 80% chance of rain in Port Angeles. Sure enough, it was raining when we left Seattle at a relatively civilized hour. But due to amazing luck, we had dry weather and even partly blue skies in the Elwha valley all day! After a stop at the county courthouse for some land-parcel files, we visited the last month's 3 pitfall trap sites. At the lower dam site, all 5 traps were there but one had been visited by a mouse – it contained mouse scats, a flea and lots of dirt – but this site still trapped the best spiders, including one I've only taken once before. The three traps at the boat launch site contained little; at the southernmost site, there had evidently been frost heave in the saturated soil and several pitfall cups had been squeezed out of the ground, but there was still a significant catch.
We put in a 4th pitfall series at a site just below the U.S. 101 river bridge (see album), and stayed for a while to collect; I beat salal and conifers, hand-sorted moss, and gathered another leaf litter sample while Trevor checked out logs and swept along the river bank (using my collapsible pocket net). In just a couple of hours we got 28 identifiable spider species (including the rare Bathyphantes malkini), plus 2 being reared and a few more from the pitfalls. Meanwhile Trevor got some varied-looking winter stoneflies. We ended an excellent day by heading south into the national park and hiking a trail along the east side of Lake Mills, finding at least three additional sites worth sampling later. As we drove out of the park, deepening dusk brought out increasing numbers of late-winter moths, probably Phigalia plumogeraria. Trevor didn't even make any wrong turns today – but he did get caught in a speed trap between Sequim and Port Discovery, ticketed for driving a "furious" 68 mph.

1-2 IV 2008: The entire team (including insect, fungus, lichen, moss and spider collectors) of the Elwha River Biological Survey headed for the field on a sunny Tuesday morning in several vehicles. The main party was 2 ferries ahead of Laurel and me, so we expected to find them at the first site but instead they had gone hunting our overnight cabins on Lake Crescent, and we started the spider survey at the Elwha Dike beach trail alone. I started by sifting 14 species from litter of willow/alder thickets on the upper beach, including an undescribed Oedothorax I've been wanting to get named, and a possibly new Agroeca. Next, after putting in beach pitfalls, I beat 13 more species from Douglas-fir foliage along the trail. Meanwhile, Laurel got nothing by beach sweeping but some very good records under driftwood and by sorting beach wrack. She beat shrubs along the trail while I tried the litter of an adjacent alder swamp, getting surprisingly little, but overall we got 31 species here. Before meeting the others for dinner, we sampled 2 of the 4 previously set pitfall trap groups. The pitfalls at the lower dam site are producing the best fauna, this time including some very interesting beetles. The group dined in style at the [Dy]Nasty Chinese Restaurant before retiring to unfancy but serviceable bunks.

Next morning the spider team (Laurel and I) separated from the main group (the latter returning to the Lower Elwha) because I was eager to sample the remaining old pitfall sites and get pitfalls in at a site near the Lake Mills boat launch in the national park. We found a pleasant site just out of view from boat launch parking lot and Boulder Creek trail without difficulty, with varied riparian forest and small glades, on a cool but sunny day. Here at 600 feet elevation, trees and shrubs were not in leaf yet, but litter, moss, logs and other habitats produced 23 species. The invasive European crab spider Philodromus dispar was well established here. From this remote spot, I easily reached my catsitter in Seattle on Laurel's mobile phone – unfortunately she (the catsitter) was incapacitated and I'd have to return home that day.
On the way back to the highway we'd spotted a nice looking gravel bar that turned out to be on public land. Being unable to rejoin the others (they were on a 4-wheel drive road) we returned to the bar for the afternoon, hoping to get the giant river wolf spider Pardosa lowriei. We did find a few (probably) but they were immature, and surprisingly, none survived the trip back to Seattle for rearing. But the habitat and riverbank did produce several good insects, an impressive Scolopocryptops centipede, and a number of spiders, including the rare theridiid Dipoena lana. This trip brought the project total up to 69 spider species.

11 IV 2008: I succeeded in getting contact info for the land managers of the Lower Elwha Tribe, so Laurel and I decided to try some sites on the reservation. On another delightful dry spring day, we found the right people with no trouble, got several good tips on sites and habitats and even a gate key! We drove up river on a gated (but good) levee-top road until we reached a grassy field that Google Earth said was very close to the river. Sure enough, there was just a thin belt of maple and cottonwood between the field and what seems to be a side channel. This gave us the field, two kinds of riparian leaf litter, and the river bank for collecting. I found an especially rich deposit of maple litter and sifted the first 20 species from that, followed by several others from cottonwood and grass litter. Meanwhile, Laurel was getting species from grass foliage, under stones, under log bark, and active in the field and on the river bank. By the time we had to return the gate key, we had 41 species from this one site, including two species of the shield-backed Ceratinella, two microspiders I didn't even recognize, and surprising numbers of large Phidippus jumping spiders.
In the late afternoon we took the Warrior Trail (a public nature trail) from the main road down toward the Elwha mouth, and collected near one of those wooden birdwatchers' platforms where the trail ends on the banks of the estuary. A sedge marsh here produced some promising spiders, all immature now but worth a return trip; also an odd snake. A few additional species were taken in alder and cottonwood litter. The forest here on the delta is rather unusual, many small young trees and scattered big ones here and there among them. Laurel was tired and light was going, so we went home with enough more spider species to make the project total 89.

23 IV 2008: Despite an ominous weather forecast, I succumbed to Trevor's offer of a free ride while he went to sample a Malaise trap in the Rica Canyon area of the upper Elwha. With us in the super-high-tech hybrid car from UW motor pool was mycologist Luke Bayler. While they slogged into and out of the deep canyon, I revisited one of our first pitfall trap sites, a maple-dominated floodplain forest just upstream from highway 101 at a powerline right-of-way. The maple litter still had plenty of spiders, notably Arcuphantes arcuatus and the shield-backed Pelecopsis sculpta. Nine species were beaten from ferns. The abundant moss had lots of individual spiders but most were the super-common Theridion sexpunctatum. As the spring advances, our pitfall traps are yielding more spiders than they did in winter. Rain started to sprinkle several times but always stopped after a few drops; finally in midafternoon I got some sun, and went across the river to the "Elwha Bridge" site to sample the pitfalls there and try for ground-active spiders in the big field. One, Scotinella sculleni, was new for the project. Trevor and Luke returned, sampled another Malaise trap, and gathered in some fungi I'd spotted earlier, before we paid a brief visit to a third pitfall site and then headed home after a long day.

29 IV - 1 V 2008: The main body of the biological survey team headed for the field on Monday the 28th and suffered through the wettest, most miserable day of the project. Laurel and I (with insect collector Royce Anderson) followed on the 28th, a wet day but only moderately miserable by comparison! A patch of blue sky enticed me with the prospect of collecting active beach spiders, but it was cold, wet and windy there so we proceeded to the Lower Dam pitfall site where Laurel found two dry salal bushes and got a new jumping spider for the project, Phanias albeolus. Then we located without trouble the lower trailhead for the West Elwha Trail, the lowest of the Park Service trails in this area. Though right across the river from houses, campgrounds and so forth, the trailside terrain is very wild. The trouble was, a cloudburst complete with lots of hail had visited the site just before we did! We slogged on through the mud to reach a cliff area where we hoped to collect under rocks. Rocks were found, but not a great many spiders under them. This potentially lovely site (see album) will have to be revisited when dry. Josephine Pederson, a friendly landowner across the river, was lending the expedition her large heated yurt; we stopped off there to settle in, then went to sample the Lake Mills pitfalls before calling it a day and heading to town for dinner.

Next morning the spider team (Laurel and I augmented by project leader Ted Pietsch) headed for the beach in sunshine. My plan of collecting beach-active jumping spiders had to be postponed again due to cold wind. The beach pitfalls were productive and Ted found some great-looking specimens in litter of the beach meadow, mostly immature as it turned out, so we'll just have to keep going back to that beach! Two wolf spiders, an orbweaver and assorted other species were added to the list, mainly by Laurel. Ted and I then headed for the river bluffs just upstream from the beach in search of more under-rock fauna, which we found (Ted added yet another wolf spider species) as well as some webs on the face of the cobble-studded sand/silt cliff. Conifer foliage sampling in this area by all three of us added some more species. Laurel needed to head for home, so Ted and I returned to the Pederson yurt where I sampled moss from a nearby river island, swept some grass and beat cedar foliage until interrupted by today's token rain shower. Mrs. Pederson was nice enough to let me hunt for house spiders in her house and garage.

May Day gave us the best weather of the trip. Ted and I, with mycologist Luke, went back to the lower dam pitfall site to sample additional habitats. Trevor had told me of a side trail leading to a rock-climbers' cliff, and sure enough, there were spiders under the rocks there. Meanwhile, Ted was sorting litter on a steep grassy hillside near the dam and added the jumping spider Eris militaris to the list. I found another wolf spider species to rear in this area, as well as 2 fungi Luke didn't have yet. Ted and I beat salal and Douglas-fir foliage for a few more records, and additional species were swept from the grass and sifted from conifer litter. We headed for home in mid-afternoon after only a few droplets of rain, with over 111 spider species now recorded from the Elwha River.

22 V 2008: Warm sunny weather for the next phase of Elwha River collecting still eluded us, so Laurel and I took a "sun break" from that project in eastern Washington. True to form, we left the clouds behind on our way from Easton to Cle Elum. The weather forecast had said "breezy" but when we reached our goal, a habitat patch near Swauk Prairie Cemetery, we'd describe conditions as downright windy. I found enough sheltered spots to sweep 6 species from grass, then got lucky with a hawthorn thicket that had 9 interesting species in leaf litter. I wanted to conclude the visit by seeking habitat-limited species under Ponderosa pine bark scales, but the wind blew my scales away as fast as I scraped them loose! Meanwhile, Laurel found one wolf spider species running despite the wind chill, beat a few species from vegetation and found an adult Callobius under wood. But far more than this, she discovered a new habitat and collecting technique! It seems that if the large, fallen cones of Ponderosa pine are tapped over a cloth, they yield up numbers of spiders including some rarities like members of the crab spider genus Ebo; we'll have to try this again.
I had other sites pre-selected for further collecting in this area, but all proved to be on posted private roads. However, where Red Bridge Road crosses the Teanaway River, we found no signs blocking our way to lush streamside cottonwood groves and natural gravel bars and mud flats. The 10 species I took here from cottonwood litter had only one in common with the 9 found earlier in hawthorn litter! A few more were found in understory foliage and under bark. Laurel got two good jumping spider species active on the riverbank, plus the common wolf spider Pardosa tristis and the extremely rare Pardosa steva, only taken 3 times in this state. Altogether our take for the day was 35 species, not bad at all for a few hours in high winds. We both agreed that our post-trip treat at Mountain High Burgers in Easton definitely hit the spot. And yes, the rain resumed as soon as we passed the Pass westward.

5-6 VI 2008: The weather still hadn't improved, but pitfall traps in place over a month definitely had to be serviced, so I went back to the Elwha with Ted Pietsch and two Russian visitors: Viktor Bogatov, malacologist from Vladivostok and chief of the Russian contingent in the Kuril Islands Project, and his son Slava (Yaroslav), now an engineering student in Maryland. This time we weren't lucky; as predicted, it stayed too wet for general spider collecting both days. However, I did get all the pitfalls switched, with some attrition: 1 stepped on by a deer and 3 of the beach traps destroyed by some animal that actually left tooth holes in the cups! I gathered 2 meadow litter samples from pitfall sites and took them back to our new HQ, a small house in Port Angeles that Trevor had rented for the season. Unexpectedly, his non-participant wife was also there telecommuting, and even their cat June! Viktor was luckier than I, since his snail collecting technique works even in the rain: take a handful of wet litter, wash it in a bucket of stream or lake water and nab the snails that float to the surface. His best catch was at Lower Elwha Dam where the pitfalls also consistently produce the best spiders and insects. All was not in vain, for the trap and litter catches boosted the Elwha spider list to at least 125 species.

Stay tuned — the best of 2008 is yet to come!

This page last updated 18 June, 2008