<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif">creating/recreating intertidal areas means high tides have to reach/cover the ground. the trees taken down at Wylie Slough were on land several feet above normal high tides, which ran up the channel a few tens of feet away. I'm not understanding ...</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif">Chris<br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Sep 30, 2022 at 9:14 PM HAL MICHAEL <<a href="mailto:ucd880@comcast.net">ucd880@comcast.net</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><u></u>
<div>
<div style="font-size:12pt;font-family:helvetica,arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(51,51,51)">
Create/recreate intertidal areas.
</div>
<div style="font-size:12pt;font-family:helvetica,arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(51,51,51)">
<br>
</div>
<div>
<div style="font-size:12pt;font-family:helvetica,arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(51,51,51)">
<span><span>Hal Michael<br><span style="font-size:12pt">Board of Directors, </span><a style="font-size:12pt" href="http://ecowb.org/" target="_blank">Ecologists Without Borders</a></span></span>
<div>
<span>Olympia WA<br>360-459-4005<br>360-791-7702 (C)<br><a href="mailto:ucd880@comcast.net" target="_blank">ucd880@comcast.net</a></span>
<div>
<br>
</div>
<div>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>
On 09/30/2022 8:35 PM J Christian Kessler <<a href="mailto:1northraven@gmail.com" target="_blank">1northraven@gmail.com</a>> wrote:
</div>
<div>
<br>
</div>
<div>
<br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<div style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif" class="gmail_default">
but it's not at all clear to me why salmon restoration entails - or requires - destruction of avian habitat. I would think maintaining the tree and brush along the shore was important to enhancing the sought after characteristics of the water column. mud in the water is antithetical to what salmon fry need.
</div>
<div style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif" class="gmail_default">
<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif" class="gmail_default">
Chris Kessler
<br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div class="gmail_attr" dir="ltr">
On Fri, Sep 30, 2022 at 8:19 PM HAL MICHAEL <<a href="mailto:ucd880@comcast.net" target="_blank">ucd880@comcast.net</a>> wrote:
<br>
</div>
<blockquote>
<u></u>
<div>
<div style="font-size:12pt;font-family:helvetica,arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(51,51,51)">
Pretty sure that Wylie Slough project is for salmon restoration. Nothing else matters.
</div>
<div>
<div style="font-size:12pt;font-family:helvetica,arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(51,51,51)">
Hal Michael
<br><span style="font-size:12pt">Board of Directors, </span><a href="http://ecowb.org/" style="font-size:12pt" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Ecologists Without Borders</a>
<div>
Olympia WA
<br>360-459-4005
<br>360-791-7702 (C)
<br><a href="mailto:ucd880@comcast.net" rel="noopener" target="_blank">ucd880@comcast.net</a>
<div>
<br>
</div>
<div>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>
On 09/30/2022 7:23 PM Patti Loesche <<a href="mailto:patti.loesche@gmail.com" rel="noopener" target="_blank">patti.loesche@gmail.com</a>> wrote:
</div>
<div>
<br>
</div>
<div>
<br>
</div>Gary,
<div>
<br>
</div>
<div>
I visited Wylie today and actually thought, I am very glad that Gary isn’t here to see this. The trees you described have not just been removed, they have been butchered. It’s painful to witness. Whatever the goals of the Wylie project, those goals are hostile to trees and birds. And as you wrote, that mean little blind sticks out in the wide open now. The cattail monoculture is doing fine.
</div>
<div>
<br>
</div>
<div>
Patti Loesche
</div>
<div>
Seattle
<br>
<div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>
On Sep 30, 2022, at 4:51 AM, Gary Bletsch <<a href="mailto:garybletsch@yahoo.com" rel="noopener" target="_blank">garybletsch@yahoo.com</a>> wrote:
</div>
<div>
<div>
<div style="font-family:bookman old style,new york,times,serif;font-size:16px">
<div dir="ltr">
Dear Tweeters,
</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr">
Greetings from Chautauqua County, NY. Thanks to one and all for the interesting discussion about the Montlake Fill or UBNA, if I have the toponymy right. At least there is some discussion about what trees to plant and what to remove.
</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr">
As best I can tell, at the Fir Island Game Range, or Wylie Slough, habitat "improvement" continues to "progress" without much public discussion. This site has been the premier birding spot in Skagit County for a long time. In late July, the last time I birded there, signage stated that the site would be closed for all of August and September. That alone was enough to make me scratch my head--WDFW would close the place for the best shorebirding time of the year, but have it open just in time for hunting. That is usually how they roll at that agency--hook and bullet, hook and bullet.
<br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr">
A few days ago, a friend sent me some recent photos taken at the Game Range. The project there must have been completed a few days ahead of schedule. My friend was dismayed at what he saw. Apparently, the riparian corridor between the Headquarters Parking Area and the Dike Junction has been damaged, to say the least. Many of the good-sized trees were removed. That includes the big Sitka Spruce, a tree that has attracted all sorts of interesting birds over the years. Many alders were taken down, some of which had nest cavities used by Tree Swallows and Downy Woodpeckers.
</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr">
The so-called Viewing Blind is apparently now clear of brush. I call this the Skull-Cracking Blind. Countless people have smashed their foreheads when trying to enter this absurdly low structure. A friend of mine nearly lost an eye after suffering a detached retina in such a mishap.
</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr">
Pardon the digression, but over the past few weeks, I have visited ten or twelve lovely blinds here in Chautauqua County, including a brand-new one that is nearly complete. They all have ample headspace, generous viewing ports, and comfy benches. It does not take Frank Lloyd Wright to design a blind. Nowhere in the world have I seen a blind like the one at the Game Range. Even in such places as Papua New Guinea and Madagascar, where the per capita income must rank among the lowest in the world, wildlife areas feature proper, roomy, comfortable blinds, or hides, as the British say.
</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr">
I had been grumbling about the Skull-Cracking Blind for another reason. Since it was constructed, WDFW had allowed a towering growth of brush to obscure the view from the blind. Between retinal detachment and an opaque screen of vegetation, this structure offered a new twist on the meaning of "blind."
</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr">
Now it seems that no one who succeeds in entering unscathed will complain for lack of view. The shoreline of the slough has been scalped.
</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr">
It would be interesting to read some accounts and descriptions of the changes at the Game Range, if any birders visit there in the coming weeks, before waterfowl hunting gets going. It would be good to learn the status of the cattails in the main pond; those cattails had been slowly colonizing the mudflat, making it less and less attractive to shorebirds, and harder and harder for people to observe the ones present. That was the vegetation that I was hoping to see removed--not trees and brush!
</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr">
Yours truly,
</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr">
Gary Bletsch
</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>_______________________________________________
<br>Tweeters mailing list
<br><a href="mailto:Tweeters@u.washington.edu" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Tweeters@u.washington.edu</a>
<br><a href="http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters" rel="noopener" target="_blank">http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters</a>
<br>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
</div>_______________________________________________
<br>Tweeters mailing list
<br><a href="mailto:Tweeters@u.washington.edu" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Tweeters@u.washington.edu</a>
<br><a href="http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters" rel="noopener" target="_blank">http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters</a>
<br>
</blockquote>
</div>_______________________________________________
<br>Tweeters mailing list
<br><a href="mailto:Tweeters@u.washington.edu" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Tweeters@u.washington.edu</a>
<br><a href="http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters" rel="noopener" target="_blank">http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters</a>
<br>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br clear="all">
<br>--
<br>
<div dir="ltr">
"moderation in everything, including moderation"
<br>Rustin Thompson
<br>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
</blockquote></div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><span>"moderation in everything, including moderation"<br>Rustin Thompson<br></span></div>