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.