Wetland Monitoring

February 2020 – on track with Eco-Action project carbon sequestration goal

Biologist Review Spring 2019

• Wetland area is narrow in places as it was created to follow the original depression that flooded during spring run off.  Cattails could take over shallow areas. Move the tree branches so they hang over the edge of the pond to provide shelter and to enable amphibians to get in and out of the water. Place more large woody debris in the water and extending out of the water up onto dry land. Root wads or branches are also good in the water to provide habitat and diversity. Add sedges and remove thistles – I think that I would add rushes before you add sedges because they are hard to grow. Definitely remove the invasive plants and give the native things a chance to grow. Thistles don’t like shade but it takes awhile for plants to become tall enough to cast sufficient shade. Manmade wetlands take up to 100 years to naturalize.
• The wetland was not created to remediate existing issues so we do not need to monitor changes for this purpose. We can do an assessment of the water – measure dissolved oxygen, temperature and Specific Conductance (basically the hardness or softness of the water)
• Create an inventory of what has been observed in the wetland, what was planted and whether or not it thrived, amphibian population, insects, etc. Of the plants, document what was planted, if it lives or dies. If it dies, what was the cause; animal girdling, drought, browsing.
• Document elevations, soil types, temperature, rainfall.
• Do a bird inventory (wintertime to see what overwinters, spring as the leaves are coming out and what has taken up residence there).
• Build some bird houses and erect some in the closest trees as well as on the fence posts.
• Build a bat house and put it up in the trees.
• Establish all trophic levels of life (prey and predator) for an ecosystem to be healthy – in the water and on the land. The more life you can grow or attract the more in balance your ecosystem will be.

Marge Sydney, RP.Bio.

Cattails transplanted and growing from seed.