Productivity and Diversity

In a detritis driven ecosystem this is where it all starts. The natural products of photosynthesis of native plants living in the wetlands of the Skagit River Delta, seeds and plant debris.... These seeds shown above are a part of a predictable pattern of nature offering to migratory wildfowl. The plant is a common component of the local flora, Carex lyngbyei. Oh the gifts to us of this plant, beginning with the sweet odor to the air that perfumes this sedge meadow. Yet within literally hundreds of yards is the intercontinental arterial of the interstate highway system, I-5. 


We should call this place A - 5 because here we have natural and wild habitat maintained in nature by the cycles of ebb and flow of the seasons, the tides and predictable patterns of disturbance. Animals in transit here following their life cycles, the aquatic insects, the fish , the mammals representing the countless critters growing out of the humble productivity of these plant inhabitants. 


I am in unsupressed awe viewing what is happening in this place and how natural systems continue to dominate. When pioneer settlers arrived at the delta the outlet was plugged with log jams and the channels could not be detected. Dynamite and dredging opened the channels making passage for steam driven craft to serve communities that sprung up along the river banks. there were no roads, much less trail that penetrated the dense forest of the pacific northwest. To present day the old river bank communities thrive but no longer needing the river for transportation but now for tapping water and waste disposal. Mount Vernon, to Rockport and Marblemount similar sets of communities along the Nooksack River, the Skykomish and Snohomish Rivers and others in the Puget Sound basin.


Yet also the riparian habitats are disappearing, waters are nutrient polluted, people are appearing everywhere and this Skagit delta habitat continues to purify and sustain us and the natural inhabitants.