Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge Travel Guide

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Open Wednesdays through Sundays (except certain holidays), the refuge store helps visitors by selling bird guides specifically aimed at the Puget Sound and western Washington region. It is located inside the visitor's center, between the main entrance and the interpretive displays.

What to buy: Birds of Puget Sound - bird watching guide
T-Shirts and Hats
Coffee
Toys
various educational tools
nature-themed greeting cards

There are several different bird call players to help identify birds by their sound. I'm not convinced of the usefulness of these. One version has special cards that are inserted into the machine and then you can select the bird by button, and another system uses a book of bar codes to play the song. I was unable to get the bar code reader type to work, and the card type seems like the contacts would become worn out fairly quickly. You may have better luck with a bird call CD and converting the sounds to MP3 files for playing on your computer or MP3 player.

There are guides to all manner of birds here, including some very specialized guides, such as birds in molt.

There are also guides to the various bird watching routes throughout the state of Washington.

What to pay: Prices in the store are what you would pay at any other store for the same item, if you can even find one available - some of these are fairly unique gifts.

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The ancestors of the current Nisqually Indian Tribe at one time used parts of the Nisqually River delta for their daily supply of food and materials, and was also at one time home to the council grounds. It is also possible that a small community existed here, though the records indicate there was another village near what is now DuPont.

Born to a Yakima mother and a Nisqually father along the Nisqually River somewhat upstream from the river delta, Chief Leschi was shown at an early age to have the abilities of a leader. He was frequently called upon to serve as a judge between fellow tribesman.

In 1853, Governor Isaac Stevens decided to rearrange the way tribal lands worked in order to establish reservations and allow settlers to own formerly occupied by the various tribes. As part of this process, the governor needed signed treaties, and thus needed a chief for each tribe. Chief Leschi was declared to be chief of the Nisqually tribe in order to sign the various treaties.

However, in 1854, Chief Leschi refused to sign the Medicine Creek Treaty as the proposed reservation did not have adequate resources for the Nisqually people. Instead, he worked towards trying to keep the peace between the government, the settlers, and the Nisqually while at the same time working to obtain a reservation that was more suitable for his people.

The Medicine Creek Treaty was finally signed, and the location of the signing was towards the southwest corner of the refuge along McAllister Creek.

This led to a long series of unfortunate events involving murders, brutality, and many broken promises.

On February 19, 1858, Chief Leschi was hanged for murder of a soldier, though he claimed his innocence.

Five old trees served as a landmark for the signing location, and the last of those, known as Treaty Tree, died in 1979 and was blown over in a wind storm in 2006. Seeds from this tree, however, were planted to create a new grove not too far from the original site.

After some years of work by the Nisqually tribe, Chief Leschi was officially exonerated by the state for his crime in 2004 - so perhaps that old snag was kept as a witness to the injustice just long enough to see it reconciled.

The areas of the Nisqually River Delta that were recently restored (starting in 2009) were a place once known very well by the Nisqually pepole and Chief Leschi. During the long effort towards the exoneration hearing, members of the Nisqually River Council and the Nisqually Indian Tribe started asking the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge about naming some feature of the refuge in honor of Chief Leschi.

Ultimately, the decision was made to name the longest remaining slough in the restored tidal area after Chief Leschi.

Though the Nisqually Tribal Council agreed with this proposal, it took about a year and a half for the proposal to be completed, complicated by the legislative elimination of the state board of geographic names - the board responsible for maintaining the names of geographic features. Ultimately the application had to be forwarded to the U.S. Board of Geographic Names, and in October of 2011 they approved the naming of Leschi Slough.

For more information about the life of Chief Leschi it is best to get your hands on the book Leschi, Last Chief of the Nisquallies by Cecelia Svinth Carpenter.

The vast majority of Leschi Slough is not visible to visitors to the refuge, but it is possible to see a very small part of the southern portion of it from the gravel portion of the Nisqually Estuary Trail, located about halfway between the new boardwalk over the tidal mudflats and the Nisqually River.

The slough is tidal, and at low tide it is only a mud-bottomed trough. At high tide it is full to its edges and overflows its banks. Frequently, it is very muddy as the tidal action of Puget Sound in this area is still rearranging the mud and debris of the newly restored tidal flat. Only time will tell how this will all eventually look once the entire area is more settled. In 2009 it was a very artificial looking channel, but by 2012 the tidal action has severely altered the edges of the waterway, creating a far more natural course with sloped edges.

Various bird life may be seen in Leschi Slough. These may be large waders (I have seen Great Blue Heron and Great Egrets in the slough), or the occasional diver (pie billed grebes at high tide, for example), or any number of smaller birds hiding along its banks, hunting for insects, or larger birds hunting for smaller birds (there is a certain tree not too far away from Leschi Slough that draws Bald Eagles for that very purpose!).

About the Photos:

Photo 1: July 7, 2012 shows Leschi Slough at a few hours after high tide, in the morning. Summer has just arrived, and the high tide plus river overflows caused by spring runoff hitting the high tide are drastically reduced. Areas along Leschi Slough are now covered in wild flowers.

Photo 2: May 5, 2012 shows the mud bottom of Leschi Slough at low tide. Only a very small trickle of water sits in the bottom of the slough, caused by controlled release from the fresh water wetlands section of the refuge.

Photo 3: May 5, 2012, only this time in the afternoon when the high tide is in, plus the spring runoff from the Nisqually River hitting the high tide is causing fresh water to overflow into the slough from the river. Leschi Slough is overflowing its normal banks as well. This photo also shows the proximity of Leschi Slough to the gravel portion of the Nisqually Estuary Trail.

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Photo Equipment: Due to the distance at which many of the birds are from public trails or viewpoints, telephoto equipment (not just camera lenses, but also binoculars, spotting scopes, etc.) will be very helpful. Only certain view points have permanent spotting scopes available.

Please see my Telephoto Equipment Tip which is located at
http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/tp/201dc1/

This tip covers an assortment of telephoto equipment that I have used on a number of trips to a variety of areas, and therefore is not specific to use at this particular refuge.

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Favorite thing: As it is positioned on a migration route, the time of year to visit depends on what you are most interested in seeing.

Winter is the best time for waterfowl of all sorts, including geese, hooded mergansers, goldeneyes, and various ducks. Shovelers are also here, as are widgeons. Very few of these stay around in summer.

This is also true of shore birds and raptors. However, osprey migrate, so you will not see any of those in winter at all, if that is what you want to see. Osprey start arriving in March or so.

There is a bit of an oddity with certain shore birds (dowitchers, snipe, yellowlegs, etc.): there are a few individuals that come through here in the mid-summer months if there is enough water, and after breeding season is over. This leaves the food sources in the nesting grounds for more of the younger birds. However, it is doubtful you will see any of them in August, as many of the water bodies near the trails that seem to be favored by the shore birds have dried up by August.

Song birds reach their peak in spring and fall duirng the migration, and a few spend the summer here, including swallows that feed off the insects in the marshes. Swallows also nest in the rafters of the visitor's center, despite efforts to keep them from doing so. If you are lucky, in July you might get to see the swallows fledge, and these little guys are quite entertaining when first learning to fly.

However, summer can also be a very frustrating time to visit the refuge. The weather is warm and it is located close to large population centers, so a number of people use this as a city park and really don't care about wildlife or bird life. This means that they make quite a lot of noise, and make it hard to trace birds from the calls, or worse scare the birds and other wildlife into hiding.

Yes, that is another problem with summer months: there is a lot of greenery into which wildlife can hide, especially the bird life. For best results here in summer it is best to be very familiar with the calls of the birds you are trying to find.

Due to the crowds on summer weekends, it can be a really good idea to schedule your visit here during weekdays if possible.

Heron and bitterns are at their peak in the summer, but little else is at its peak then. Bitterns are hard to see anyway, but they don't spend too much time close to the trails. Herons are sometimes visible from the trails, but in summer months seem to congregate in huge numbers out on the tidal flats, and the best spot to see them is the Nisqually Reach Nature Center. Scan the shoreline between the National Wildlife Refuge looking south and southeast from this nature center, and you may find huge groups of heron. There were some 40 or so visible in the afternoon of August 20, 2010 as the tide was coming in.

There are several salmon runs in the Nisqually River and McAllister Creek, and the seals and sea lions feed on the fish in the moving water, and are quite visible at those times.

All other animals are extremely unpredictable, including the whales in Puget Sound, foxes, mink, and various others.

Spring and summer, going fairly deep into July, are also good times to see the wild flowers in bloom. Some of them are also weeds (wild flowers that are invasive species) but the mixture can be a pleasant burst of colors in places in the grasslands on the refuge.