Field trip description
Entiat River at Stormy Preserve
Our first stop is the Columbia Breaks Fire Interpretive Center to learn about wildfires, fire ecology education, and shrub-steppe shrub identification.
We then drive 16 miles up the Entiat Valley to the Chelan-Douglas Land Trust’s Stormy Preserve. At Stormy Preserve, we are led by scientist field trip leaders and Wenatchee Naturalist Susan Ballinger. The field trip focus is on the riparian ecosystem exploring stream macroinvertebrates, insects, and riparian plants, birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibian communities.
We observe a Chinook salmon nest the river and learn about salmon life cycle and the importance of riverside trees and shrubs as the foundation for the aquatic food web. The day concludes with a stop at the confluence of the Entiat and the Columbia Rivers to visit the newly developed nature trail.
Logistics
Entitat Field Trip 2 Logistics Fall 2019
Guest scientist leaders may include:
Aquatic Biologist, Dr. Mark Oswood and Fisheries Biologist, Phil Archibald.
Featured organizations
Columbia Breaks Fire Interpretive Center & Cascade Columbia Fisheries Enhancement Group & Chelan-Douglas Land Trust
Community Science Project
Presentation
Watershed & Water Cycle A day on the Entiat River at Stormy Preserve: Riparian Ecosystem structures & functions
Resources
- Shrub & Tree Species on CDLT Stormy Preserve
- Columbia Breaks Fire Interpretive Center Bird Species brochure
Photos
Photos from a Wenatchee Naturalist field trip to Stormy Creek Preserve.
Stormy Creek Preserve
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- CDLT volunteer site stewards, Kim Lohse and Phil Archibald, guided us through the riparian habitat along the Entitat River.
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- Susan, Annette, and Sally are framed by the multi-layered canopy of riparian shrubs that flank both sides of the Entiat River. Last fall, dropped deciduous leaves fell into the stream and provided the food energy that fuels the aquatic food web.
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- Mark kicks up streambottom sediments, freeing resident invertebrates that float into the net.
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- Chris stands amid beaver cut twigs as she awaits the contents of Mark’s kicknet.
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- Phil points out the past landuse as a pasture resulted in loss of streamside shrubs. Without their roots to stablize the bank, the river carves away, and banks erode.
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- Evidence of the 1994 wildfire is visible on the hillside.
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- Phil Archibald orients us to Stormy Preserve on a chilly March morning. Phil serves as a volunteer site steward for the landowner, Chelan-Douglas Land Trust.
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- A recently retired fisheries biologist, Phil reviews the landuse history of Stormy Preserve, located 17 miles upstream from the Entiat River confluence with the Columbia River.
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- Phil leads a riparian walk to see evidence (left behind on trees or shrubs) of beaver, mice, thatching ants, & woodpeckers. In the afternoon, an American dipper skimmed along the surface of the river, making its distinctive call.
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- Aquatic Entomologist Mark Oswood puts us under his spell as he introduces the amazing world of riverbed foodwebs.
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- Mark acts out a black fly larva that spins a silk pad to anchor itself to a riverbed rock, and then raises feathery appendages into the fast-flowing riverwater to strain out food.
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- Two individuals of the largest invertebrates in this ecosystem, Giant Stoneflies (Plecoptera: Pteronarcyidae). This species probably has a 3-year life cycle before emerging as winged-adults to mate and the die within about 2 weeks.
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- The cold fast-moving water of the Entiat River supports a healthy suite of aquatic invertebrates (mostly insects) who feed by either shredding dead leaves, grazing on algae, filtering particles in the water, or collecting fine organic matter on the riverbed. Others are either predators or parasites on other invertebrates.
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- The fun begins: What did Mark collect in his kick-net?
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- Smaller Stormy Creeks joins the Entiat River on the Stormy Preserve. Its compacted & even-sized bottom sediments lack crevices and spaces so few invertebrates inhabitat its substrate.
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- In 1994, a high-intensity wildfire burned both sides of the Entiat Valley here, killing the groves of black cottonwood and tangles of shrubs that once lined the banks at Stormy Preserve. Stream-side redoiser dogwood, alder, and willow are quickly regrowing and their leaves fall into the river, providing food for aquatic invertebrates.
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- Up close views of a case-forming caddisfly (Trichoptera) and a flat-headed mayfly (Ephemeroptera: Heptageniidae) with its diagnostic 3-parted tail.
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- Sally uses the artifical key to identify a Cranefly larva (Diptera: Tipulidae).
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- Jennifer kneels at her lab bench, and Robin consults the reference library to identify an unknown species.
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- This stonefly (Plecotera) has three pairs of legs, a head, abdomen, and thorax are defining traits of the Order Insecta.
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- At left, giant stonefly (Plecoptera: Pteronarcyidae). Upper right, flat-headed mayflies (Ephemeroptera: Heptageniidae).
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- Mark explains food-gathering appendages for one guild of aquatic invertebrates.
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- The view upriver from the Stormy Preserve allows a visitor to see the snowpack on peaks that melt over the summer and supply a year-round flow of cold clear water into the Entiat River.
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- After a few minutes of letting the sample settle, wriggling invertebrates catch our eyes. Here, a camouflaged case-making caddisfly (Trichoptera) larva has its head and legs extended out of its case.
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- Mark describes the emergence of the winged-adult stage of the giant stonefly (Plecoptera: Pteronarcyidae). Nymphs crawl out of the stream onto the shore (and bridge abutments), then the new adult pushes through a line of weakness in the nymphal exoskeleton and the folded wings are expanded.
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- Lunch in a grove of ponderosa pines, with a carpet of cones strewn on the needle-covered ground. Despite the passing of 18 years, blacken trunks remind us that they survived the 1994 wildfire that swept across this valley. Thick corky bark insulated the inner living tissues from harm from killing heat of the flames.
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- This leaf awaits an invertebrate shredder who will feed on the plant tissues, leaving behind a net-like skeleton (like the one in the upper left). The relatively low-nutrition of the leaf is supplemented by the film of bacteria and fungi that coat the leaf. In turn, the feces that flow out in water column provide food for filter feeders downstream.
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- Deborah, Bruce, Dena, Mary, Laurie, and Gru soak in the afternoon sun while enjoying Mark’s explanation of giant stonefly mating. The male and female find each other by listening to a species specific drumming pattern.