As you may have observed, there are many changes happening in the slough area south of the new bridge on South Kingston Road.

I spent a fascinating time a week ago watching the new “Grand Central Station” movements in and out of the slough.

While it is interesting to see what water will do when left to its own devises, as it moves freely rather than being constrained by an artificially culvert. It is even more amazing to watch flora and fauna’s movements when they allow their own natural range of motion.

I took a walk to downtown Kingston on one of our glorious sunny Sunday afternoons. It was about 12:45 p.m. when I walked across the bridge on the southern rail and decided to look down and watch.

The tide was going out and it was about mid-tide.

What I have been struck by for some time is the amount of seaweed, floating eelgrass, and other natural material that moves in from Appletree Cove into the slough on the incoming tides. It then moves, swirls, eddies and then sometimes moving back out.

Other times, depending on the tidal height that day and the wind this material gets catch in the slough and stays there for one or more tidal cycles. Some stays and decays there, caught in the rooted vegetation or on other feature, contributing to the nutrients sources being generated there.

While we typically think of nutrients mostly coming from the stream and surrounding land, this is a new kind of input to the system — an interaction of detritus (particulate matter produced by or remaining after the disintegration of plant or animal matter) and the physical and chemical environment of the warmer, shallower mud flat. These bits of plants and animals will experience a different rate and type of decomposition in the slough area then any will in the more open water environment of Appletree Cove.

Then I also saw a scene that reminded me, being a past New York City commuter, of Grand Central or Penn Station at rush hour. Since the water was going out many fish that had come in to feed in the slough area were on their way out. Standing on the bridge during any tide, you can see the bottom.

So as I stood there that day I could see the slightly deeper channel area with the shallower areas of rock or rooted vegetation on either side. As I watched for 10 minutes, I counted more than 20 flat fish, probably starry flounder, heading out. They would come from the more vegetated area then move, mostly out the channel.

There were sculpin to numerous to count darting round and out with their characteristic erratic movements, sometimes fast moving, then splaying their fins out to stop and just sit on the bottom, motionless. The species we have found in our seining in the past there are Staghorn Sculpin and Sharpnosed Sculpin.

Then, to my surprise, I also saw two adult salmon. It seemed early for them to be there since returning salmon typically reenter streams on their spawning quest when they get the ecological cue of the first rains. We had not had our first rain by that day but there they were. I could not tell what kind of salmonid they were but we have seen, in the past, chum, coho, cut throat, and pink juveniles in the spring and Stillwaters have see evidence of chum, Coho and cut throat adults in the stream.

Now, with rain, it is another good time to go down and watch which commuters are traveling in and out of Kingston’s “Grand Central Station.”

— Betsy Cooper is a board member and stream monitor at Stillwaters Environmental Education Center.