Earth Day @ Edgewater Park 
Now is the time to celebrate the earth by doing some good work! This year’s Earth Day Celebration will be at Edgewater Park in downtown Mount Vernon.
We will be improving a walking path along the Skagit River which will help keep foot traffic away from a 3 year old restoration site as well as provide a better way to access the park to residents. Don’t know how to do any trail maintenance? No problem! We will have well-trained staff to help you along the way.
Invasive plant species have wreaked havoc on the park for a very long time. Invasive species are very good at taking over areas by pushing out our native plants. They do not, however, have any good impacts on our salmon habitat and need to go. We will be removing English Ivy, which is can actually be fun to remove when you roll it up into a burrito. Ivy specifically can take over trees, preventing them to get as much sunlight as they need as well as acting like a sail in the wind, causing trees to fall easier in storms.
Everyone who attends our Earth Day Celebration will receive one raffle ticket and a reusable grocery bag. We will be selling raffle tickets as well if you want a better chance of winning (must be present to win). This year we have great prizes from various businesses and organizations.
The prizes are:
Whale Watching tickets for two from Island Adventures
Gift card to Vital Choice Seafood
Girl Scout Cookies from Girl Scouts of Western Washington
Gift Card to Max Dale’s Steak and Chop
Mosquito-repelling shirts from the Mount Vernon Parks Foundation
We will have organizations dedicated to environmental stewardship and education at the event with informational booths that will have a STEM activity, great for all ages!
Booths:
Skagit County Noxious Weed Control Board
Mount Vernon Parks Department
Skagit Conservation District
Orca Network
Pacific Biodiversity Institute
Growing Veterans
Puget Sound Energy
Girl Scouts of Western Washington
Fidalgo Fly Fishers
Viva Farms
Swinomish Casino and Lodge
Skagit Fisheries Enhancement Group
Not only will we have fun informational booths, but we will also have a couple of sessions for anyone to attend.
Native Plant Walk: Want to find out about the native plants in YOUR area? Our knowledgeable Riparian Restoration Coordinator, Kelsey Taylor, will be leading an easy guided walking tour about of the native plants around Edgewater Park! We’re hopeful that the plants will be in better bloom so that she can talk more about their foraging uses. Either way, this will be a fun and interactive tour!
Fish Seining: What is fish seining you ask? It is a way of fishing that uses a large net to pull in large quantities of fish. We will be using a much smaller version of a seining net in order to collect data about which type of fish utilize the slough. This is a great opportunity to get up close and personal with all different types of fish! Most salmon that will be found will be in a juvenile stage and so they won’t be full grown.
Non Native plant walk: Similar to the Native Plant walk, this guided tour will be centered around the non native plants that inhabit this area. This guided tour will give you a good understanding about the interactions between native and non native plants. Joseph Shea from the Skagit County noxious Weed Control Board will be leading this tour.
As always, we will have coffee and light refreshments for our volunteers including gloves and all other tools necessary tools needed to do the job. Lunch has been graciously donated to us from the Swinomish Casino and Lodge, which will be serving boxed lunches.
We wanted to thank our partners for this event:
Mount Vernon Parks Foundation
Mount Vernon Parks Department
Swinomish Casino and Lodge
As well as our Sponsors for this event:
Earth Day Celebration
Earth Day @ Edgewater Park
Now is the time to celebrate the earth by doing some good work! This year’s Earth Day Celebration will be at Edgewater Park in downtown Mount Vernon.
We will be improving a walking path along the Skagit River which will help keep foot traffic away from a 3 year old restoration site as well as provide a better way to access the park to residents. Don’t know how to do any trail maintenance? No problem! We will have well-trained staff to help you along the way.
Invasive plant species have wreaked havoc on the park for a very long time. Invasive species are very good at taking over areas by pushing out our native plants. They do not, however, have any good impacts on our salmon habitat and need to go. We will be removing English Ivy, which is can actually be fun to remove when you roll it up into a burrito. Ivy specifically can take over trees, preventing them to get as much sunlight as they need as well as acting like a sail in the wind, causing trees to fall easier in storms.
Everyone who attends our Earth Day Celebration will receive one raffle ticket and a reusable grocery bag. We will be selling raffle tickets as well if you want a better chance of winning (must be present to win). This year we have great prizes from various businesses and organizations.
The prizes are:
Whale Watching tickets for two from Island Adventures
Gift card to Vital Choice Seafood
Girl Scout Cookies from Girl Scouts of Western Washington
Gift Card to Max Dale’s Steak and Chop
Mosquito-repelling shirts from the Mount Vernon Parks Foundation
We will have organizations dedicated to environmental stewardship and education at the event with informational booths that will have a STEM activity, great for all ages!
Booths:
Skagit County Noxious Weed Control Board
Mount Vernon Parks Department
Skagit Conservation District
Orca Network
Pacific Biodiversity Institute
Growing Veterans
Puget Sound Energy
Girl Scouts of Western Washington
Fidalgo Fly Fishers
Viva Farms
Swinomish Casino and Lodge
Skagit Fisheries Enhancement Group
Not only will we have fun informational booths, but we will also have a couple of sessions for anyone to attend.
Native Plant Walk: Want to find out about the native plants in YOUR area? Our knowledgeable Riparian Restoration Coordinator, Kelsey Taylor, will be leading an easy guided walking tour about of the native plants around Edgewater Park! We’re hopeful that the plants will be in better bloom so that she can talk more about their foraging uses. Either way, this will be a fun and interactive tour!
Fish Seining: What is fish seining you ask? It is a way of fishing that uses a large net to pull in large quantities of fish. We will be using a much smaller version of a seining net in order to collect data about which type of fish utilize the slough. This is a great opportunity to get up close and personal with all different types of fish! Most salmon that will be found will be in a juvenile stage and so they won’t be full grown.
Non Native plant walk: Similar to the Native Plant walk, this guided tour will be centered around the non native plants that inhabit this area. This guided tour will give you a good understanding about the interactions between native and non native plants. Joseph Shea from the Skagit County noxious Weed Control Board will be leading this tour.
As always, we will have coffee and light refreshments for our volunteers including gloves and all other tools necessary tools needed to do the job. Lunch has been graciously donated to us from the Swinomish Casino and Lodge, which will be serving boxed lunches.
We wanted to thank our partners for this event:
As well as our Sponsors for this event:
Did you plant this habitat?
From the FieldPicture 1. The first glimpse of the mystery bird.
It’s always wonderful to be able to spend a day in the field, regardless of the weather. The excitement is heightened when something infrequently seen is spotted. That happened on February 14 to a small contingent of Skagit Fisheries staff. While halfway through a stewardship visit to a property owned by Seattle City Light, SFEG staff encountered an unusual avian shape in a tree about 20 feet above the ground. It was roughly the size of a robin, but of a different silhouette, see picture 1. Closer inspection revealed that it was in fact a pygmy owl, picture 2. A little research back in the office revealed that this tiny owl species preys on small song birds, rodents and large insects, and nests in cavities of trees. For some reason this particular species will not use human constructed nest boxes, another reason to preserve natural places, especially with dead tree snags.
Picture 2. Another look at this bird shows it is a pygmy owl, and good at camouflage!
This particular property has been the site of multiple restoration projects, dating back to the mid 2000’s. What made this observation extra special was that this particular Douglas fir that the owl was roosting in was most likely planted by a SFEG volunteer on a cold, wet morning in February, much like when it was observed.
By Stewardship Coordinator Bengt Miller, photos by himself and Restoration Technician Lindsey Juen.
Annual Meeting and Celebration
Join us to celebrate how much we have accomplished this year thanks to YOU.
Click here to find out all the details and to purchase tickets.