World fish migration day at Riveredge Nature Center

-->

Did you know there was a World Fish Migration Day? I didn’t. But Riveredge Nature Center in Ozaukee County was honoring it and I found out when I got a Facebook invitation to attend. So I went. It was on Saturday and the weather—finally—was splendid and warm enough to feel like summer had arrived. Reason enough to go for a walk in the woods along the Milwaukee River!

According to the official World Fish Migration Day website, the one-day “global-local” event is intended “to create awareness of the importance of open rivers and migratory fish.” Although I don’t really need a reminder that open rivers are healthy rivers and fish need to migrate freely, I was curious about the event.

I arrived at the river just as a team of fish specialists from the Ozaukee Fish Passage Program, which co-sponsored the day, was wrapping up a fishing expedition. Clad in hip waders, they used electroshocking to stun the fish and scooped them up with nets. Then they brought the catch back to a floating dock where visitors including several families were waiting to see what they had.

The fish were dumped into a tank on the shore where children could press their faces up against the glass and get a good look. Some of the kids eagerly reached in and held up a wriggling specimen. Most of the fish were no more than a few inches long. The prize of the day, however, was the approximately 18-inch smallmouth bass (top). I asked if that was an unusual size and was told that the record at Riveredge was 20 inches, so yes indeed, it was a good find.

In the tank along with the fish there were a couple of healthy, native crayfish. This was a good sign as the invasive rusty crayfish has been aggressively competing with the natives in Milwaukee’s rivers.

Later I went for a walk in the woods where I found a wealth of spring wildflowers and, of course, collected some photographs. 

Phlox

Trillium

Tangles of roots, dead trees and branches in the river provide good habitat for migrating fish, as the crowd was told by the fish specialists.

A particularly lovely fungus specimen on a stump

 The may apples, which were budding but mostly not quite ready to flower, were the most spectacular ground cover species I noticed. Here they carpet a hilltop.

May apple, worm's eye view

I only saw this one tent caterpillar colony, however it doesn't take but one to give me the willies. The devastation the caterpillars can cause to a woodlot is one of my earliest childhood memories relating to the balance of nature.

The forest was full of trees bearing bright red-orange markings. I enquired about them. Some years ago a team from U.W. Stevens Point had done a tree study in order to improve forest management techniques. The types of marks indicate a variety of tree species and conditions.

The original owner of the land that is now Riveredge Nature Center had developed a modest version of a Dells-like resort, I was told. Crumbling and overgrown foundations are all that remain of the endeavor.

false rue anemone, vole's-eye view

Menomonee River restoration: a photo essay

by Eddee Daniel

I'd been told over a year ago that a series of five "fish barriers" --aka dams of various sorts and sizes--were going to be removed this year. I've been looking forward to it ever since. With the year rapidly drawing to a close, the work is finally underway. I didn't notice what was happening until I happened to see this big excavator in the river last week. By then most of the work had been done. But I have some before and after photos of the sites to share.

I caught up with the project as the fourth of these impediments to fish passage was being cleaned up. This one had been an abandoned sanitary sewer. Broken pieces of the pipe can be seen (above) piled up in the park for removal.

For decades, while the disused pipe was in the river, it created a short dam with a pool sufficiently deep to attract local kids. This shot (above) was taken a couple of summers ago. Unfortunately, the damming effect was also enough to inhibit the passage of fish and plans to remove all 5 have been in the works for quite a while. As a former board member of Milwaukee Riverkeeper and a nearby resident, I've long anticipated the restoration of the Menomonee.

Today the dam, the pipes and the pool are all gone. Sadly, the tree from which the kids strung their rope swing was also removed to facilitate the project.

In fact a whole swath of trees were removed in order to reach the river. This site is near the intersection of Charles Hart Parkway with the Menomonee River Parkway.

The sewer that went across the river continued on through the woods on the south side. There were at least three--what do we call them now? Manholes was how they used to be described. Anyway, there were three sticking up in the middle of the woods for no good reason. In order to remove them, though, another great swath of trees had to be obliterated. Now what was a narrow mountain biking trail looks like a broad logging road.

Upstream, just east of the Hoyt Park pedestrian suspension bridge was another low dam, seen here in a shot from two winters ago. The bridge is visible in the background.

Today the site looks like this. White limestone has been strewn to create a more natural flow that fish can navigate easily. The MMSD, which is responsible for the project, informs me that the sewer line in this spot is still in place, just covered with the stones. In time it will actually look natural, too!

If you've ever visit Hoyt Pool or the playground next to it and walked down to the river you probably saw this. At some point in its history it was safe to walk across, presumably. It clearly was a walkway, with stairs leading down to in on both sides of the river. The fact that it looks completely dry in this photo from last year was due to extremely low water during a drought. During normal flow levels there was always a waterfall going over the top.

Here is essentially the same view today.

Here is another before and after comparison. Before is above, after removal is below.

Don't ask me why they didn't remove the stairs. Seems like a safety hazard to me. But the fish can swim upstream now.

Just west, still near the playground where my two children played and now I take my granddaughter, was this prodigious dam-like sewer crossing. Again I shot it in 2014 during the drought. I'd never seen it dry before.

Here's the view of it from the north bank.

Now it's gone.

And behold! There are actual rapids where before there was a pool.

Removal of the fifth and final dam is still underway as I write this. It is the largest one. In low water conditions I could easily walk across in my sandals without getting my pants wet. This photo was taken from the south bank just a couple weeks ago after a heavy rain.

This is the same viewpoint last week as workers place fabric over limestone fill in order to stablize the badly eroded bank.

The concrete, which I've heard once carried a bridge of some sort, is wide enough for this front end loader to drive across. It's carrying a clay and topsoil mixture that will cover up the rock and the fabric lining.

Here's the same scene viewed from the north bank a couple days later. The shovel is tamping down the earth on top of the fill.

Rain has halted the project for the moment. But before too long this last Hoyt Park fish barrier will have been removed. Then the Menomonee River will be that much closer to being swimmable and fishable, one of the goals of Milwaukee Riverkeeper. In this case, at least it will be more swimmable by the fish.

Finding fish - alive - in the Menonomee River!

After reading on the Milwaukee Riverkeeper website about a die off of “thousands” of Gizzard Shad, a species of small fish, and the mobs of seagulls flocking to gobble them up, I headed down to the Menomonee Valley to check it out. I did see more than the usual number of gulls, but nothing to get excited about.

What I found more interesting were the live fish, fingerlings, that I discovered swarming around in the recently completed Emmber Lane River Access and Restoration Project. This is where a new pier has been installed, just off Emmber Lane, where it crosses the Menomonee River. I don’t know my fish species very well, so I could easily be wrong, but these little guys look a lot like the Sturgeon fingerlings I’ve helped Riveredge Nature Center restore to the Milwaukee River.

The barrier that was installed to keep this backwater clear of debris is not completely effective, as you can see from this shot. A bloated goose carcass floated amongst the more typical flotsam. However, it is much better than what I’ve seen in previous years. You can also see that the fingerlings are paying the debris no mind.

I took the opportunity to stroll along the stretch of Hank Aaron State Trail that runs west of Emmber Lane. The urban wilderness is stretched especially thin here. But when the sun came out it was quite brilliant. I scared off a flock of migrating ducks I couldn’t identify (white and black; possibly Common Goldeneye) before I could get close enough for a photo. I complained in a recent blog about the overwintering Canada geese and the lie they make of Aldo Leopold’s observation in A Sand County Almanac: “One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of a March thaw, is the spring.” Well, I’m happy to report that these are the kind of geese that prove its lingering truth. It is reassuring to know that they are too skittish to let me near, for it is that wildness in them that raises my spirits - as it did for Leopold.