Today in Shoreline: 6 photos and 1 video

Blanket drive at North City Cleaners

Shoreline's new City Hall / Civic Center as of today

Key Bank at 175th and Aurora being remodeled

Echo Lake Park

Construction at Sky Nursery

The Carson Building




Video of Echo Lake Park

What happened at Echo Lake Science Night Tuesday Feb. 10th

Kids search for macroinvertebrates in simulated Thornton Creek water

Jennifer Youngman is Outreach Coordinator for Homewaters Project. She sent along this information about "Echo Lake Science Night" this past Tuesday. (Thanks Jennifer!)

Homewaters Project brought its hands-on "Macroinvertebrate Search" to Echo Lake Elementary School's Science Night Tuesday, Feb. 10. Homewaters Project connects Shoreline and Seattle students to the natural environment right in their own neighborhoods, through field investigations and other inquiry-based programs linked to school curricula.

"Macroinvertebrate Search" is modeled after Homewaters Project's "Tiny Neighbors" and "Land and Water" field investigations, in which students search for real organisms in Thornton Creek and local wetlands. Indoors at Science Night, children searched for images of macroinvertebrates on glass gems simulating creek water. Then they identified the tiny animals with the help of a chart and determined how healthy their simulated creek water was based on the types of organisms found in it.

Homewaters Project volunteer extraordinaire Gretchen Graber helps a young scientist identify tiny organisms that live in creeks and wetlands.

Midge larvae and nematodes are two of the macroinvertebrates found in Thornton Creek.















Pollution-tolerant blue-winged olive mayflies, water mites and aquatic worms indicate that the water quality is pretty poor.

Link to Homewaters Project

Link to Homewaters Project blog, with tips and activities to help you and your family explore your local watershed

Link to Tiny Neighbors Field Investigation

New coyote dens in Echo Lake neighborhood

The following information is from an email sent out by Diane Hettrick (Secretary of the Echo Lake Neighborhood Association)

There have been coyotes in the Echo Lake neighborhood long before there were houses and like many wild animals, they have learned to live around humans.  Diane says she lived here for 20 years before learning about the coyotes in her part of the Echo Lake neighborhood (NE section).

It appears that there are new coyotes who have set up shop in the area near the lake and farther south.  Diane says it's the right time of year for the spring pups to be setting out on their own.

Normally, coyotes are mostly beneficial, keeping down the rodent population.  However, they are not beyond the occasional too-trusting cat or even small dog.

Recent sightings over the past couple of months:

--a coyote who got a cat in the 197th block of Ashworth - this was at 6:30 a.m.

--a small dog killed in its yard at 188th & Wallingford - no witnesses so it's not certain that coyotes were to blame, but it seems likely

--185th block of Densmore, a man was startled to open his door at 11 p.m. and find two coyotes in his front yard

Diane says she's looking for an article published by Lake Forest Park about how to keep coyotes out of your yard - when she finds it she'll put it in the Echo Lake Neighborhood Association (ELNA) newsletter.  Basically, says Diane, it said to make sure that you did not leave food or water outside your house and that small animals were kept inside as much as possible.

With some exceptions, coyotes operate in the dark.  Supposedly they hunt at dawn and dusk but these ones seem to have thrown out the rule book.  If you see one, you are supposed to make a lot of noise to scare it off - but also note that they have no fear of humans, so don't get between them and the dog food!

Thanks for the info, Diane!

Link to: Echo Lake Neighborhood Association webpage