Whitaker Ponds Wild! (Alliance High School Guest Post)
Blog post by Preston Reid, Joe Ferguson, and Alix Reynolds: students and staff at the Alliance High School at Meek Natural Resources Program.
The Natural Resources program at Alliance High School has a tradition of working on projects at Whitaker Ponds, our neighborhood nature park. We have engaged in a variety of activities at the park such as the restoration of native shrubs and trees, conducting a beaver behavior inventory, invasive plant removal, water quality and macroinvertebrate surveys, and creating an Otocast audio tour of the natural history of the park.
As the COVID-19 pandemic took over many aspects of our lives in spring of 2020 and our high school classes went “remote”, we had little hope of going back to in-person classes in the spring. This was disheartening because it is typically a time of year when we might take students to canoe the slough, go birding at Whitaker Ponds, and engage in stewardship projects in our watershed. As the summer did not bring the disappearance of the virus and the promise of going back to in-person school diminished, we knew we needed to do something drastic to engage students in “comprehensive distance learning” in the fall.
We wanted to continue our relationship with the park despite the obstacles imposed by the pandemic. Over the summer we worked closely with Jennifer Starkey (Columbia Slough Watershed Council) and Jeff Wirth (Burning Hearts Media) to set eight wildlife trail cameras throughout the park to observe the wildlife in their natural habitat. We have been able to capture some incredible footage of the wildlife that make their homes at Whitaker Ponds and the greater Columbia Slough.
We really had no idea what we would find in our cameras but have been amazed to record incredible footage of dozens of different animal species. We have seen beavers (even a baby beaver!) repairing their dam, gnawing on a tree, and dragging logs through the forest. We’ve seen river otters (often traveling in pairs), and nutria (an invasive aquatic rodent) in the different waterways and traveling across land, packs of raccoons scavenging for food throughout the park, and coyotes looking for their next meal. Of course, our cameras have also captured countless squirrels and rabbits scurrying through the park and even a few feral cats roaming the grounds. As for birds, we have some great videos of Great Blue Herons, Great Egrets, Wood Ducks and Mallards as well as smaller birds such as Northern Flickers, Spotted Towhees, Steller's Jays and Scrub-Jays. On warm days, we’ve seen Western Painted turtles basking on logs. It has been incredible to observe the behavior of these animals around the clock and in such a close-up way that trail cameras allow for. We’d like to share a description of each wildlife camera as well as samples of the videos that we have captured.
On the west side of the West Pond in a small clearing with a downed log near the floating observation dock we have placed Camera 1. We see a lot of squirrels and songbirds during the day passing by and eating and we also sometimes see rabbits hopping about. Wildlife cameras give us a unique way to observe nature, since many animals are easily scared in the company of humans. During the night, we see some amazing nocturnal activity here, including raccoons and beavers walking around searching for food.
Camera 2 is pointed into a meadow at the edge of a densely forested area. Here, we want to see how animals use the interface between these two habitats, and if there are any animal use differences between day and night. During the day we don't see much activity except from a local house cat and some human visitors passing through. However, during the night there is a lot of activity from rabbits and racoons trying to find some food without being disturbed. Sometimes we also see some coyotes prowling near the camera on the hunt for rabbits.
In a turtle nesting site on the bank of the East Pond, we have placed Camera 3. We often see a lot of birds and ducks on the bank of the pond walking around and trying to find some food during the day. At night, we see racoons searching for food and beavers moving from West Pond to East Pond and vice versa. Enjoy a close-up video of a Great Blue Heron eating lunch caught on this camera.
On the north side of the East Pond, Camera 4 is pointing down to some logs floating on the surface of the water. Here ducks, herons, and egrets hang out and eat during the day, hunting for fish and other things living in the water. One video showed a Belted Kingfisher diving for prey right out of the sky into the water. On warm days, we see Western Painted and Western Pond Turtles basking in the warm glow of the sun. At night we typically see raccoons trying to find food like amphibians and small crustaceans here.
In the stormwater pollution reduction zone of the park, we have placed Camera 5, which is on the southwest side of the West Pond near the Columbia Slough Watershed Council’s office. This is where stormwater runoff from city streets enters the park and the amount of sediment and pollution is naturally reduced before it goes into Whitaker Ponds. When the area is dry (most of the time) we usually see squirrels, rabbits and small birds travelling through as well as raccoons searching for food. The water level here can rise rapidly and we have recently raised this camera up to avoid it being submerged in water when the rains come.
Camera 6 is located on the east side of the park between the slough and East Pond. It is facing a clearing on a hiking path near the border to private property. Here, we see animals moving through the park both east and west along the path as well as north to south between the two bodies of water. We see the squirrels and rabbits and birds that make this forested area of the park their home as well as raccoons, coyotes and nutria that are passing through. The feral cats of the park spend time over here as well! We love to see how the different animal species interact in this area of the park.
Camera 7 is located above the beaver dam that separates West Pond from the slough on the northwest side of the park. The beaver dam keeps water from rushing from the pond into the slough below. Animals abound in this area of the park, especially at night and in the early morning. We have seen river otters scurrying across the dam, beavers repairing it, groups of raccoons scavenging on it, coyotes crossing it and Great Blue Herons hunting right below it. A variety of rodents have even made their homes right inside the dam! This is probably the most active area of the park for wildlife that we have seen. It is a great place for a lot of animals to find food, shelter, and to move between parts of their needed habitat.
Our last camera is found in a densely forested area of the park on the south side of the West Pond. When we initially set up the cameras in August, we came across a tree that had been freshly gnawed by a beaver. We set camera 8 up pointed directly at this tree to see if we could catch beaver in action. And we certainly did! A beaver would return to the tree night after night and spend hours gnawing around the base of the tree. Then it just stopped coming back. When a large windstorm hit in September a different tree fell directly in front of our camera and has changed what we see quite a bit. Now we mainly see squirrels and birds such as the Northern Flicker searching for food near this camera. It was really cool seeing all the progress that the beavers made and seeing them in action.
We hope that you enjoy seeing a bit of what we have seen so far through these few videos. We have loved learning about the wildlife and ecology of this amazing place and getting a glimpse of the animals that make their home in this urban wildlife park. We are looking forward to seeing how animal activity and behavior changes as we move into the winter months. We also plan on setting up some bird-specific cameras up in the park for when the migratory birds come back here in the spring. Thanks for reading and watching!
~ Alliance High School @ Meek Natural Resources Program, Oregon Wild! & A Wolf Called Wander Project Class, Fall 2020
