Back to the Miller and Walker Creeks Stewardship home page Stream Blog for Miller/Walker Creek: Observations from the Stream Bank During 2008 This Web page records observations of Miller and Walker Creeks from the people who live, work, and play alongside them. Observations during 2008 are on: Water quality and quantity Fish presence Efforts by people to improve the heath of the stream basin Send your submissions, including photographs, to basin steward Dennis Clark, 206-296-1909. Submissions may be edited for brevity, clarity, and content. View the 2007 stream blog. Date: April 19, 2008 Location: Miller Creek at S. 144th Way in Burien Source: Dennis Clark, Basin Steward Observation: Saturday, April 19, saw another successful stewardship project on Miller Creek.  In honor of Earth Day, 28 volunteers turned out despite snow, hail, and rain to mulch trees along a stretch of the creek.  Mulch – chipped tree limbs -- will help keep weeds down and retain moisture around 300 native trees and shrubs that volunteers planted last October.  Volunteers also removed Himalayan blackberry, a non-native, invasive plant that provides poor habitat for birds, wildlife, and fish. AmeriCorps volunteers Nikki Anderson and Emily Ausema brought half a dozen students from Chinook Middle School in SeaTac to participate, following up on their participation last year. Several students from Highline High School also participated. This site was weeded and planted by volunteers last October (see the 2007 Stream Blog entry).

Burien Councilmember Gordon Shaw (left) and volunteer Bob Pegnam removing Himalayan blackberry from along Miller Creek. April 19, 2008.

Volunteers filling buckets with mulch to place around trees planted along Miller Creek. Mulch helps keep weeds down and retain moisture in the soil. April 19, 2008.

Emily, a volunteer from Chinook Middle School, planting a Douglas fir seedling along Miller Creek. April 19, 2008.

This is one of about a dozen trees transplanted to the restoration site thanks to a donation from Tanya Engeset. Green flagging on the branch will help distinguish the transplanted trees from previously planted trees, thus allowing us to monitor their survival. Trees planted last fall have pink flagging for contrast. April 19, 2008.

.Date: April 16, 2008
Location: N/A
Source: Dennis Clark, Basin Steward
Observation: Want to learn more the importance of controlling English ivy and Earth Day activities across the Highline area this year? Check out my article in this week's Highline Times/Des Moines News (external link).

Date: April 14, 2008
Location: Walker Creek near the Cove (external link) in Normandy Park
Source: Andy Batcho
Observation: The constructed  “beaver pond” on the Cove property showed significant fish activity.  Many coho smolts (~4” long) were observed feeding/jumping in the pond.  These smolts will be leaving soon. They have spent 12-18 months in the Walker/Miller watershed.  Warming water conditions in the pond during the next few months will likely be the determining factor (plus mother nature’s time schedule for salmon smolts) for moving the fish out of the freshwater environment and into the saltwater of Puget Sound to begin their journey toward Alaska.  They will return as adults (hopefully) in two more years, with the peak of the runs returning to the creeks in mid-November. Also saw several sea-run/coastal cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarki clarki - named for the explorers Lewis & Clark), a beautiful, highly-spotted fish with an orange slash under the chin. They were feeding actively in the “beaver pond”.  These coastal cutthroat are native to the small streams of Puget Sound and “love” the “beaver pond” environment.  The cutts spawn in the streams, then rear as juveniles in freshwater, leaving for the saltwater of Puget Sound to find additional food supplies.  The cutts usually stay within a few miles of their native streams growing to several pounds, then returning when the salmon enter the streams to eat salmon eggs and fry, prior to their own spawning, which occurs after the coho have completed their spawning activities.  Sea-run cutthroat populations in Puget Sound have been on the decline in past years…..it’s good to see those around the Cove property doing so well. Lastly, I saw a large flock (100+) of Pacific black brants (Branta bernicla), a smaller (4-7 lb.) goose-like bird, feeding on the nearshore of Puget Sound at the Cove beach.  First time I’d seen these birds here.

Date: April 12, 2008
Location: Walker Creek near the Cove (external link) in Normandy Park
Source: Andy Batcho
Observation: I observed many salmon fry occupying the newly restored pools of Walker Creek in front of the Cove building.  The fry were likely coho and were approximately 1-1/2” long.  The fry were feeding actively, grabbing anything that looked like food in a 1’ diameter area around each fish, including eating things floating by on the surface.  They missed nothing!   It isn’t known if these fry are natural hatch or fish from the recent Trout Unlimited sponsored  “Salmon in the Classroom” releases from MarVista, Madrona, and North Hill Schools or both.

Date: March 22, 2008
Location: Walker Preserve in Normandy Park
Source: Dennis Clark, Basin Steward
Observation: 11 volunteers turned out under sunny skies to save the trees of the Walker Preserve from English ivy. One of the three large "wild" parks in Normandy Park, Walker Preserve protects a portion of Walker Creek. Volunteers removed ivy from the lower trunks of those trees that were infested and from a ring around the base of the tree. This will cause the ivy higher up the trunk to die. In time, the ivy leaves and vines will fall off. Failure to keep ivy out of trees leads to their eventual demise, harming our urban forests and the streamside habitat they provide. (Learn more about why ivy is bad [external link].) Volunteers included Councilmember Clarke Brant, Debbie Burke, Tony Cassarino, Carol Heigh, Ron Johanson, Larry Moormeier, Councilmember Doug Osterman, Mitchell Osterman, Alex Short, Jean Spohn, and Rob Thomas. Thank you all!

Volunteers removing ivy from the base of trees at the Walker Preserve. March 22, 2008.

Volunteer (and Normandy Park Councilmember) Clarke Brant removing ivy from the base of a Douglas fir tree at the Walker Preserve. Ivy had climbed over 75 feet up the trunk of this tree. March 22, 2008.

The ivy vines Clarke sawed through. Vines this large can strangle trees, cutting off their growth and killing them. March 22, 2008.

Date: March 14, 2008
Location: Walker Creek at the Cove (external link) in Normandy Park
Source: Chuck Schuh
Observation: I was making one of my frequent visits to the Cove to check on the poop bags today when I saw my first cormorant at the Cove sitting on the stump in the middle of the duck pond on Walker Creek airing out its wings. Along with the solitary coot, who now thinks its a duck, and loon who have been there for a few months now and the many wigeons as well as the frequent great blue heron visits all of which would seem to indicate a fairly healthy environment.

Date: March 10, 2008
Location: Walker Creek near the Cove (external link) in Normandy Park
Source: Andy Batcho
Observation: I observed fry swimming in Walker Creek this afternoon.  Obviously, given their size,  I could not tell if they were “naturally-spawned” or “Trout Unlimited hatchery outplants” from January 19, or if they were coho or chum, but there were quite a few.  They’re about 1” – 1-1/2” long and hard to spot.  Movement is the first clue, as the fry “spook” when they spot you looking over a pool.  When you see movement, then concentrate on the area and you’ll see the fry swimming in the current. I only looked in Walker Creek today.  Here’s where I saw them:

• A half dozen or so fry were observed just below (6’ – 8’) the ramp to the Cove deck.
• Two of the newly created pools in the rehabilitated area in front of the Cove clubhouse had a half-dozen fry in them.
• One 5” – 6” fish was seen darting around in one of the newly-created pools.  Very likely a cutthroat trout….also likely feeding on fry!
• Three fry were observed just below the new foot bridge over Walker Creek.
• Two-three dozen fry were observed amongst the new large woody debris installed in Walker Creek, just above the confluence with Miller Creek.
• A lady told me she’d seen a 2” fish yesterday in Walker Creek, upstream (30’) from the ramp to the Cove deck.  Likely a cutthroat.

Date: March 8, 2008
Location: Walker Creek at the Cove (external link) in Normandy Park
Source: Doug Osterman and Tony Cassarino
Observation: The first Stewards of the Cove (external link) event of the year got off to a good start today. 24 volunteers put in 81 hours planting bare-root native shrubs and ground cover along Walker Creek where it wraps around the clubhouse before flowing into Miller Creek. (See photo below.) Working alongside the volunteers was a hired crew from EarthCorps (external link). EarthCorps and some volunteers also removed yellow-flag iris, an invasive plant. These efforts will help improve the riparian (streamside) habitat along Walker Creek, which will particularly benefit the salmonid fish that use this creek.

Date: March 2, 2008
Location: Miller and Walker Creeks upstream from the Cove (external link) in Normandy Park
Source: Andy Batcho
Observation: Walker/Miller Creek “Bug Feeding Station”  experiment report

A bit of history: The Normandy Park Community Club has been sponsoring Benthic Index of Biotic Integrity (BIBI) on Miller/Walker Creeks for the past few years.  [These studies look at the number and diversity of species of aquatic insects resident in streams.] The results from these studies show the streams to be similar, with Walker Creek being slightly better for bug production/types than Miller Creek, but both streams show moderate to poor production and variety in favorable “clean water” species.

With that knowledge, we asked several “subject-matter-experts” the question; “What can we do to improve our stream for insects?,” with the ultimate goal of improving salmon rearing capacity of the streams.   It seemed to us that, many people measure BIBI, but we have yet to find someone to tell us the steps to “improve” the BIBI.

To that end, Andy Batcho suggested an experiment.  We already measure BIBI in three locations, one in Walker Creek, one in Miller Creek and one at the confluence of the two streams so what if we “spiked” one test location with bug habitat ingredients to see if it would have any positive influence on the BIBI scheduled in the late summer of ’08?

Last fall, (’07), we stuffed a few onion sacks with rocks, leaf liitter, salmon carcasses, and clam shells (for calcium to build insect carapaces [shell]).  We anchored these bags with re-bar in a side pool near a riffle in Walker Creek on the Swim Club property safely behind a chain link fence to reduce disturbances.  We placed groupings of baseball sized rocks downstream and upstream of the “feeding station” to try to measure the distance the feeding station might have an effect.

This afternoon, Sunday, March 2, 2008, curiosity got the best of myself and George Hadley (Mayor Pro Tem of Normandy Park).  We went down to the stream to see what if any bug populations were located around the feeding station. Here’s what we observed:

·         Walker Creek:

·        We picked up several of our placed rocks downstream of the feed station on Walker Creek.  Almost all of those rocks had life clinging to them, in pretty good numbers, one to half-dozen, some more. They appeared to be the same species (mayfly nymph), but of various sizes and colors, ranging from near white to black.  They also ranged in size from barely visible to the naked eye to nearly ½”.  George photographed many of them.  I consulted my Orvis Stream Guide when I got home, most of what we were seeing were a mayfly nymphs in my opinion, but I have no idea of the specific variety.  It would be common for mayfly “clinger” nymphs to be mainly in faster water as they need good oxygenated waters.

·         While watching the stream we did see one hatch come off.  It was mainly white and maybe ½” in overall length.  Possibly a PMD (Pale Morning Dunn (Ephemerella infrequens) or possibly a large Trico (Tricorythodes minutes).  

·         Small rocks (golf ball size) were checked, some buried in silt, some free, few or none of these rocks had visible life under them.

·         A few baseball sized rocks upstream of the feeding station (4’-6’) also had some insect life, but  it was a little harder to find rocks with life on  them.

·         A piece of water soaked sunken wood, ~2’ long, 8” in diameter, located downstream (6’-8’) was lifted.  The wood was not buried in the sand/silt, just resting on the bottom.  This piece of wood had  approximately 1-2 dozen mayfly nymphs of various sizes and colors.  Other pieces of wood were lifted, if the bottom of the wood was buried in the sand, they had no visible life under them.

·         We checked a couple of the rocks that were placed in the feed station bag.  In the “still water” location the bag was placed it had silted in quite substantially.   The rocks in the bag had no visible insect life.  We don’t know if this was caused by the amount of silt on the bag, lack of current the mayfly nymph require or for other reasons?

·         We shook the silt off the bags and left them to lie.  There was still a pronounced odor of rotting fish when the bag was raised above the surface.

Miller Creek:

·         We decided to move to Miller Creek just below the confluence with Walker Creek to see what bugs might be living there.

·         There were no baseball size rocks in the area.  Some, but few, golf ball sized rocks had one or two very small mayfly nymphs clinging to them.

·         Moving upstream above the confluence, a piece of wood bark (2’ x 8”) was inspected,  it was not firmly fixed to the bottom, but moved occasionally with the current.  No life was observed on this wood.

·         Another piece of wood (1’ x 4” dia.) that was firmly setting on the bottom.  It contained two small fresh water shrimp (scuds).  One almost white, the other dark green.

·         Several small rocks were examined, none had visible life on them.

·         A large piece of roofing tar paper (2’ x 2’) was found lying on the bottom behind a boulder.  Lifting the tar paper showed 2-3 dozen mayfly nymphs clinging to the bottom. 

What we learned/observed:

·         Rocks partially buried in the silt/sand serve little or no purpose for insects.

·         Baseball and larger rocks seem to be preferred by insects over smaller (golf ball) sized rocks.

·         Wood laying in contact with the bottom, but not sealed by silt provides excellent insect habitat.  (Similar to finding spiders & insects under a board on land, better if the board isn’t sealed into the mud, but has living space underneath.)

·         It seems like there were more insects below & around the feeding station, but that could just as likely be optimism.

·         Rocks in still and/or silty areas have few or no bugs using them.

·         Rocks in faster moving water have more insect life on/under them.

·         We were somewhat surprised to find mainly only one main species of insect.  May have to do with how we looked?

·         Tar paper works as well or better for insect habitat than natural materials in the stream.  This says to me that the insects are looking for large surfaces to cling to with proper current flow.  Whether  they’re “grazing” on the algae on these surfaces, I’m not sure.  

 So no real conclusions from these observations, other than tar paper seems to be the next LWD for stream restoration purposes.

 We’re hoping that the BIBI scheduled for this fall will provide results significant enough to be of merit.

Date: January 19, 2008
Location: Throughout Miller/Walker Creeks basin in Burien and Normandy Park
Source: Dennis Clark, Basin Steward
Observation: Volunteers from Trout Unlimited (TU) today out-planted 120,000 young coho salmon to about 15 locations along Miller and Walker Creeks. These fish came as eggs from the Soos Creek hatchery near Auburn. Since their transfer, they were raised on the grounds of the Southwest Suburban Sewer District treatment plant in Normandy Park. Since the mid-1980s, the sewer district has donated the facility and well-water that is used to incubate the eggs. Every day, TU volunteers removed dead fish and monitored the development of the young fish. The fish were not fed but instead survived off their yolk sacks like fish in the wild do. By mid-January, the fish -- about 3 cm long -- were ready to be distributed throughout the watershed. Fish are outplanted in Miller Creek, Walker/Sequoia Creek, and Des Moines Creek. Once in the stream, they will face the same challenges that naturally-hatched fish do. A smart, strong, and lucky few will survive and grow for a year in the streams before heading out to Puget Sound. Two to three years later, a small fraction will return to spawn in the creeks. By increasing the number of juvenile fish in the creeks, the TU hatchery operation helps compensate for the high mortality of salmon eggs (in nests known as "redds") and young fish caused by high stream flows in the fall and early winter (such as the December 3, 2007 flood). The pictures below illustrate the outplanting process.

This is the building where the young fish are incubated. Constructed in 1988, it is located on the grounds of the Southwest Suburban Sewer District treatment plant in Normandy Park. Miller Creek is to the right. Trout Unlimited volunteers are cleaning trays that were used to rear the fish. January 19, 2008.

These are the trays where the young fish are raised following their transfer as eggs from the Soos Creek hatchery. Water from a well constantly incubated the 120,000 fish raised during this season. The well water is 13 degrees Celsius, considerably warmer than the creeks at this time of year. The warmer water leads to faster incubation of the eggs than stream water does and avoids the risk of polluted water from the streams killing the fish. Each of the 24 trays contains about 5,000 fish. January 19, 2008.

Trout Unlimited volunteers Russ and John transfer the young coho salmon from a tray into an ice chest. A battery-powered pump oxygenates the water during the time it takes to drive the fish to the stream where they will be outplanted. January 19, 2008.

Trout Unlimited volunteer Ron gently empties a bucket containing 5,000 young coho into Walker Creek next to Ambaum Blvd. in Burien. January 19, 2008.

Basin Steward Dennis Clark outplants 5,000 young coho into Miller Creek at the S. 144th Way restoration site in Burien. Some 300 feet of stream bank was restored here by volunteers in October 2007 to help improve habitat for these fish and all the aquatic creatures that depend on a healthy Miller Creek. January 19, 2008.

Juvenile coho salmon just after having been outplanted in Sequoia Creek in Normandy Park. At first, many of the fish show signs of being stunned by the transfer to the new environment but within minutes, most are spreading out through the stream. Their dark color will help camouflage them from preadators such as great blue herons (most of the stream bottoms are darker than shown here). January 19, 2008.

Stewardship of the Miller/Walker Creeks basin is jointly funded by the City of Burien, City of Normandy Park, City of SeaTac, King County, and the Port of Seattle. On behalf of the partners, this page is proudly hosted by King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks - Water and Land Resources Division.

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