WatershedEvents

THE FLUSH ON BEATTY CREEK

Above, a before and after photo of the impact of a good rain on Beatty Creek.

In the brief interval since my last post about Beatty Creek, a substantial amount of rain has fallen - enough to cause flooding in many of the low-lying areas around Olympia, and more than enough to turn the creek into a torrent. Wednesday-Thursday, in fact we set a record for rainfall for the period - almost four inches in a 48 hour period.

The watershed for Beatty Creek is not very flashy, meaning it doesn't operate like an on-off water valve the way badly degraded watersheds often do; but it rained a fair amount a day or two running up to Thursday's downpour, so the sponge was saturated well before the peak event. It is still raining from time to time today, but the great flush has passed and the water level is beginning to fall. In a day or two, any chum still waiting for a shot at its upstream breeding grounds should be able to make a run for it. However, IF any are still out there in Eld Inlet, I'll be surprised. 

HARD TIMES ON BEATTY CREEK

The two photographs below require a bit of explanation: The first was taken at the confluence of Beatty and McLane Creeks. I was standing at water's edge of McLane, and the view is directly into the mouth of Beatty Creek. For the second shot, I stepped over all that debris and pointed the camera directly upstream. What's important here is what's NOT to be seen, specifically the dark, sinuous motion of several large chum salmon fighting their way up Beatty Creek to their natural spawning grounds. 

It is nearly mid-December. In a typical year I would not be able to stand on dry land at this spot along McLane Creek, even if I might want to - the stream would be so deep and the current so strong it might knock me down. Only a few salmon would be entering Beatty Creek, only a handful sweeping away at their redds further upstream. The peak of the run would have passed. The scene along the way would be mostly one of carnage, the stream and its lower banks littered with rotting carcasses - the bleak aftermath of a successful spawn. Instead, today only a paste of rotting leaves remains on the damp gravel. The heavy and steady rains of November have yet to arrive, and purge the creek. Furthermore, the forecast for the rest of December suggests they may not arrive until 2020, well paste the time for spawning.   

This is not the first time late or otherwise insufficient rain has wrecked an annual run on Beatty Creek. It is an ephemeral stream to begin with, and even in a good year its bottom is dry as a bone by June. In the fall that bottom will be covered in a thick mix of leaves and other detritus offered up by the surrounding deciduous trees and shrubs.

Then, usually in the first week or two of November, a series of wet warm fronts will blow into the area from the Pacific coast, one right after another. They usually come through only a day or so behind each other, creating a kind of wet pulse which soon translates itself into surging crests of stream flow in the creeks.

Then comes the surge - the full force removes virtually anything in its pathway. It’s wonderful to watch the cleaning process; even more wonderful to see what happens when the cycle settles long enough for the chum to run up stream and lay their eggs.

Sitting (or sometimes lying) quietly along the banks of Beatty Creek, just a few feet away from the chum, can be a deeply moving experience. I will miss it this year, it appears. But that won’t diminish my love for Beatty Creek, nor will it keep me from studying and recording its ways. I will not, however, write a book about the experience – been there and done that with Up Fanno Creek. Instead I’ll simply journal my efforts on this blog from time to time. I may also pull a weed or two, and pick up the occasional bits of litter I happen across. If you are a wetlands lover, as I am, stay tuned.

WHEEL GOES 'ROUND

The chum run in Beatty Creek struggles. November’s rains came too late, and in quantities too small to provide much traction for fish intent on spawning in the mid-to-upper reaches of the creek’s three-mile channel. We are well into December now, and it's been over a week since the last meaningful rainfall. Water levels in the stream have been dropping steadily, to the point that the future of late arrivals is seriously in doubt.

Here – at an elevation of 160 feet above sea level – long stretches of the stream are so shallow that the tops of the gravel beds are nearly dry. These mid-elevation shallows are potential deathtraps for fish attempting to swim further upstream. Those making a run for it risk being stranded high and dry.

Between these dangerous shallows lie pools of deeper water, each of them crowded with dead and dying salmon, as well as with those still attempting to spawn. As the water levels drop, the desperate plight of the fish in these pool intensifies - the overcrowding, combined with shrinking surface areas and the processes of decay, will soon rob the pools of what little oxygen remains. Only a good rain can forestall the inevitable long enough for these stranded populations to make it up stream to fulfil their destinies. The next rain is still several days away. Nature can be so hard...

It is a terrible time on Beatty Creek, but better days are ahead. The Solstice fast approaches…the Wheel goes ‘round…the Buddha smiles...

The Chum Cycle

A view of Beatty Creek in early fall of 2015. This bent tree caught my attention when I first visited Beatty Creek in the spring of 2014. The creek was full at the time, and  I was blissfully unaware of how intermittent the flow in this reach could be. I've visited this spot a dozen times since. The embankment from where I took this shot was flat and relatively free from salmon berries. I would sometimes sit or squat there for a half hour or more - just listening to the water and admiring the epiphytes and other vegetation. 

Taken a few days later, after a particularly heavy rain. The water was running strong, but not yet at full flood.

I returned once more,two weeks later. The rains had increased steadily from a few hundredths at a time to inches. The stream was running a a nearly full boil and was fully engaged in restructuring its bed. In just a few days the creek had carried my favorite perching place away. But I found a new one just to the left of where the old bench had been, a place where I could once again sit and marvel at the miracle of water. I'm weeks overdue for another visit. 

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POSTSCRIPT: I went back yesterday morning and was a little surprised how close to drying up the stream has become in just a few short days. This is late April, which seems very early in the year. However, the soils around here drain very quickly, and rainfall here in the Olympia/Tumwater area is more than an inch less than "normal" for the month. 

I checked a couple of pools and they both contained small fish, probably similar to the one's Jake and I discovered last summer (see previous post). I never got a positive ID on them, but the best guess is they were coho that made a wrong turn when they came to the Beatty - Mclane Creek confluence. The spot shown here is at roughly 40 feet higher in elevation than that confluence. The reaches upstream from here are are probably close to bone dry already. There's still a great deal of moisture in the stream bed, so fresh water will be entering the pools through seepage for at least a few more days. But if the next round of rain isn't better heavier than its been in some time, the little fish in these isolated pools won't be flushed out and taken further down stream. I'll keep an eye out on the process, and maybe try later to set up a "taxi" service for a few of them.

Well Enough, Left Alone

Grandson Jake and I ventured down the block to Beatty Creek the other day. He had never seen the stream before, and I was curious to see how it might be holding up during this extended drought. What a shock! The creek was dry as a bone.

We decided to head down stream to see if could find a puddle or two. Sure enough, just a few dozen yards closer to where the stream makes its confluence with Mclane Creek, we found a couple small pools crowded with small fish. The idea that these little critters were likely going to end up dying of suffocation didn't set well with either of us, particularly after we discovered there was a much large pool just another fifty feet downstream. I promised Jake I would return the next day with a bucket and a net, and move them to the larger pool.

Next day, net and bucket in hand, I went down to the creek bed and began scooping out the juveniles in the first pool.

I stopped at one point and examined one to see if I could identify it. As near as I could tell they were chum salmon, which was consistent with the only sightings of mature salmon I've made in the last two years.

I was about half way through the process when I realized that the knee I had placed next to the pool was soaking wet. I started pulling back gravel in several places, each one further from the puddle. The sand below was filled with water, and wherever the hole I'd dug was deep enough, it began to fill with ice cold water. It then dawned on me that, although the puddles were quite small, the water was very cold and crystal clear. I let all that sink in for a few minutes. Then, as gently as I could, I put the little critters back in their puddle. Nature ALWAYS knows best, and almost always needs less help from us than we need from it...even today.