Clues found on ground at Eco-Blitz species search

“The point is to identify all of the species that live in the park,” said Jane Tesner Kleiner with the Clark County Clean Water Program.

Who — or what — lives at the park is an indicator of the health of the environment, she said. The inventories collected during Eco-Blitz help shape how land restoration and maintenance money should be spent.

The most obvious and easiest animals to find are birds. Volunteers went on the lake in canoes to document birds, such as an egret that perched on shore as well as the more common crows and swallows. The lake’s greenway eventually connects with Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge, a popular spot to observe birds.

While Skelly’s daughter, Sarah Skelly, led one of the canoe groups, she joined James in identifying mammals.

Jane Skelly said that at home in Nashville, Tenn., she goes hiking and sees local wildflowers, but she doesn’t partake in more close observations of nature and its creatures.

“That’s what’s so cool about the West,” she said.

With many mammals hiding away from humans and the well-trafficked park, the group relied on tracks and scats to piece together what visits the park.

“That looks like a young deer,” James said, pointed to hoof prints in the sand. “It might still be hiding in the bushes.”

A heron print was neatly pressed into the sand. Other tracks were difficult to decipher; what could be a raccoon print also looks like a bobcat print or even a chipmunk. And then, there are dozens of domestic dog prints.

Nutria, an invasive species, are common around here, James said.

“They live in the dense vegetation and then come down to the water,” she said. As an employee at Portland-based Turnstone Environmental Consultants, she helps with wildlife surveys and biological assessments.

A couple of Northern Pacific tree frogs hopped among the trees near the shoreline. The iNaturalist smartphone app that some volunteers used during Eco-Blitz indicated that the Northern Pacific treefrog was the most commonly found and photographed creature at the lake on Saturday. Garter snakes were also documented through the app.