West Seattle wildlife: Spawners spotted in Fauntleroy Creek

| West Seattle news | Wildlife

A few weeks into the Fauntleroy Creek watch for coho spawners, and Judy Pickens reports that volunteers just spotted three of them above the fish ladders: “Time to ramp up the watch!” Judy reports. If you’d like to see the fish – no guarantee you’ll see them, but Judy says the best viewing is during the five hours after high tide (which was at 11:15 today; we have a tide chart on the WSB West Seattle Weather page). The fish-ladder viewpoint is just south of SW Director off upper Fauntleroy Way SW (up the embankment that’s across the street from the Fauntleroy ferry dock).

Tbone November 19, 2011 (4:00 pm)

Cool! That’s a neat little spot, complete with an informative marker and hobo-glyph to boot! Never knew there was a fish ladder down there!

sunset November 19, 2011 (8:46 pm)

While we were at the creek looking at the salmon today, a small-to-medium sized falcon-type bird landed on a low branch nearby. It looked to me like maybe a merlin or a cooper’s hawk, but my bird identification isn’t very good. It wore a green leg band around one leg. It stepped along the edge of the water for a bit as if hunting for little fish, then it spent a few minutes standing in the creek, wiggling its tail a bit as if starting to bathe. (It was definitely a raptor and not a water bird, though.) Then it flew back up to its original low branch.
I was curious whether anyone else has seen a raptor with a green leg band in the Fauntleroy area, and if so, if you can tell me what kind of bird it was and what it was doing wading in the frigid water.

Visitor November 19, 2011 (9:23 pm)

Chances are it was a Coopers Hawk although not being there I can’t be certain. But Coops are part of a raptor study being done locally hence the green band. All birds bath to keep their feathers in top condition for flight.

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