Neighborhood Birder Gives Update On Birds And Douglas Road Work At Montlake Fill

Connie Sidles, local birding expert who maintains a blog documenting the many types of birds, including beautiful pictures, at the nearby Union Bay Natural Area, also known as the Montlake Fill, recently wrote a post about the beautiful bird sounds in the neighborhood:

Douglas Road Work

June 9th, 2014

The Washington Department of Transportation has committed to mitigate the damage that will occur when the new 520 bridge is built in the Foster Island area. Part of the mitigation will be to convert the Dime Lot at Montlake Fill (also known as E-5) into a wetland.

This will add something like 20 acres of new wetland to the Fill, a substantial increase to the 75-acre site. Wowza. Back in April, the UW closed off Douglas Road, the gravel road leading into the Dime Lot. Work is scheduled to begin in July.

In the meantime, the birds have already taken back Douglas Road and the parking lot. If you are quiet and slow, you can enter this brave new world and share it with the wild birds who live here, most notably, a family of Killdeers: mom and dad and chicks who look like puffballs on stilts.

Here is a poem for you today:
They closed the road in April
wetland someday,
but a Killdeer came
to scrape her nest,
lay four eggs.
Now babies own that road.