Cavanaugh Pond Natural Area

Transcription

1 Cavanaugh Pond Natural Area A Testament to Nature and Nuture A 2010 SoFoBoMo Book by Lorraine M. Day

2 The SoFoBoMo - Solo Photo Book in a Month - challenge: During any 31 consecutive days between June 1, 2010 and July 31, 2010, conceive a theme, take the photographs, select a minimum of 35 of them, edit them, size them appropriately for screen viewing, develop a layout, write the text, insert the images and upload to the SoFoBoMo website as a PDF file of less tham 15 MB. This is my first SoFoBoMo attempt. I registered for the project last year, but didn t even make it to step one (conceive a theme). This year, the theme fell right into my lap: why not document the restoration activities I ve been involved with all year? With that decided, two-thirds of the work is done. Right? Six hundred and twelve photographs later (mostly failed shutter-burst attempts to capture bobbing Canada geese in the contrasty dappled light of blowing trees), after learning more about my camera than I thought was left to learn, after completing a painful selection process, devising as complicated a layout as I possibly could and spending endless hours piecing my selected images to fit the layout, after troubling friends ad nauseum for help with plant identification, after re-sizng my images twice in order to meet the 15MB size limit, and after creating some kind of explanatory text and story line - I m finished! Thanks to Paul Butzi for conceiving SoFoBoMo three years ago: I have had a blast, and learned so much! (My tripod is now my friend.) Many thanks to Nisa Karimi, Friends of the Cedar River Watershed s Stewardship Coordinator, for her essential help in identifying the plants we found on an evening s walk around the Pond (I had no idea!), and to Emily Orling for additional back-up identification. Any misidentifications herein are my own errors and my responsibility alone. Many thanks to the staff of the Friends of the Cedar River Watershet, a tiny non-profit with a big voice advocating for the watershed. And many, many thanks to all the volunteers who work so hard to make our watershed healthy for us, and for all the creatures we are blessed to share it with. All photos were taken by me between June 12 and July 12, 2010, except the black and white news clipping on the following page courtesy of the Friends of the Cedar River Watershed, and the sockeye salmon on the last page, taken by me in 2008 and included here in honor of their great spirit. (c) 2010 Lorraine M. Day. All rights reserved.

3 Stoneway Dock Sand and Gravel, January 1960 When King County, Washington acquired a section of old railroad line east of Renton to add to the Cedar River rail-to-trail project, they also purchased a large sand and gravel mine that lay between the Cedar River and the rail line. Water from the river seeped sideways through the narrow dike road that separated the mine from the river; small rivulets and at least one spring also contributed water to the gravel pit. When the mine was operating the water was periodically pumped out of the pit, but when mining operations ceased in the mid-1970s and the site was abandoned, the pit slowly filled and a pond was created in the middle of the 44-acre wasteland left behind. A disturbed area, ecologists would call it. When a habitat is destroyed by fire, or flood, or lumbering or mining (or any number of other human endeavors), the flora and fauna that lived there can no longer find the conditions they need to survive. Slowly, other, different vegetation moves in and begins a healing process that sets the stage for the later arrivals. Alders come in and, making use of the land s new exposure to the sun, grow fast and create shade for the more tender, slower-growing plants. The alders die young, fixing nitrogen in the soil to add the missing nutrients that longer-lived trees need. Cottonwoods are another early resident. But along with the native healers come opportunistic invasive species like Japanese knotweed and Himalayan blackberry. The hardy invasives can dominate a landscape very quickly, preventing young native plants from gaining a foothold and even choking out established natives completely. When the ecology changes, monocultures

4 develop, and the historical plant life is prevented from re-establishing, the insects and animals that depended on the traditional plant life leave, and the fish lose the insect buffet they evolved with and were shaped by. As Sue Rooney of the Friends of the Cedar River Watershed put it, How would you like it if all there was at the store was broccoli? Today, 30 years later, Cavanaugh Pond Natural Area is lush with vegetation, birdsong, and wildlife. The 14-acre pond itself is the only Class 1 wetland on the Cedar River valley floor. The wetland now supports open water, forested, scrub-shrub, and emergent habitats. The dominant vegetation at the site is typical red alder and black cottonwood riparian forest, with dense understory vegetation. In addition to naturalhealing processes, many organizations and countless volunteers have donated hundreds of hours in ongoing restoration work is directed at controlling invasive species and replanting native species. REI and the Friends of the Cedar River Watershed have adopted Cavanaugh Pond Natural area and regularly and frequently sponsor such restoration events. Cavanaugh Pond Natural Area supports a variety of habitats from riparian forest to a structurally complex wetland, which provide diverse habitat for fish and wildlife. Cavanaugh Pond is noted for its populations of spawning sockeye salmon. The mainstem Cedar River supports coho salmon, chinook salmon, sockeye salmon, coastal cutthroat trout, and winter steelhead. Several dozen bird species live around and use the pond. You can see red-tailed hawks, bald eagles, great blue herons, black-tail deer, beaver, muskrat, otter, coyote, and black bear. Waterfowl use the pond as a stop-over site on their migratory journeys. Several duck species and Canada geese use the pond to nest and raise young. Native amphibians use the pond to breed every spring. These include the red-legged frog, the chorus frog, the Northwest salamander and the long-toed salamander. Other species have been recorded from time to time.

5 Nature (Mother Knows Best)

6 Red Alders prepare the way for the longer-lived species to come.

7 Black Cottonwoods, too, are early arrivals.

8 Vine Maple Vine Maple Big-Leaf Maple

9 Indian Plum Beaked Hazelnut Willow Pacific Ninebark

10 Hawthorne

11 Sitka Spruce

12 Hemlock

13 Fir (probably Douglas)

14 Snowberry (and Cleavers)

15 Nootka Rose

16 Plantain Manroot (Wild Cucumber) Plantain

17 Pacific Dogwood Elderberry Elderberry

18 Japanese Knotweed - the non-native invasive at top on the most wanted list.

19 Himalayan Blackberry (non-native invasive) Himalayan Blackberry (front); Evergreen Blackberry (rear) Our native Trailing Blackberry

20 Bracken Fern Lady Fern Sword Fern

21 Geum Ocean Spray Butterfly Bush Morning Glory/Bindweed (with Himalayan Blackberry)

22 Nurture (Restoration Ain t Pretty)

23 June 2010 Restoration Event: REI, Americorp, and unaffiliated volunteers remove invasive Himalayan Blackberry

24 REI s Danielle Heckman, Outreach Specialist, making sure the troops get fed - with many thanks to Whole Foods and the Loki Fish Company.

25 Members of Washington Fly Fishers Club and Emerald Water Anglers collecting insects in preparation for flyfishing demonstrations.

26 Volunteers get treated to flyfishing demonstrations.

27 Restoration ain t pretty! Invasives are out, donated native plants are in; in five years or so, the plastic will go, too.

28 Cavanaugh Pond Natural Area 2010

29 Cavanaugh Pond, historically the largest spawning ground of sockeye salmon in the lower 48 states. Mergansers, Canada geese, river otters and great blue herons like it, too.

30 Native Red Alders and Trailing Blackberries.

31 There are reported sightings of many wild creatures at Cavanaugh: river otter, muskrat, beaver, coyote, deer... in 2007 I crossed paths with a very startled black bear. But this month, I saw only the signs left behind...

32 ...except for this little guy who I had inadvertently treed while I stood with my tripod for half an hour shooting geese. I never knew he was there - until his branch broke and he crashed, very literally, at my feet, did a somersault landing and scrambled 25 feet up the alder in front of me.

33 Red Alder (probably) and Buttercups.

34 The Cedar River, home to sockeye salmon, threatened chinook salmon, an occasional pink salmon, and cutthroat and steelhead trout - and provider of two-thirds of greater metropolitan Seattle s drinking water.

35 Adaptation.

36 Himalayan Blackberries (non-native, invasive) amd Willows (native) line the Cedar River.

37 After 30 years of nature and nuture, Big-leaf Maples, Red Alders, Black Cottonwoods and ferns line the old gravel mine s original levee road..

38 Restored flood plain along the Cedar River.

39 Red Alder and Herb Robert.

40 Cavanaugh Pond through the marsh growth.

41 Across Cavanaugh Pond.

42 South shore.

43 Residences across the Cedar River, seen from the old levee road.

44 Elderberry trees and Sword Ferns marking one of the side trails down to the Pond - a natural oasis just half an hour from downtown Seattle.

45 With thanks to the salmon who brought me here and gave me the river.