Three Things Thursday

Thanks to Natalie for hosting Three Things Thursday, “three things big or small, that have made you happy this week.”

The city of Tacoma, WA, originated as a port for the fishing and lumbering industries. Nowadays the Port of Tacoma continues to function as one of the largest ports on the West Coast. In addition to providing hundreds of jobs to the area, it also undertakes to clean up and reclaim land around the port that was contaminated by industry long before the formation of the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency).

Last Friday a group of us went on a field trip to the Port’s Gog-le-hi-te Wetland area, 12 acres of land along the Puyallup River that used to be the Tacoma town dump. The project involved removing all the trash, then digging deep enough to remove all contaminated soil. The land was then left alone for natural growth of vegetation. Now the river allows for the growth of young salmon, and the surrounding land provides a home for many birds and animals.

The Port biologist, Jenn, accompanied us for a bird-watching session. Here are three of the birds we saw. Thanks to my husband and his telephoto lens for these photos. Most of them were taken from a great distance, so judge accordingly.

(Click on any photo to see a larger version.)

You can read more about Jenn’s interesting job at Diary of the Port Biologist.

and a fun fact

On a tour of the Port of Tacoma last winter we learned about how scientists are Mapping ocean currents with rubber ducks (scroll down the page a bit). The flotilla of yellow rubber duckies is visible on satellite photos and has helped scientists learn about ocean currents as they tracked the rubber ducky migration.

© 2017 by Mary Daniels Brown