Take a photo tour of Thornton Creek on Google Maps!

Too cold for you outside? Not to worry! Here's a fun, new way to tour Thornton Creek without getting cold or wet. You can even do it in your PJs!

• In the righthand column under Links, click on "Homewaters Project photos on Google Maps."
• Click on any one of our four photos to see its title and its precise location on a map.
• Then click on "HomewatersProject" below the photo to see the rest of our Thornton Creek images.

Creek Peek for Families

Google Maps shows the precise locations where you'll find these views. Now take it to the next level. Go out and find them!

Go on a hunt for change!

We're not talking pennies here. Seasonal changes are taking place all around us. Other types of change happen in a day, or over a period of decades or centuries.

Creek Peek for Families

Take a walk in your neighborhood, along a creek, or in your own backyard. Use all of your senses to discover what is changing around you. Before you go, brainstorm types of change to look for, or listen for, or even sniff around for. Here are some ideas. Add your own to the list!

• Can you find something that is getting bigger or smaller very slowly?
• How about something that changes in size or shape very quickly?
• Can you feel something (maybe with your hand, maybe with your upturned face) that will change in a day?
• Can you feel a texture with your fingertips that will change slowly over time?
• Can you hear something that changes in volume?
• Can you find something that smells stronger or different when you crush it?
  
• Can you find something that is changing something else?
• How about something that is changing into something else?
• What change is produced by natural causes?
• What change is created by people?
• What changes are you causing while taking your walk?
• What is something you can't change?
• How have you changed while taking your walk?
  

Black cottonwood trees are telling you something

Another source of fall color is black cottonwood, one of our tallest native trees. Black cottonwood trees grow in moist or saturated soils. Beavers use black cottonwood as food and as a building material in their lodges and dams. It works out well that these trees grow quickly, and that new trees can sprout from stumps or from the shallow, spreading roots. Look for black cottonwood at Meadowbrook Pond or Thornton Creek Park #6 (near NE 105th and 8th Ave. NE), two places in Seattle where beavers currently make their home.

Creek Peek for Kids

Hey kids, beavers like to build their homes near black cottonwood trees. But how about you? Would you like to build your home near black cottonwood? These water-loving trees gives you a hint that the ground might be damp, and that the area may even flood sometimes. It might be hard to keep your basement dry and your house free of mildew. So what do you think? Would you build near black cottonwood or look for drier ground?

See a fish-friendly culvert

Impervious surfaces (roads, parking lots, buildings) cover about 60% of Thornton Creek's watershed. That makes for large areas where rain can't soak into the ground, so greater quantities of water rush down Thornton Creek all at once. Last winter, more culverts sustained storm damage in Thornton Creek than in any other Seattle watershed. The culvert at NE 105th and 27th Ave was subsequently replaced with a 16-foot-diameter, fish-friendly design approved by Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. It's shorter in length and larger in diameter than the old one, and it has a natural streambed inside it. Check it out when you're out that way.

Creek Peek for Kids

Hey kids, can you figure out what a culvert is from the paragraph above? Answer: Pipes or tunnels that carry streams underneath roadways and railroad beds are called culverts.

Where's your nearest storm drain?

It was all over last night's newscasts -- clear your storm drains of leaves and debris to help reduce urban flooding. It's not a one-shot deal, though. Flowing water and wind will deposit more leaves on top of those storm drains. 

Creek Peek for Families

Take on your nearest storm drain as a family project. (If you live in Seattle, you have 78,000 to choose from!) When you remove the leaves and gunk that clog a storm drain, don't just push them to a nearby spot. Mulch or compost those leaves or have them taken away in your yard waste. Then they won't just settle right back over the drain. 

Have you ever named a park?

My last post mentioned fall color in Thornton Creek Park #1. Only thing is, the name "Thornton Creek Park #1" isn't anywhere near as colorful as those leaves! Now you can help change that. What's special about the North Fork's Park #1, just south of Jackson Park Golf Course? Or the South Fork's Park #2, stretching from 105th St and 15th Ave NE southeastward to about 100th and 20th? Have you seen the kingfisher, or the huge boulder dropped by a glacier? If you'd like to submit names for parks along Thornton Creek, click the Comments link below and type in your ideas. Homewaters Project isn't involved in the naming of these parks, but we'll pass your ideas along to the right folks!

Splashes of brilliance

Looking for fall color along Thornton Creek's North Fork? (See Oct 20 post for fall color further south.) If you're content with splashes of brilliance instead of great swaths of color, saunter around Shoreline's Twin Ponds at 155th just west of I-5 -- and don't miss a few hidden bits of brilliance behind the tennis courts. Or check out Park #1 south of Jackson Park Golf Course, where the best color comes from maples west of 10th Ave before you drop down into the creekbed and east of 10th Ave where the creek crosses beneath the road. Enjoy the yellows and magentas of late-blooming flowers in the P-Patch while you're at it!

Where are your favorite spots for fall color? Click on "Post a Comment" or "(#) Comments" below, type a quick message, enter your name or be anonymous, and click "Publish your comment." Looking forward to checking out your special finds!

Your carotenoids are showing

Now that chlorophyll production is winding down for the year, all those patient little carotenoids and tannins are getting their share of the limelight. Yellow and orange carotenoids and brown and russet tannins appear when green chlorophyll fades away. A few clear warm days and cool nights have triggered anthocyanin production, too, resulting in red leaves.

Two Pacific Northwest native plants, bigleaf maple and red osier dogwood, are especially pretty right now. How do you know a maple or a dogwood when you see it?

When I was growing up in Indiana, MADCAP HORSE helped me know when I was looking at a maple or dogwood. The phrase stands for Maple-Ash-Dogwood-CAPrifoliaceae-HORSEchestnut. (Caprifoliaceae is a plant family that includes elderberries, among others.) MADCAP HORSE trees and shrubs have opposite branching. Two leaves grow across from each other out of the same point on a stem. You can see the pattern in a tree's branches, too. Two smaller branches grow away from each other at the same point on a larger branch. Other trees have alternate branching. Only one leaf grows out of a point along the stem.

Creek Peek for Families

Right now, the hot spot for fall color along Thornton Creek is Meadowbrook Pond. Walk across the pond's long walkway to find the glowing red leaves, white berries and opposite branching of red osier dogwood. Walk around the pond to find yellow bigleaf maple. Bigleaf maple leaves can grow up to a foot across! Their leaf stalks can grow up to a foot long, too! Bring a tape measure with you. What's the biggest maple leaf you can find?

Can you find chlorophyll (green), carotenoids (yellow, orange), tannins (brown, russet) and anthocyanin (red) in your own neighborhood? Whenever you spot a colorful autumn tree, see who can shout out the name of the correct autumn pigment first.

A barrel of fun for your watershed

Here's another watershed-friendly option besides aiming your downspouts onto the ground (see Oct. 13)... Collect rain in a rain barrel for later use in your own yard. This practice not only conserves water. It helps recharge your watershed's groundwater, too.

Creek Peek for Kids

Hey Kids, think about this. Why do you think the outflow hose is fastened near the top of the rain barrel instead of at the bottom?

Do you know where your downspouts aim?

Groundwater provides a source of streamflow even during drier months . . . that is, if there is groundwater. Replenishing the groundwater can be a challenge in watersheds like Thornton Creek, where nearly 2/3 of the landscape is covered by impervious surfaces -- roads, parking lots, rooftops. Instead of soaking into soil and recharging the groundwater, rain rushes into storm drains and flows away through pipes. And that can present a problem for living things that depend on streams year-round for their survival.

Creek Peek for Families

Close your eyes and see if you can remember where the downspouts on your house or apartment building are. Do your downspouts direct rainwater onto pavement or onto ground? This fall, see if you can aim them so that rain has a chance to soak into soil and recharge your watershed's groundwater.