Humans celebrated the renewal of light and life for millennia before the prophet Jesus was resurrected or not. "Easter" Saturday was one of the warm, sunny days we desperately hang on for during the wet NW winter and by the thousands we make our way outdoors. I went to Chamber's Creek Park south of Tacoma WA. My mission was to look for the resident Ospreys that nest on the abandoned shipping pier. Come on along and celebrate spring in the natural with me.
Chamber's Creek property, an 950 acre abandoned open pit gravel mine and industrial wasteland, is now a world class golf course that also hosts a huge Pierce County Park comprised of three "meadows" that are linked by walking/running trails. The Central Meadow is the largest and home of the Osprey nest so we'll start there today.
Official Red Winged Blackbird greeter:
The entrance, clubhouse and restaurant are on a bluff overlooking the course, Central Meadow, South Puget Sound and Fox Island in the background.
Central Meadow and wetlands. The railroad pedestrian overpass is the U shaped structure by the water on your left. What is left of the pier is on the right. If they are there the Ospreys will be on the left side of the pier if that makes sense:
Part of the course from the overlook:
Chamber's Bay was once an industrial complex that included a paper mill, the gravel mine and a high explosive plant just down the road in Dupont that was vital to WWII.
Dinosaur Bones? Naw, this is all that's left of huge sorting bunkers that held gravel to be loaded on ships and barges. NW gravel was also an important WWII recourse. The gravel mine finally played out in the early 2000's and was replaced by the golf-course/park which opened in 2007:
We don't use crushed rock for construction in the NW. The glacier did that for us 10,000 years ago. In that time all this was 3,000 feet below the ice:
Central Meadow looking back from the RR overpass. It's still morning and not many around but it will be full of kids with balls and kites later in the day.
Amtrak Coast Starlight out of Seattle blasts underneath the bridge at 60mph headed for Los Angeles. ETA Sunday night:
Folks out for a walk. Woozles are a big theme at CB.
Looking north toward the Tacoma Narrows suspension bridge. The concrete piers in the foreground supported the gravel loading chute.
OK, we finally reached the end and are looking at the bird roost but no Osprey's in sight:
Here's a close up of the end of the pier and what we are looking at is a "herd" Double Crested Cormorants that live here year round. The Osprey nest was on the horizontal platform at the top left of the picture but it's blown away during the winter. Never fear. Osprey's have great site fidelity. This pair raised three babies here last summer. They will rebuild when they arrive.
So no Osprey here. But, as they say, WAIT THERE'S MORE, and maybe even another nest.
First there's Bark (Off Leash) Park:
There was a Dove--Hey it's Easter there has to be a Dove--I think this is a Morning Dove. It was on the fence by Bark Park.
American Coot--Don't know if it's an old coot or not:
Down the road is an obsolete little damn that once provided water for the local industry. Plans are afoot to remove it and open Chamber's Creek up as a tidal estuary once again.
For now the pond and tidal flats below the damn are amazingly rich with waterlife. Here are a few friends I found today.
A first year Glaucous Winged Gull keeping clam. If you don't know, glaucous means gray and also technically there is no such thing as a "seagull". They are just gulls and they are found all over the place not just at the sea. This guy's official name is Larus glaucescens by the way. Now aren't you glad you kept reading?
Here is a picture of a grown-up taken two years ago in the snow. This is my friend Gulliveer. She lives in here in the marina and I feed her every day. She's a Glaucous Winged Gull.
A male Common Merganser and two females. Mergansers are diving ducks that eat small fish.
Here's the same little guy splashing water. Maybe he didn't like something I said. Ha, ha:
An American Wigeon an his Misses. The Wigeons pair up here during the winter and will soon be heading out to breed in the northern Canadian lakes. Wigeons don't quak like what most people think of as a duck sound. That's a Mallard. Wigeons cute little voice sounds exactly like an old fashioned squeaky toy.
There were lots of other critters but frankly the batteries were getting low. Still looking for an Osprey though.
The abandoned train station at Steilacoom, the oldest settlement in WA.
A couple of Rock Pigeons on the roof. Did you know that the white doves they use in weddings and peace ceremonies aren't doves at all. They are a special breed of the same old pigeon you see on every street and under every bridge.
Union Pacific hauls the goods:
Steilacoom is the car ferry terminus for Anderson Island and where the boat lands for closed prison commitment center on McNeal Island. Though the prison has been shut down the state still houses, at great cost, the civil commitment sex offender unit on McNeal. So in effect we have our very own little Gitmo. Department of Correction houses the most violent offenders including death row quite successfully on the mainland but the hysteria around sex offenders is so bad that we spend millions to keep them on their own little island.
McNeal Island--Former Federal Prison, Former State Prison, current Civil Commitment Facility for WA State Sex Offenders. Spooky place.
Oh Yeah. The Osprey. There is a railroad bridge at the mouth of Chamber's creek. On top of the bridge are two nests. One is a fake. Camouflage if you will. Apparently they some pairs build an extra nest but never use it. Both nests have been there for years. Here's what you can see from the road.
I you look really close you can see a little bump just to the left of the middle. That's the real nest. There is another smaller one to the right of it that you can't see. Here's what a 60x spotting scope backed up with a 30x camera lens reveals at the active site:
At least one of the "bridge" pair has made it home from it's winter vacation in Southern California or Mexico. From this picture we don't know if it's the male or female. Sometimes the males arrive first and this could be him or it could be the female rearranging the furniture while her partner is out fishing. So we succeeded in our failure after all. Like life, it's not the Osprey we wished for but it's the one we got and a fine one at that.
The birds know it. The bees and trees know it too. Spring is here. Happy Spring however you celebrate the great resurrection of light and life.