Blog From The Bog

Winter Highlights from a Salmon Watcher

Brooklake has a glaze of ice on December 2nd.
  Mallard ducks and a few Bufflehead swim in a few open pools.
Photos By: Teri Lenfest
  

      

  November was the most rewarding salmon watch Teri Lenfest and Adele Freeland have had at Brooklake in all the years of monitoring this site.  Adele, has observed Brooklake since the salmon watch program began.   Record rainfall for November kept Hylebos Creek flowing at swift and high flows.  During our surveys this November, on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, we counted 26 Coho Salmon that made the successful trek to Brooklake to spawn.  I believe this is our all time November high for this site.  We were able to see salmon on every visit.  

On our last visit to the site, the lake was nearly frozen over.  Every blade, leaf, twig and berry was covered in frost.  A beautiful reminder that winter is here.   The Snowberry was "snowy", even Himalayan Blackberry looked pretty framed in frost.   

If you've taken a stroll on the Hylebos boardwalk recently, you'll notice the park is in it's barren winter mode.  Most of the Alders and Maples have shed their leaves.  Only a few salmonberry leaves remain,  Licorice Ferns are bright and abundant and mushrooms seem to pop-up everywhere.

Favorite Visitor Quotes

Beautiful ! Magical !!!
Love this marsh.
Hey, it's not raining today!
 
 

Why I love the Hylebos

 

   
Why do I love the Hylebos?   We'll I have finally realized it's because the Hylebos is a place that awakens all of my senses.  Take my visit this week as an example.  My sense of hearing is engaged by the bubbling of water down the fish-ladder at Brooklake, the call of a Steller's Jay and the splash of a spawning Coho salmon.    Everything about the Hylebos dazzles my eyesight, the fall colors have been especially brilliant this year.  The softness of rain moisten mosses, the slime of a slug or the texture of the Western Hemlock branch, awaken my sense of touch.   The Hylebos smells so fresh after a rain.  I'll have to wait for summer to pick the ripe berries to satisfy my taste-buds. I'm not a mushroom expert, so I would not know a poisonous one from the edible.   Each visit is different, a new experience to engage our 5 senses.  Enjoy!

Favorite Visitor Ouotes

" Bufflehead Ducks and Otters @ Brooklake"
" We saw the otters too! ( 5 ) !"
"  I love it even more ! :) "
" Just saw a hawk or other raptor! "
" Super "

October Reflections

 
  

Visitor Reflections - October 2009

" What a wonderful resource."
"As always contemplative"
"Beautiful learning experience"
Heard frogs in the stream, so cool!"
"The salmon are back"
"Beautiful fungi"
"Always refreshing"
"Love this trail"
"Prep for High School Botany class.
"Crisp fall morning"
"This was a great place"
"Always an escape"
"We like the updated signs and parking lot"
"Supreme as always"
 

Rise and Fall of Hylebos Creek

  It's amazing how one rain storm can rapidly change the stream flow of Hylebos Creek, as well as the other small steams in our area.  This weeks heavy rains have pumped the water levels up dramatically.   Making it easier for the salmon to get to the higher reaches of Hylebos Creek. 

    Teri Lenfest and I were happy to see the arrival of Coho Salmon at Brooklake. We aren't the only ones that look forward to this annual event.  The River Otter, Great Blue Heron, Coyote and a host of other animals will benefit from this food source bounty.

    This Great Blue Heron is keeping watch over Lower Hylebos Creek at the 4th Street Bridge in Fife, WA.  He didn't move the entire hour of our watch and we were very close to him.  A group of 10 Conservation Corps workers were trimming blackberry in the area and he wasn't bothered by them either.  We figure he'd already had his meal and was just enjoying the morning.

  
Our second monitoring site is a Brooklake in Federal Way.  Here the stream levels vary dramically with the passing of every storm.  Experience tells us that it takes a heavy dose of rain for the salmon to make to the higher sections of the creek.  We'll we got it this week and the salmon have arrived!

Visiting the site on October 26th the Hylebos Creek was at extremely high levels.  You can see from this series of photos just how fast and frothy the water flowing out of West Hylebos Wetlands Park and Brooklake was.

 

 

    This first photo shows the outflow from West Hylebos Wetlands park and Brooklake into the Hylebos creek channel.  From here the water flows down a series of fish ladder steps and continues to wind it's way through the Brooklake Blueberry farm property and eventually to the Hylebos Waterway in Commencement Bay Tacoma.

This is the outflow into the creek at extremely high levels. 

  You can see the force and speed of the water.  Just a few days ago the flow over this log was a slow trickle.

This series of pictures shows the flow of the water downstream.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fall Colors

Sunlight through the Vine Maples - Looks like stained glass.  photo by Adele Freeland
Fall colors are just starting to turn at Hylebos Wetlands Park.  

Favorite Visitor Comments:

"We Were Impressed and Awed."
"Awesome!"
"Would love to live here."

Salmon on the move

 
Great Blue Heron - by Teri Lenfest 

This stately Great Blue Heron was guarding Hylebos Creek at the Milton 4th street bridge.  He didn't move the entire hour during our salmon watch on Thursday.  Teri and I figure he was too stuffed with salmon to move and was sleeping off his protein high.

As we arrived at the bridge, two Belted-kingfishers were chattering away, one chasing the other down  the creek and under the bridge where we stood.  Song Sparrows and Wrens foraged in the grasses and bushes along the stream.  Not expecting to see fish this morning, as the water clarity was very poor, we noticed a big water wake moving up the creek and knew there were fish present.  We didn't get very good looks this morning, but did identify one trout and 2 Coho.  The other 7 fish were UNID, as we only saw fins, wakes and surface rings in the water.  We observed over 20 fish surfacing, but of coarse many were the same fish.

It was a nice morning to be out and about.  Other birds observed during our watch were, Red-tailed Hawk, Red-winged Blackbird, Steller's Jay and NorthernFlicker.  The salmon are on the move in Hylebos Creek, so keep an eye out.

 
Hylebos Creek from the 4th Street Bridge, Fife WA - Photo by Adele Freeland

A Change of Season

    My last walk at West Hylebos Park was early in September.  Already the greenery along the boardwalk was showing tints of bronze colors, signaling a change of season.    The Skunk Cabbages were withering in shades of gold and green.   Vine Maple leaves, had tinges of yellow and bronze.  The Douglas Squirrels, busy gathering  and stashing nuts for the winter, left piles of Douglas Fir cone scales along the boardwalks edge.

   

The heavy rains early in September gushed through the wetlands like a seasoned winter storm.  More typical of mid-November.  Hylebos creek was rushing at high levels into Brooklake, I looked for salmon in the creek, but no luck this day.  

Visiting the Brooklake site again on October 6th, for my official start of Salmon watch season.  The water levels in the creek had dropped to a trickle at the outflow from Brooklake.  Still plenty of deep pools in the creek for fish, whenever they make it to the higher reaches of the system.

 

Hylebos Creek at Brooklake October 6, 2009 

Taking advantage of a sunny fall day, Teri Lenfest and I drove out to the Soos Creek Fish Hatchery for our annual trip to see the really BIG fish.  We were not disappointed.  Teri took these pictures.

 

Adele took a short video of the spawning salmon at the Soos Creek Hachery  in Auburn WA
(click on the highligted link to Flickr)

Enjoy the outdoors this fall!
 

Rapid Response From Federal Way

Last week, Adele brought to our attention (and the city's), some ignorant graffiti at the restoration site at the West Hylebos Wetlands. Federal Way responded immediately to the concerns. Andy Hwang, Acting Chief of Police, told us he'd share the photos with the department's gang unit and that Parks or the Police would have the graffiti cleaned up as soon as possible.

Thanks for the fast response!

Illiteracy Still A Huge Problem

These photos of graffiti on the landscape fabric at the West Hylebos Wetlands were sent in by Adele Freeland. The tagger decries a purported negative effect of the "erosion control" and uses the term "plastic wetlands."

It's too bad that the tagger either couldn't read, or just was too eager to pollute the park with graffiti, to read the sign 20 feet away that explains the habitat restoration project there, and the role of the landscape fabric in deterring blackberry regrowth. Yes, the fabric is part of a restoration project, making the park healthier.

When we remove Himalayan blackberry from a site, our main control method is to install the landscape fabric, leaving it onsite for two growing sseasons. The solar energy created by the sunlight on the black fabric "cooks" the remaining blackberry rootstock. After two years, we remove the fabric and plant native plants. The trees and shrubs are then able to grow without blackberry trying to outcompete it.

It may not immediately look beautiful. But restoration requires patience. Sometimes it takes a few years to reclaim and restore a site.

Unfortunately, the tagger's actions will now require Parks and/or Friends staff wasting time on cleaning up the mess, diverting resources from restoration.

Mystery Plant

Last week on my visit to Brooklake I noticed this aquatic plant floating on the water.  Not knowing what it was and thinking it might be a unwanted invasive; I contacted Chris Carrel ( Friends of the Hylebos) and Jason Gerwen ( FW Parks ) to see if they could answer my question.

I also did some internet checking on invasive plants and found a very informative King County site on Noxious Weeds .   The plant in question was not on the list of noxious weeds.  Doing more clicking I found photos of the plant Common Duckweed  - Lemna minor,  on a Texas Fish and Wildlife page and sent the information to my consultants Chris and Jason.  Our group consensus is, the plant is indeed Common Duckweed. 

Jason, also consulted with Dan Smith the City's water quality coordinator, who reported that the plant is not a problem we need to be concerned about at this time.  Due to the warm temperatures this summer, we are seeing higher quantities of it this year.

Although in some areas of the country this plant can become a problem, once the fall stream flow picks up I think the Duckweed will not thrive.

One small mystery solved.