The meadow you speak of at Bob Heirman Park is 90% mono culture of Reed
Canary grass, an invasive grass which takes over wetlands. (debated whether
RCG is native or not). It is TERRIBLE hawk habitat in that it grows dense
and tall, and the multitudes of rodents are not accessible by hawks at all.
(I have lobbied to have it mowed, and the tree planting area has been mowed
and chipped) But SnoCounty Parks has NO BUDGET for this park.

The goal of the planting project is three fold, one to expand natural
forest species back into their former area (This used to be a farm, before
that is was a braided river bar wetland), to make a river bar when the river
returns to its former course, and third, to experiment with controlling RCG
by shading.

There is currently 130 acres of Reed canary grass "meadow" of which about 25
acres are being planted. There are some pockets of other shorter native
grasses which account for a total of about 8 acres, and in one of these is
where both the harriers and a coyote raise their young and prefer to hunt.
Weasels dominate the RCG areas, and coyotes can hunt in it some, but the
fallen growth makes thick understory mats, perfect for microtines to live
happily unnoticed by aerial predators. The bulk of the trees that have been
planted are cottonwoods, but there is a wide mixture of other species.

The man made dike has been naturally broached by the Snohomish River and the
engineering analysis done when the park was created suggests that the two
ponds (which are remnants of the old rivers course) are likely to be
reunited at some future point as a channel of the river. Historically, this
area was a large braided portion of the river, with several backwaters and
marshy sloughs. The two lakes are already united during floods, when water
comes into the small lake from upstream overflow of the river, and flows
over the gravel road into the bigger lake, which drains to the west back
into the river. The management plan for this park is to NOT to rebuild the
dike, but let nature take its course over time and reclaim its former
channel and recreate the braided, marshy habitat that once existed. The
elevation difference between the lakes area and the tree plant is about 7
feet, which assuming the trees grow and hold, will build a substantial bar
in that area, once the area reverts back to river channel, assuming that it
does. This is why they dumped all those big tree stumps over there as well,
to create log jam materials to build the future river bar. Will all this
actually work? Nobody knows, it's a big experiment.

Another purpose of the planting is to experiment with some reforestation
technologies and RCG control strategies. It is very difficult to replant
areas taken over by RCG because it grows very thick and has root systems
that dominant the upper 24 inches of the soil. The cottonwood plantings are
live posts, which were machine dug to various depths as an experiment. The
other trees were large tree transplants. RCG does not do well in even
partial shaded situations, as can be seen along the eastern dike areas where
the alders are moving back along the edges.

My students and I have done monitoring on the tree planting every year since
it was done, and I have a complete list of the species planted if anyone
wants that level of detail. I have been doing pretty regular species counts
in this park over the last decade and since it is only a few miles from my
house, will continue to monitor the park in the future. If anybody would
like to do a field trip out that way, I'd be delighted to tag along.

In summary, Reed Canary Grass sucks for hawks and the parks folks are trying
out how to remove some of it without any budget other than volunteer
coordination. RCG is a serious wetland pest and once you start noticing it
you will be appalled at how much wetland it covers.

Rob Sandelin
South Snohomish County at the headwaters of Ricci Creek
Sky Valley Environments <http://www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm>
Field skills training for student naturalists
Floriferous at msn.com


-----Original Message-----
From: TWEETERS-owner at u.washington.edu
[mailto:TWEETERS-owner at u.washington.edu]On Behalf Of Carol Riddell
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2003 6:17 PM
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: Bob Heirman Park


I'm following up on the reference to the northern harriers at Bob Heirman
Park in Snohomish County. I visited that park for the first time last fall
and enjoyed watching the harriers hunt in the meadow. BUT, a great big,
"Huh?" went zinging through my head when I saw that the native plant rescue
folks had transplanted trees (none of them endangered) throughout the
meadow. Does anyone else question this lamentable practice? Does anyone
have an explanation for what is going on? This park is noted and hyped for
its meadow. The meadow obviously provides a good hunting ground for the
harriers. The indiscriminate transplanting of trees throughout the meadow
doesn't make any sense to me. Transplanting on the edge, yes. But
throughout the meadow seems like a raptor disaster in evolution. The less
meadow, the fewer the opportunities to watch harriers hunt. No meadow, no
harriers. I'd be interested in the comments, thoughts of others. Thanks.

Carol Riddell
cariddell at mac.com
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