Wildlife returning to the Dillon Creek Wetlands

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - It has been a year since Autumn Barrett-Morgan was hired as a Biological Monitoring Technician at the Dillon Creek Wetlands Restoration Project. This is in Cortes Island’s oldest farm site, currently known as Linnaea Farm, but prior to the land being a farm, it was wetlands. Three years ago the Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI) and Linnaea Farm partnered in a project to restore the wetlands, to help reduce the sediment and thus reduce the nutrients flowing down Dillon Creek into Gunflint Lake. The wetlands are also meant to enhance the breeding and foraging grounds for wildlife, including Species at Risk.

Barrett-Morgan told Cortes Currents, “Wetlands are the watering hole where biodiversity interacts, providing food, shelter and water. It becomes this meeting ground for land and water animals, and there’s so much variability in the species who visit the wetlands.”

Project Manager Miranda Cross, the Linnaea Farm stewards and Barrett-Morgan are constantly monitoring the wildlife; both animals and plants.

“The best way to observe wildlife is to open your ears and your eyes and your nose, and really to be present with the environment you’re in,” she explained.

One of her favourite tools, especially for birds, is a recorder. This enables her to capture soundscapes, and also provides an invaluable database for future reference. This is especially useful when she does not recognize a call.

While it is difficult to see or hear bats, the project’s Biologist, Dusty Silvester, brought a bat detector to assist in performing a bat survey. The device they used picks up bat sonar and can identify the species via a database. This has enabled her, and her colleagues, to detect six different species of bats, right after construction was complete.

One of the ‘cool’ things about Linnaea Farm is that it has been keeping records of wildlife observations for decades.

“We’re starting to see some species that may have existed in that particular field back when it was previously a wetland, but have not been observed since,” explained Barrett-Morgan.

Some wetland species would spend time in the field, being that it was a wet portion of the field, but there are certain species that need open water. So, this wetland restoration is becoming a beacon for wildlife.