Armed with binoculars, a spotting scope, notebook and pencil, Skokomish tribal staff hike the tribe’s estuary twice a month to see how birds are using the restored tidelands. It’s simple data collection but proclaimed “bird nerds” Lisa Belleveau, the tribe’s habitat biologist, and Bethany Ackerman, the tribe’s wildlife biologist, expect the information will lay out the story of how birds—ducks, birds of prey and songbirds—have been responding to the improvements at the mouth of the Skokomish River.