Noisette Creek Monitoring

Yesterday and today, the staff at the Audubon Center at Francis Beidler Forest made Noisette Creek presentations to the junior and senior classes at the Charleston Academic Magnet High School. In preparation of the Noisette Creek restoration project, Audubon South Carolina is teaming with students from Charleston Academic Magnet High to collect water quality and bird population data. The data collected will be used in future years to judge the progress of the Noisette Creek restoration.

Obviously, a healthy environment is one in which the water quality supports a rich and varied community of organisms and protects public health. Birds can be excellent “indicator species” telling us much about the general health of an ecosystem. They are large enough to be easily observed, and yet they are dependent upon organisms and factors that are less easily observed. If the overall system is severely degraded, it will be indicated in the birds (or lack of!).

In the image, Noisette Creeks runs generally from west to east and empties into the Cooper River. A portion of Park Circle can be seen in the upper left corner. The northern portion of the former Naval Base straddles Noisette Creek and portions of the old golf course form the boundaries of the creek at its Cooper River end. The portion of the old golf course south of the creek will be returned to its former state as a marsh.