Every December, thousands of volunteers across North America head outdoors to count birds — helping scientists understand how our feathered neighbors are doing. The Audubon Christmas Bird Count (CBC) isn’t just a fun birding day — it’s the oldest and largest citizen science project in the world, and it depends entirely on volunteers like you.
Eastside Audubon is now accepting applications for two funding opportunities supporting local conservation and education efforts.
The Puget Sound Seabird Survey is looking for birders in King County to join this established Community Science program.
In the quiet of the woods the bubbling song of the Ruby-crowned Kinglet erupted, and the high trill of the Brown Creeper signaled its presence. The hormonal drive to breed had birds singing regardless of the weather.
Eastside Audubon hosts monthly work parties at Marymoor Park in Redmond, WA to restore and maintain the ecosystem for birds and other wildlife. Volunteers gather every month to remove invasive species, plant trees, and help support a healthy ecosystem.
This year, we had more volunteers join us than in 2024, which allowed us to focus on managing the meadow and start a new project by the viewing mound. Together, we spent many Saturday mornings removing and mulching the pesky invaders popping up in the meadow (mostly Himalayan blackberry, Scotch broom, and English hawthorn). We also started our multi-year viewing mound project, kicking it off by planting 414 native trees and shrubs, including evergreen huckleberry, mock orange, serviceberry, and sword fern!
As our long-time volunteer and dedicated scotch broom identifier, Glenn Eades, often reminds us, a huge part of restoration is managing what we’ve restored. In 2026, we plan to continue managing the meadow, planting and mulching around the viewing mound (our next planting day is in February), and possibly begin working in the riparian area along the bird loop and the shrubland area.
We couldn’t do this incredible work without the many volunteers who dedicate the first Saturday of each month to join us in caring for this beautiful bird loop trail. It is truly amazing how much we can accomplish together in just 3 hours. Let’s have another great year!
Jenna Cardoso (she/her)
Marymoor Restoration Project Manager & Board Member
In 2024, the monthly Marymoor habitat restoration workparty had 237 volunteers. We planted 131 native shrubs and trees, including bigleaf maples, Garry oaks, Oregon grapes, Nootka roses, and Western red cedars. We spread almost 70 cubic yards of mulch and removed over 50 cubic yards of invasive species like common hawthorn, Himalayan blackberry, and reed canary grass.
As most of you are aware, invasive species can wreak havoc on native ecological communities. Without any natural controls such as browsers, predators, or competitors for resources, invasive species can spread rapidly. Many have often been shown to decrease localized biodiversity by outcompeting species that other wildlife have come to rely on.
Since 2007, June has been celebrated as the month of the Orca in Washington State. Governor Christine Gregoire first designated June as Orca Awareness Month. In 2019, the month was renamed Orca Action Month. We knew then that the population of salmon-eating orcas in Washington State waters, known as Southern Resident Killer Whales (SRKW) needed help to survive as a distinct population.
