HyleBlog - Friends of the Hylebos

Stewardship and Friends

Hey, it's been too long since my last post. As we get close to year-end, everything has just gotten crazy: grant deadlines, reports to write, and the potential partnerships and project opportunities have just exploded.

In fact, here's an artist's rendering of me at work.

OK, enough whining...here's what today's post is about. Or who. Teri Lenfest and Adele Freeland are two of our most outstanding, committed volunteers. Together, these two friends have logged hundreds of hours restoring the Hylebos and maintaining the West Hylebos Wetlands boardwalk. Lately, they've been helping Bernedine Lund clear the Dash Point State Park of English Ivy. There's a nice webpage at The Nature Conservancy with their story. It's worth a read. And if you run into Teri or Adele out at one of the parks, be sure to say hello...and you can even help them remove ivy for awhile.

Teri and Adele epitomize what is a core belief of mine about conservation: It's all about people. That may sound counter-intuitive as we're talking about protecting nature, but here's the deal. We have to have people engaged in conservation. Those people from relationship circles that expand and strengthen our ability to protect lands and restore them.

Take a look at any conservation project. The extent to which it was successful (or not) centers around the people involved. With folks like Teri and Adele, I know we've got a great chance to make real progress in conserving the lands and waters that make this community special.

Thanks, you two!

Day at the Beach

This is pretty  cool. Last week, I was down at the beach at Dumas Bay to shoot a "commercial" for the Dumas Bay forest health project. The project comes about because of the generosity and talent of MJ McGalliard and Mary Longhurst from Retro Productions.

Mary, you may know from her recent work producing a documentary of the Hylebos called, fittingly, The Hylebos: Discovering A Hidden Jewel. (she's extremely talented, though she will deny it, in her usual self-effacing way.) 

The commercial will be available soon. Stay tuned for details. We will also be debuting Mary's Hylebos

documentary in late January/early February, so watch for details of that as well.

Attacking Ivy and Battling Birds...

My morning started off with a very good meeting with a Friends supporter. One idea that came out of this meeting was the suggestion of a communitywide event to pull ivy. I'm intrigued and discussing this with Hillary and Lili. Not only would this be an exciting, and effective way to get at large areas of ivy, it would build community, through a citywide volunteer event. There's a lot to go on here...

Another inspiration for me is the enduring battle between woodpeckers and snakes. No, actually, I found this on the web and was so impressed by its stark depiction of the brutality of nature (I'm assuming there were probably eggs in that nest).

Remarkable Day in The Hylebos

Today, Lili Allala (New Restoration Coordinator) toured several key Hylebos sites, including Lower Hylebos Marsh, Spring Valley Ranch, West Milton Nature Preserve and the Spring Valley Open Space. While I thought we would likely get rained on hard like the day before, the weather let up, and we were treated to sunshine and relatively warm, dry conditions.

Here is Lili at the Lower Hylebos Marsh. You can find out more about Lili on our Staff page.

Also, Wednesday's paper has a front page article on the forest health problems in Federal Way. It's nice to see the word getting out about this challenge.

I'll get some photos up later in the day from Lower Hylebos Marsh. The beavers appear to have been busy (surprise!). I counted at least 5 structures on the mainstem and around the marsh area. Water flow, though, was high and all dams were overtopped. Also, the beavs are taking out some of the excess alder trees on the site, so I'm very pleased with that. If we can just get them to focus on the alders, they'll actually do us a big favor.Remarkable Day in The Hylebos

At the Spring Valley Open Space, we surprised a great blue heron that must've been in a nearby tree. I didn't notice him until I heard a repeated sqawking and looked up to see the bird flying over us, insistently sounding his displeasure with our intrusion on his private Hylebos.

Usually herons are rather reticent with people, but this guy was so mad, he circled back to land in a tree nearby and casatigate us. I told him that we were sorry to have surprised him, and would leave shortly, but this didn't satisfy the heron. He blew a a few more rasberries our way, then took flight and headed south to Spring Valley Ranch.

Wait...is this Monday?

So, I started off the morning by pouring coffee (literally) all over myself. After a change of clothes, it was off to the dentist for a filling and I spent the rest of the morning with no sensation in a good portion of my face. Feels like a Monday!

But beyond whining about my life, things are good. I'm working hard on several articles for the Hylebos Highlights and a couple of press releases.

In between writing articles, Hillary and I interviewed finalists for the Restoration Coordinator position. We're expanding the restoration program from 1 FTE to 1.5 FTE and Hillary has moved to a part-time position that will focus her talents and skills on project planning and design and fee-for-service projects. I hope to be able to introduce our new team member soon!

Learning about Low Impact Development...The Hard Way

I often write about low impact development techniques like green roofs, and I often write about invasive plants. This is the first time that the two topics have come together in a single news story. It illustrates the importance of using clean mulch, that is devoid of invasive plant seed stock. Ooops.

And this is really neat. FW Public Schools profiles "notable graduates" and - likely after losing my student records - they've added me to the site. I'm glad the profile mentions two of the excellent teachers I had along the way. Our teachers make a huge difference in the lives of so many kids. I know I wouldn't be the person I am today without the influence of John and Betty and so many other excellent educators.

Aquative Invasives....Heading This Way?

Yet another invasive plant, this one an aquatic Asian Kelp, moving northwards in our direction on the West Coast. Interesting story, if you're into invasives. The story also references the world's 100 most dangerous invasive species (links to a PDF). We've got a couple of plants on the list: Purple Loosestrife and Japanese Knotweed.

Anymore, conservation is inextricably tied to battling invasive species...

LID and Snails to Top off Monday!!

I just got back from Federal Way City Hall. I had to drop by and say a few words in support of a staff proposal to apply for some technical assistance on Low Impact Development. It's great to see the Surface Water Management department moving in this direction. I'm hopeful the Land Use & Transportation Committee will recommend that the Council give them the go-ahead to apply. I'll keep you updated.

Snails! European snails have invaded the Hylebos. While our attention had been diverted, a whole mess o' invasive insects tried to sneak in to the Port of Seattle. What is this War of the Worlds?

Salmon Photos

As promised (tho, a little late), the Chinook photos from West Milton Friday.

The fish clearly had dark spots on both lobes of the tail, the large oblong spots on the back and dark mouths and gumlines. The female was still digging when we observed them. And there were two jack males loitering about 40 feet downstream.

This observation is particularly exciting because I and others have not expected Chinook to spawn in the east branch. We certainly conceived of the West Milton project as benefiting coho salmon primarily. We'll have to see what future use occurs in this stream, but for now, it appears that the Chinook consider it useful habitat.

 

 

 

 

 

As mentioned in Friday's post, I had visitors from the GSP, or Green Seattle Partnership, including our former Stream Team Coordinator and now Seattle Urban Forester Katie Moller. This is Brad from Washington Conservation Corps, Joanna Nelson from Cascade Land Conservancy, Katie, and Seattle Public Utilities' Chris Woelfel. This was our serious picture, which turned out kind of fuzzy, so I'm including

our silly picture, which is funny because Katie is trying to be serious and you can clearly see she is unable to do this.

 

And Finally, Tree Rats
The Eastern gray squirrel is an invader in our parts, displacing our native Pacific Northwest squirrels and generally behaving like bushy-tailed rats with no sense of decorum or modesty. Apparently, they're even less-liked in Britain where D.T. Max writes of the effort to preserve the native red squirrel by exterminating those nasty Yankee grays.

Noxious Weeds

This morning's News Tribune has a story about nonnative, noxious weeds, cheekily entitled, "Dirty Weeds Done Dirt Cheap." (For those who don't know the rock band AC/DC, it's a play on a song title).

Nonnative weeds are one of the biggest threats to native ecosystems globally. In the Hylebos Watershed, we are waging a constant battle against the invaders. The Trib's article is a basic intro to the problem. You can also get more information from King County and Pierce County Noxious Weed Board.