Eastside Audubon Turns Out for Wetlands Fair

Eastside Audubon Turns Out for Wetlands Fair

By Lori Danielson

The City of Bellevue held a family-friendly World Wetlands Day open house on the first Saturday in February at the beautiful Mercer Slough Environmental Education Center and Eastside Audubon joined in the fun by setting up an information table at the fair. World Wetlands Day is a global event held each February to recognize the importance of protecting our wetland ecosystems. EAS was among several other environmentally-oriented local nonprofits represented, including 300 Trees, Bellevue Master Naturalists, Bats Northwest, Washington Native Plant Society and Beavers NW.

The Eastside Audubon table was staffed by volunteers eager to introduce community members to birds and our organization. EAS Community Outreach Chair Jeannine Sielinski was joined by volunteer Lori Danielson for the 3-hour event in which we displayed our mounted Red-tailed Hawk and Bufflehead to draw interested children and adults to the table and answered participants’ questions about birds. We offered Eastside Audubon brochures and maps of The Great Washington State Birding Trail. The event was not too heavily attended but it was a nice way to start 2024’s community outreach effort.

If you’re interested in volunteering for Eastside Audubon at future outreach events, email Executive Director Amanda León at office@eastsideaudubon.org.

Mini Forests are a Great Habitat Refuge

Mini Forests are a Great Habitat Refuge 

Mini Forests have been gaining traction around the world and now Eastside Audubon is working to embrace this idea.  Mini Forests have it roots in Japan by a botanist and plant ecologist Akira Miyawaki.  The idea is to create an urban area as small as a basketball court or a parking lot with densely enriched soil, adding native trees and supplemental plantings.  With enriched soil, plantings grow at a rapid rate and can quickly create a canopy teeming with life.  Birds need ecosystems to thrive, and these small urban forests offer a quick (relatively speaking) forest.  It’s like the saying, if you build it, they will come…these Mini Forests attract insects, critters, birds and additionally offer a heat mitigator to concrete surfaces.   

EAS is partnering with Bellevue’s 300Trees organization at Sammamish High School in a quasi-Mini Forest.  300Trees has been engaged with the high school’s Green Team and instructors to plant numerous native trees on unused school property.  It’s a three-year commitment that requires ongoing maintenance like summer watering and composting.  We are working on the next phase of adding plants and bushes to support a healthy ecosystem.  Now EAS wants to replicate this program with 300Trees (and potentially other organizations) at other sites/school and or cities and work to take unused pockets of land and create a woodland.  EAS will likely take on one project in the coming year as we are super excited to support this small revolution.  To see the planted areas at Sammamish High School, please check out this link.  

To learn more about Mini Forests please go online as there are a multitude of articles under Mini Forest and Mini Forest Revolution.   If you want to help either by volunteering or donating, please reach out to Jeremy Lucas at president@eastsideaudubon.org. 

Eastside Audubon Christmas Bird Count

Eastside Audubon Christmas Bird Count

Written by Andy McCormick

What good fortune we had on December 16 for the EAS 40th annual Christmas Bird Count! We Welcomed the moderate temperature and clear skies after last year’s freezing temperatures and the all-day rain, the year before. The birds were active and early returns show that we had exciting finds of Greater White-fronted Geese at Idlewood Park, a Redhead on Lake Sammamish, a Ruddy Duck at Lake Hills, and 40 Wilson’s Snipe at Perego Park. Other notable birds seen were Peregrine Falcon, Merlin, Lincoln’s Sparrow, and a Red-necked Grebe.

The chapter fielded 15 teams with 51 volunteers counting birds and feeder watchers added to the count. We also had six more volunteers who prepared, set up, and hosted the CBC dinner at the Kirkland Women’s Center. Nearly 40 people attended the dinner, which was the first one held since the pandemic. It was wonderful to see folks in person and get re-acquainted with other chapter members and guests.

A full report of the CBC including totals for all the bird species seen will be ready around early February when data is due for delivery to National Audubon. This was the 124th count that National Audubon has sponsored since its founding in 1900. The fifteen EAS teams went to the Snoqualmie Valley, Fall City and Preston, Redmond and Ames Lake, Marymoor Park, Sammamish and Pine Lake, Lake Sammamish State Park, the East Lake Sammamish Trail, West Lake Sammamish Parks, the Lake Hills Greenbelt, along Issaquah Creek and into the Issaquah Alps at Tiger and Cougar Mountains, and the Issaquah Fish Hatchery.

Mark your calendar for 2024. The EAS CBC is scheduled for Saturday, December 21, 2024.