Hello! I just wanted to plug one of our Pierce County sites once again. Butte Pit wetland mitigation site south of the King County line in Pierce County (north of 8th Street East off of Butte Avenue) has had some great species. I noticed some critters (either signs of or the animals themselves) while doing my routine wetland monitoring last month. We had a mother (I believe) hooded merganser with three young babies, a resident green heron, belted kingfishers, and our normal population of swifts and swallows. You'll have to excuse my ignorance of birds. Although I am a wetlands biologist by trade, I try my best to gain understanding the ornithological realms (although I admit, I need a LOT of work!). We also have a resident beaver who consequently keeps blocking up the inlet with vegetation (but he's still neat). We also have off-channel juvenile coho salmon as well as our typical resident fish (mainly sculpins and sticklebacks). We also saw dead chum salmon last winter in the wetland (we believe they were trying to spawn). We have also seen deer and coyote tracks on the site.

On a non-work related note, does anyone know how to keep a rat away from a bird feeder? I have one brown rat (with a fuzzy tail, which is odd) who just loves my bird feeder. I woud like to try non-lethal means to get rid of him, especially since I don't wish to risk any harm to my neighborhood ground squirrels and Douglas squirrels. I have my bird feeder mounted on the top of a straight post. I thought catching the seed before it hit the ground would be a good idea, so I made a large 3' baffle (I guess that's what you would call it) out of a plastic trough (the kind that goes underneath a large plant pot). I placed it on the post underneath the feeder and drilled small holes at varying distances away from eachother around the trough to allow water to pass through while still retaining the sunflower seeds. After I did that, I noticed the rat DID become deterred and doesn't come nearly as often as it used to. However, I would still not like to see him and now that I have started feeding the birds, I feel obligated to continue doing so since they have become reliant on it as a food source (plus I really enjoy watching them!). Any suggestions? Thanks!

Michelle Banonis



Michelle L. Banonis, Environmental Biologist
Pierce County Public Works and Utilities, Transportation Services
Consultant/Environmental Engineering Section
2702 South 42nd Street
Suite 309
Tacoma, Washington 98409
Phone: (253)798-7044
Fax: (253)798-3661