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The Daily Bucket: Padilla Bay Trail - Observations & Findings [1]

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Date: 2025-01-16

I’m going to take you on a little tour of Padilla Bay. It’s just a short walk along a 2 mile trail that follows a portion of the bay’s eastern shoreline, atop a dike separating the bay’s tidal water from farmland. The bay was explored by the Spaniard Jose Maria Narvaez in 1791, who named it in honor of Juan Vicente de Guemes Padilla Horcasitas, the viceroy of New Spain. Locally the bay’s name is pronounced Pah-DILL-ah, which troubles this transplanted Angeleno to no end, and who would rather pronounce it properly as Pah-DEE-ya. I struggle.

What is special about Padilla Bay? Well, it’s a good sized bay as a part of the Salish Sea, which also includes Puget Sound to the south. Padilla Bay is shallow. At high tide it completely fills with sea water. Low tide exposes a huge area of mudflats and sinuous tide channels. It’s an incredibly rich and vital environment. Its eelgrass meadows serve as a nursery for juvenile salmon, crab, and herring. It’s critical habitat for waterfowl and marine birds. Its importance is further enhanced in that it is one of 29 National Estuarine Research Reserve sites, officially the Padilla Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve.

THE DAILY BUCKET IS A NATURE REFUGE. WE AMICABLY DISCUSS ANIMALS, WEATHER, CLIMATE, SOIL, PLANTS, WATERS AND NOTE LIFE’S PATTERNS. WE INVITE YOU TO NOTE WHAT YOU ARE SEEING AROUND YOU IN YOUR OWN PART OF THE WORLD, AND TO SHARE YOUR OBSERVATIONS IN THE COMMENTS BELOW. FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE PURPOSE AND HISTORY OF THE DAILY BUCKET FEATURE, CHECK OUT THIS DIARY: DAILY BUCKET PHENOLOGY: 11 YEARS OF RECORDING EARTH'S VITAL SIGNS IN OUR NEIGHBORHOODS

My wife and I along with our two dogs, Buddy and Daisy, walked the Padilla Bay shore trail on January 8, 2025. All photos are from that day, except as noted in one photo. I’ve walked this trail several times, at different seasons over the years, observing changes over time.

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Geography

I’ve included some maps to help orient ourselves to location and geography.

This map shows the regional setting in northwestern Washington. The red star marks the location of our walk. The hatched shading along the shorelines shows the mudflat areas exposed at low tide.

This map is a closer view showing topography and other features. The Padilla Bay trail we followed is the dark purple line along the shore.

The yellow line on this Google Earth satellite view is the exact route we walked.

Although this interpretive sign says “Indian Slough,” it describes very well the general natural environment of Padilla Bay. Indian Slough is a tidal waterway that feeds into the Bay. You can click to open a new window and enlarge (same for all the photos).

Landscape

Here are some landscape views that show the area around the trail as it appears from ground level.

The Padilla Bay Trail is on the right, following along Indian Slough on the left. The trail is wide, nice and flat making for an easy stroll.

Here we took a little detour off the main trail following an unnamed slough.

A weathered old barn or boathouse.

There are about three Double-crested Cormorants sitting on the pilings to the right.

A Bald Eagle perches on treetop.

A pair of Bald Eagles

This view looks west across Padilla Bay to March Point where there are two large oil refineries. Beyond is Fidalgo Island.

Birds

Notable bird sightings included Great Blue Herons, Bald Eagles, and Northern Harriers. A flock of swans was far off in a field. Gulls flew overhead. My wife and I had our two dogs with us. It’s always challenging trying to get good bird photos with two dogs lurching on their leashes and wanting to keep going. I contented myself with easy duck photos. But we saw many little birds in the shrubbery: Song Sparrows, White-crowned Sparrows, House Finches, Spotted Towhees, and Ruby-crowned Kinglets. Photographing these fast moving little birds requires patience, stealth, and fast reflexes. It’s near impossible while walking with dogs. So, here are some duck photos.

Hooded Merganser

Green-winged Teal

Northern Pintail

Northern Pintail

Northern Pintail

Northern Pintail

Life and Death

Subtle changes occur at a pace that often go unnoticed. Some changes are dramatic. As we walked by a downed tree, uprooted, tilted over, dead branches touching the ground, leaves dry and brown, it occurred to me that I remembered this tree from several years ago. I had taken a photo of it when it was alive, solid, and strong. The tree was a seaside juniper (Juniperus maritima), a tree native to the central Salish Sea region in southwestern British Columbia and northwestern Washington.

March 27, 2020

January 8, 2024

Other signs of life and death, predator and prey were also evident. These were aerial signs with Bald Eagles patiently perched and Northern Harriers coursing low across the fields.

You will notice that each of these utility poles is topped with a cross member whose only function is to provide a perch for raptors.

At the base of the near utility pole were a scattering of feathers; signs of a struggle that ended poorly for one and a meal for another.

This wing suggests that the victim was likely a Green-winged Teal.

Science

Padilla Bay Reserve is a living field laboratory with support facilities and professional staff centered around the Breazeale Interpretive Center. Breazeale Interpretive Center includes an aquarium with exhibits and is open to the public. So, there is a lot of science happening at Padilla Bay. We came across some of the science during our walk.

The instrument on the end of that arm is a Geolux RCC-2-300WL flow meter as I found by doing a little searching. Geolux is a company headquartered in Croatia, which is pretty cool, and now I really need to go to Croatia.

The Geolux RSS-2-300WL has an integrated radar surface velocity and level meter for contactless measurements of surface flow velocity and water level. Contactless radar technology enables quick and simple sensor installation above the water surface with minimum maintenance. Calculation of the total flow discharge is internally implemented within the instrument by combining surface velocity measurement, water level measurement, and a configured cross-section of the river or channel. Defining the measurement parameters such as profile cross-section, material of the edges, location of the sensor above the water, and all other instrument settings can be easily set with the Geolux configuration application using any available communication interface.

This is very cool. You don’t have to drop any instruments into the water or anything manual. It’s contactless! I’m guessing it logs measurements over set time intervals. Later someone probably comes by and downloads the data into a laptop. I’ve done similar things with transducers measuring water levels in wells or measuring pressure differentials between indoor air and under a floor slab. I can explain over a beer sometime.

Closing Remarks

Well, that’s all I have, but a lot in just a 5 mile walk. I know we all share the same good feelings when we’re out in nature. Thanks for joining me.

What have you all been observing and finding on your walks, or even just poking your head outside for a whiff of fresh air? Sun, rain, snow, wind. You found a lifer or watched a bug crawl across your doorstep. The simple things.

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