A Nature Walk in the Middle of the City

We took a nature hike today to Foster Island, a little island in Lake Washington that is part of the Washington Park Arboretum. Its a nice short level hike, over a mix of muddy, boggy trail and floating boardwalks and bridges. We saw lots of neat wildlife and plants, fed some ducks, and even got to play in the water a bit.

We came up with a scavenger hunt list beforehand and found about half of the things on the list:

feather; duck; frog; canoe; kayak; dragonfly; lily-pad; robin; pine cone; dog; egret; and mouse. We didn’t find: acorn; bald eagle; maple leaf; turtle; fish; nutria; bluejay; hummingbird; and goose.  Too bad crow wasn’t on the list because we saw lots of those – I was sure we’d see a turtle and was doubtful about frogs but it worked out just the opposite.

One thing that really surprised me though was the amount of ambient noise pollution there was. A big source was the elevated highway that runs nearby, but another major source was the constant air traffic – now that I live outside of the city I don’t hear that nearly so often (even living just a few miles from Boeing’s big airplane plant) and it was really intrusive. I don’t remember noticing it so much on other visits, but today it made a big impression on me.