Herons Forever News

Black River updates are posted weekly by Herons Forever’s volunteer photographer, Mike Hamilton. See his photos on his website http://home1.gte.net/mikeham, which he updates every weekend. If you would like to receive his daily emails, contact him at mikeham@verizon.net.

 

Black River Heron Colony Work Party 9/19/09 -- Registration is now closed as we have reached our goal of 60 volunteers. Thank you everyone who has volunteered to help us on Saturday!

Come join Herons Forever to help restore and preserve the Black River heron colony, one of the largest in Washington state. With more than 50 active nests, these beautiful birds need our help to clean up their habitat. On Saturday, September 19th, we will be working on invasive plant removal, spreading wood chips on trails, removing litter, and other outdoor projects.

General Information

Participants should be prepared to commit to the noted times, and to get dirty and have fun!

Please wear long pants (no shorts, please), sturdy shoes, work gloves, and be prepared for any weather.

Snacks and lunches will be provided, as well as water. Tools will be provided by Renton Parks and King Conservation District.

We are now working with Max Lyon and his Boy Scout Troop 72 from Seattle, who are working toward their Eagle Scout badges. They will do the lion’s share of spreading wood chips on the main trails (thank you!!!). They are going to need a few additional intrepid volunteers, so if that interests you, they will very much appreciate your help. 

The rest of us will remove invasive vegetation along the shoreline that blocks our ability to view the herons, and pick up litter. 

This project is brought to you by Herons Forever, in cooperation with the City of Renton. Herons Forever is grateful to REI, United Way of King County, WSU Extension 4-H Youth Development Program (including 4-H), King Conservation District, and the Renton and Bellevue School Districts for reaching out to their members and students to support our efforts to restore the Black River heron colony.

Registration (now closed)

To register, please contact Suzanne Krom of Herons Forever, 206-933-0222, heronsforever@gmail.com. Preregistration is required. Please register by 9/16/2009.

Date:    Saturday, September 19, 2009

Time:    9:00am – 1:00pm  Please arrive by 9:00am for brief orientation.

Where: Black River Riparian Forest, Renton. See  http://heronsforever.org/ for directions.

Bring: Please bring work gloves. All other equipment will be provided by the City of Renton and King Conservation District.

We look forward to seeing you there. The herons thank you for your support!

Suzanne Krom, President, Herons Forever  

 

STATUS OF COLONY

Thursday, 8/13/2009, Suzanne Krom

The last of this season's 35 - 50 fledglings have dispursed to their wintering grounds. Likely areas are nearby farmlands, shorelines, streams, and creeks.

It's extraordinary that the herons continue to choose Black River despite their heavy losses. There is nowhere left that's safe from Bald Eagles now that the eagles’ numbers have exploded, relative to all the other animals, whose numbers in far too many cases have decreased. The heron parents continue, determined to prevail in the face of challenges that far surpass what most of us will ever see in our own lives.

Yesterday Susan Anderegg, one of our key volunteers, emailed to let us know that she saw "two new baby grebes, with both parents in attendance. I think they're about 1-1/2 weeks or so old, based on hearing them when I was there a couple of days ago, although I couldn't see them. Today they were out in plain sight, chirping and chirping like little grebes do. There's two, cute little things they are. Lots of red stripes on their little heads. Eagles weren't there, herons were all gone, ducks were lining the logs like a committee."

 

And here is Mike Hamilton's report from last Wednesday, 8/5/2009, when the last remaining fledglings were still there:

Hi all,

Farewell to fledglings at Black River. Soon after I got there today I was aware of three. Then things got a little confused and it may be that there were four. There were no flights in or out of the nest area by either fledlgings or adults. They have all fledged.  The fourth photo shows three of them together.  I believe these may be the last three fledglings of this season at Black River. If you go soon, you may see them. I expect them to be gone by the time I get there next week.
(Note from Suzanne: When I visited the colony Sunday, 8/9, I didn't see any fledglings.)

Besides the fledglings there were some surprises today. In the meadow, one baby tree swallow was in the nest box in the meadow. This must be the second time this nest was used this year. I have pictures of three babies in this box on June 7th of this year.

I had no notion I would be sending a wood-pewee picture today but I just happened to see the first one I have ever seen at Black River today. That made it a "must."

There has been a lot of flicker activity the last couple of weeks at Black River. I finally got a reasonable opportunity for a photo today. This one turned out to be what is termed an Intergrade Northern Flicker. Having both a red mustache and a red patch at the rear of the head signifies that it is a hybrid between red-shafted and yellow-shafted flickers.

There were many ducks again on the pond, including wood duck adults and a few ducklings. The next photo shows an adult male who is fully molted into non-breeding plummage.

At the end of the day, in the shadows, far across the pond, was a juvenile green heron. I have seen one so often at Marymoor Park lately I was mentally tuned in to recognize it. I saw a shape in shadows that didn't have the right posture for a duck. And there he was.

The two juvenile pied-billed grebes are still in the same area of the pond. It seems like their head-striping is beginning to fade. They were both pretty active hunting for themselves, with some success, as you can see. An adult also had a little luck, if you want to call that thing "luck".

And the three kingfishers were still there today. Two of them were chasing around a lot and I do believe now that there are two juveniles and one female. One of the juveniles pulled something out of the pond. I can't tell what it is.

One of those pesky eagles was around today. It dropped down from the trees across the pond and began a gliding descent. I heard a squawk, I thought, and pursued to check it out. However, I couldn't find the eagle anywhere. I think it made a pass at something, missed, and left. I didn't see one again.

That's it, Mike

  

...And this report from Mike on our record hot day 7/29 was especially interesting. It's a little long but worth reading  --

Hi all,

Ok, here's the way it was.  On I-405, on the way to Black River, my car thermometer got up to 111. As I parked at 1:45, it had fallen to 109. I figure that on really hot days, the temperature differential between sun-on-asphalt and shade is about 10 degrees. So, I'll call it 99 when I arrived. The car also said 109 when I left at 6:30. The life-threatening part of this expedition was the 200-foot walk across the meadow in the sun. Once down by the pond, it was mostly shade and merely miserable.

When I got home it was 95 in the shade of my backyard. A little after 10:00, it has dropped like a rock to 83. Inside, it is 85. Of course, with the fan going, it feels like a pleasant 84. Who do you wave the white flag at? More of the same tomorrow, maybe slightly less.

But, the Black River trip paid off. To my great surprise, there were more herons than I expected, more of everything than I expected, and there was a lot of activity. We'll start with the herons. The place expected to have the most fledglings is the pond section nearest the meadow trail. I saw only two there at first, but discovered another six down toward the dam. You see one of them on the far shore entreating the gods for cooler weather. He thought it was 105 but I checked the weather service statistics for the Renton airport, two miles away. At the time of that photo it was only 101. Two hours later it had spiked to 105, I'm sure a new all-time record for this area.

As the afternoon progressed, most of the action did turn out to be in the area near the meadow trail. The next seven photos show some of it. In the first, you see a fledgling walking down the log into the water. That part was apparently slimy and he slipped and fell into the water, face down. The last two of that sequence show a fledgling landing on that same log, with another already there.  Apparently it is a one-heron log. The current occupant proceeded to force the new arrival up the log until it decided to abandon ship.

With the heat, the bird activity was surprising: a wren, roaming chickadees and bushtits, robins, and several flickers calling often. The two juvenile pied-billed grebes were again near the beaver lodge. Compare their face markings with that of the adult who was down by the dam. That one is probably a parent to the two juveniles, who seemed to now be on their own.

I saw three belted kingfishers at one time today. Whether an adult and two juveniles, or two adults and one juvenile, I couldn't tell. I only got pictures of a juvenile today.

One surprise, especially with the eagle so active, is that I saw at least four groups of ducklings of various ages, and at least five in each group. The photo is an older gadwall (I think).

I should give an estimate of the number of herons. I believe I may have seen 10-15 today, with one or two being yearlings. Looking through the scope in the small area, which seemed to have a high density of nests, I saw only one bird. There was very little flying into or out of the colony. One adult and one fledgling, that I saw. There were two episodes of feeding, about an hour apart and it could have been the same nest. Mostly it was very quiet. I think things are really winding down now. I am much inclined to stick with my previous estimate that are 35-50 fledglings this year.

One thing that surprised me is that by 6:30, when I left, I saw no more herons on the pond or in trees, but I hadn't seen any flights of return to the nests. I don't know where they went.

Anyway, that's it. I may try Stillwater a little tomorrow if somebody doesn't have me locked up before then.

Mike

 

Introduction to Herons Forever and the Black River Heron Colony

Herons Forever is a Puget Sound-based all-volunteer nonprofit organization. We are the only group dedicated solely to the protection of Renton’s Black River great blue heron colony, the largest in the tri-county region and one of the largest in Washington state. In 2006, the colony consisted of at least 121 active nests, and produced more than 300 fledglings. (fledgling: A young bird that has taken its first flight.)

Bird-lover and conservationist Suzanne Krom founded the organization in 1989 in order to protect the colony from the impacts of nearby development. She continues to lead the now-600 member organization as president. Thousands of people have helped make Herons Forever’s efforts successful by contributing their time and resources. (Click the About Us link in left margin.)

The colony is in Renton, just west of the intersection of SW 7th and Oaksdale SW, at a junction of the old Black River and Springbrook Creek. The P1 Pond was dredged in 1985, and the next spring six great blue herons built three nests overlooking the same pond they have continued to choose as their breeding location ever since. This year, 2007, marks their 22nd year at Black River. (Scroll for History of Black River.)

Our herons belong to a unique subspecies that does not exist anywhere else. The fannini heron does not migrate, which is the primary difference between these herons and all the others in the United States. Biologists are concerned about the long-term health of the fannini population as their numbers are declining at an estimated 6% per year. (Click The Great Blue Heron link in left margin to learn more.)

 

History of the Black River

The Black River Riparian Forest is named in memory of the river that used to flow through the area where the herons now nest.

The Black River ran out of the southern end of Lake Washington. It flowed south through Renton, and then veered west and merged with the Green River to form the Duwamish River.

In 1916, the lowering of Seattle's Lake Washington during the construction of the Lake Washington Ship Canal drained the Black River and caused it to dry up.

For more information and photos, click here.

 

Duwamish Tribe

The Duwamish tribe had a village located along the Black River for at least 1,400 years and perhaps for thousands of years. The Duwamish were still there in 1916 when the river dried up.

In the early 1990s, anthropologist Jim Chatters conducted an excavation near the Black River Riparian Forest. Over 100 boxes of Duwamish tribal artifacts are stored with the University of Washington's Burke Museum from that dig.

The Duwamish, including Chief Sealth (178?-1866), for whom Seattle is named, were among the signers of the Point Elliott treaty. The treaty guaranteed both fishing rights and reservations, neither of which the Duwamish have today. Recently the tribe submitted a request to the Federal government for  For more information, click here and here.