This year I've been using Google Earth as a way to look for interesting habitat. Thus I 'discovered' Field's Riffle Community Park'. It's a 62 acre Snohomish co. park on the Lowell-Snohomish River Road just west of the town of Snohomish ( can find location on the county parks website).

After years of driving by this so far undeveloped (yay) site I thought to look at it via google earth. I presumed that this was just another stretch of mucky Snohomish River riverside but was surprised by my google 'flyover' which revealed an interesting tidal basin tucked in behind a river sandbar.

A short walk in on a wide gravel road leads one to a sandy/silty area with some large (4-5 ft diameter) Cottonwoods, which on my first visit on a hot day (8/17) had some Wood Pewee's calling from on high- Willow Flycatchers down low. Continuing on to the left leads to the 'inner' tidal basin - interestingly lined with swatches of Equisetum fluvatile which would indicate that the 'tide' coming in here is mostly freshwater? (The basin empties at a +.9 tide). Anyway, lots of interesting plants showing this to be relatively undisturbed habitat.

The 'uplands' along the entry trail and down to the river are mostly covered with a who's who of invasive plants under the cottonwoods, but there are also nice thickets of native willows ect. Kudos to Snohomish Co. who have been planting native trees and shrubs along this whole stretch of river - trees that actually belong here such as Sitka Spruce, Red cedar and Grand Fir. In the long run this will really change the habitat along the river which has largely been denuded of any native conifers

On my first visit spotted 45 Killdeer on the fields coming in, more on the tidal basin. The basin also had a few Spotted Sandpipers, a calling Virginia Rail and a single Marsh Wren - pleasant surprises on this stretch of river.

Today saw many Killdeer again along with about 40 Western Sandpipers and a single Dowitcher - I arrived to catch the incoming tide. Actually the incoming tide caught me - within 20 minutes the mucky but walkable gravel bar along the river disappeared (tricky because the river surface shows a downstream flow while the incoming tide comes up underneath) and I was forced to wade into soggy canary reed grass and into a very dark dense stand of native willows - which was interesting too and I flushed a large silent buffy bird - Barn Owl was the only
likely suspect I could think of - only got a glimpse.

My most exciting discovery though was a bug. At the mouth of the tidal basin is a high sand bar along the river. Dry sand is a pretty rare commodity on this lower stretch of river. I thought I might see some Tiger Beetles but found something new - a "bumble-bee' scarab - a beetle that imitates one of our small native bumblebees (bombus mixtus). At first I thought it was a Syrphid fly bee mimic (one of those 'hover flies' that look like bees) because of its zippy hovering flight- but its club (like a golf club) shaped antennae gave it away. What will those bugs come up with next. Later saw a beautifull butterfly - a West Coast Lady (Vanessa ) another first for me.

I'm looking forward to more explorations of this easily accessed area.


Jeff Gibson, Everett Wa