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Letters
The Northern Light is published weekly by Point Roberts Press Inc.
Locally owned and managed, the company also publishes the All Point Bulletin, covering Point Roberts, Mount Baker Experience, covering the Mt. Baker foothills area, Pacific Coast Weddings annual guide, and the summer recreation guide Waterside as well as maps and other publications. Point Roberts Press Inc. is a member of the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association, Chambers of Commerce of Bellingham/ Whatcom County, Birch Bay, Blaine and Point Roberts and the Bellingham/ Whatcom County Convention and Visitors Bureau.
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Contributors In This Issue Doug Dahl, Hannah Weinberger
The Northern Light 225 Marine Drive, Suite 200, Blaine, WA 98230 Tel: 360/332-1777 Vol XXVI, No 50 Circulation: 10,500 copies Circulation Independently verified by:
Next issue: June 10 Ads due: June 4
s Blaine Police Department officers Jordan Maphumulo, l., and Katelyn Weaver took their oath of honor in front of mayor pro tempore Mary Lou Steward at city hall on June 1. Photos by Ian Haupt
Officers ...
From page 1 what challenges you’re going to face.”
Weaver, who graduated magna cum laude with a degree in criminal justice from Corban University in Salem, Oregon, said she wanted to work for a small community with strong values that felt like a place where she could invest her time both on and off duty.
Tanksley said before the ceremony this might be the first time in 20 years that BPD has had a female officer. “But don’t quote me on that,” he joked.
It’s the first time the police department has hired two officers at the same time since 2007. And the department has more positions to fill before summer is up, Tanksley said.
Following lieutenant Ryan King’s retirement in April and a sergeant vacancy, BPD has been left with holes in its ranks.
Tanksley said the department will be promoting a sergeant to lieutenant, two officers to sergeants and hiring two more officers this summer.
BPD has 12 commissioned officers, and a total of 16 people on staff.
Public input needed in June 5 redistricting meeting
B y n olan B aker
In an effort to increase awareness and public participation in the congressional and legislative redistricting process, the Washington State Redistricting Commission will hold a virtual meeting from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday, June 5. The meeting will focus on Washington’s First Congressional District, which includes legislative districts in Whatcom, Skagit, Snohomish and parts of King County.
The meetings will be available to all members of the public via Zoom, YouTube and TVW, and anyone who wants to comment during the public comment period can register online at bit.ly/3yPMSmV before 3 p.m. Friday, June 4.
Redistricting is the process of redrawing, or creating new, district boundaries to adjust for population changes since 2011. The U.S. and state constitutions require each congressional and legislative district represent roughly the same number of voters, and keeping that balance requires tweaking and changing political subdivisions as demographics shift.
For Congress, the number of representatives is limited to 435 to be distributed across all 50 states, according to the most recent census. For the Washington legislature, the number is limited to 98 representatives from 49 districts.
Since some states and communities grow faster than others, redistricting is necessary to make sure the number of congressional seats for each state represents the population of the country. For example, the 2020 Census shows that Texas, Florida, Montana, North Carolina, Oregon and Utah will all gain a seat (with Texas gaining two) in next year’s Congress.
The redistricting commission has been operating throughout the state since its inception in 1983 when voters approved Constitutional Amendment 74, establishing an independent commission to redistrict legislative and congressional districts every decade.
The commission said on its website it will host 20 or more public forums from May to August across the state in order to “listen to your ideas and proposals about current and future Congressional and legislative district boundaries.”
The commission is encouraging residents to send comments and insight about their community, share testimonials during public outreach meetings, and to even draw their community with the “DRAW YOUR WA” mapping tool, available online at bit.ly/2SMfiO7.
CiviC Meetings
Birch Bay Water & Sewer District: Second and fourth Thursdays, 4 p.m., district offices, 7096 Point Whitehorn Road, Birch Bay. Info and Zoom meeting link: bbwsd.com. Blaine City Council: Second and fourth Mondays, 6 p.m., Blaine City Council chambers, 435 Martin Street. Info and virtual meeting login: ci.blaine.wa.us. Blaine Planning Commission: Second and fourth Thursdays, 6 p.m. Info: blainepc@cityofblaine.com. Info for joining Zoom meetings: bit.ly/2CiMKnk. Blaine-Birch Bay Park and Recreation: Second Tuesday, 5:30 p.m., location varies. Info: bbbparkandrec.org. Virtual meeting info: bbbparkandrec.org/board-meetings. Blaine Park and Cemetery Board: Second Thursday, 9 a.m., virtual meeting. Info: 360/332-8311, ext. 3330. Blaine School Board: Fourth Monday, 7 p.m., Blaine school district offices. Info and virtual meeting link: blainesd.org. North Whatcom Fire & Rescue: Third Thursday, 1 p.m. Info: nwfrs.net.
How birds in the Pacific Northwest experienced the pandemic
A community science effort asked hundreds of northwest residents to keep tabs on birds, and they learned a lot about themselves in the process.
B y H anna H W e I n B erg er / C ross C ut . C om
From a picnic table at Smith Cove Park in Interbay looking east, Elaine Chuang can help you find an osprey.
“You have to be lined up with me here,” she says, orienting toward a large processing ship and eyeing a manmade platform 500 yards beyond it. On top sits an osprey that recently flew up from Central America.
“When she’s down and all you can see is her head, then you know she’s on eggs,” says Chuang in a Texas accent made faint by 27 years in Seattle. “They’re laid one a day, and after about 30 days, then they’ll start to hatch.” The ospreys are dependable. Yesterday, Chuang saw the male swoop in with a fish.
Chuang has been staking out the pair religiously as part of a novel and groundbreaking community science project. Started by researchers with the University of Washington School of Environmental and Forest Sciences at the beginning of the pandemic lockdowns last year, the UW Lockdown Birding Study was launched to help people better understand both how different species of birds in the Pacific Northwest respond to human behavior and environmental changes during the pandemic and how well we can detect those birds during this time.
Lead author Olivia Sanderfoot, a graduate researcher, had planned to continue studying the impacts of wildfire smoke on bird vocalization for her Ph.D. research. But when lockdowns prevented her from accessing her study areas, she and principal investigator Dr. Beth Gardner, an associate professor and Sanderfoot’s adviser, pivoted.
“With social distancing measures in place across the Pacific Northwest for weeks to months, we are presented with a unique opportunity to learn more about how human behavior directly and indirectly affects birds and identify actions we can take in the future to safeguard birds in urban and suburban settings,” the two wrote in a project description on crowdsourced birding app eBird, which volunteers used for the study.
More than 900 people initially signed up to participate in the project, which ran from April 1 through June 30, 2020, and is continuing over the same period in 2021. For 10 minutes at a time at least once a week, volunteers monitor birds in their backyards or spaces they can access without violating shelter-in-place ordinances. In each 10-minute survey period, volunteers log all the birds that they see and hear from one vantage point.
Birders have different perspectives on what techniques yielded the best results for the survey. Some sat deadly still while others flitted around, getting down on the ground while whipping out their binoculars to get just the right vantage point.
For the past few weeks, volunteer Tracy Campion has been surveying from her Bothell yard, always in her polka-dot pajamas, with Jack Sparrow, her threelegged one-eyed “pirate dog,” by her side.
“I’m sure these neighbors are like, ‘this lady’s crazy,’ because I’ll be holding up my phone trying to figure out what the [bird] song is and it’s barely dawn,” says Campion, who has done field studies before as a primatologist. “But it’s just a nice way to wake up. Even if it’s cold or rainy, I come out in nature first thing in the morning to see what the birds are doing and get a count on everybody.”
To get counts, volunteers across the Pacific Northwest log into eBird, start a timer and enter all their sightings, along with a tag for the survey to identify their report.
There’s a lot of data left to parse, and more data yet to come, but what they’ve identified so far (detailed in a draft paper yet to be peer-reviewed) says as much about humans as it does birds.
Findings
Study data show 404 people spent more than 1,200 hours birding in service of the study, submitting 7,216 10-minute survey checklists via eBird at 479 study sites. Volunteers noted 193 species of birds at these sites, the vast majority (72.7 percent) of which were yards. The researchers could account for not only the natural and built aspects of habitat (canopy cover, roads), but also resources meant to attract birds, like feeders, fountains and bird houses. More than half the sites included bird feeders within view of volunteers.
The most observed bird species included American crow, darkeyed junco, black-capped chickadee, American robin, house finch, Anna’s hummingbird, song sparrow, spotted towhee, Bewick’s wren and northern flicker.
“The study was designed to tease apart this idea of where are these particular species and what drives where they are?” Gardner says.
Lots of things may affect bird behavior, from static elements like land cover or canopy cover to the dynamic aspects of outdoor spaces – weather, temperature and air quality measures of pollutants, including fine particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide. The researchers wanted to know how much the probability that birds visited a given survey site is influenced by the type of habitat it offers and, on a given day, how those dynamic factors (See Birds, page 10)
s Nadine Santo Pietro, who does Covid-19 bird surveys in Seattle's
Phinney Ridge neighborhood for a community science project, often
sketches birds. Matt M. McKnight/Crosscut
BLAINE’S
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Vendor Space Available Call 360-332-4544
G Street Plaza
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CITY OF BLAINE
Due to COVID-19 and the Governor’s Proclamation, meetings are now only open to the public telephonically. Information on how to listen to the meeting live will be on the City Council agenda which is located on the City’s website homepage under Your Government, City Council, City Council Agenda. Please check the agenda prior to each meeting as the call in number or location may change.
Monday, June 7 4:30pm – Special City Council Meeting WWU Sustainable Communities Partnership Presentation
Tuesday, June 8 8:00am – Blaine Tourism Advisory Committee Meeting
Thursday, June 10 9:00am – Park and Cemetery Board Meeting 6:00pm – Planning Commission Meeting.
Monday, June 14 6:00pm – City Council Meeting
All City offices are currently closed to the public. Contact information for staff and Councilmembers can be found on the City’s website.
Call (360) 332-8311 or visit our website. www.cityofblaine.com
Spring has Sprung at
at Birch Bay A Whale of a Place to Order! Watch as your favorite candies are being made!
Open Weekends!
Carmel & Chocolates Cinnamon Rolls & Coffee C-Foam & Fudge Ice Cream & more!
Entry via east door Masks required inside
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Open Fri, Sat, Sun • 1-8pm 4825 Alderson Rd • Birch Bay
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