Redmond Watershed Preserve — Sunday, Jun. 23, 2019

55 degrees and raining - now that is a proper way to start summer in Seattle!  Walked the big loop around the Redmond Watershed Sunday morning in the rain parking at the north lot off NE 133rd.  The trails are in great shape, nicely brushed back with culverts other drainage recently cleared. There are no facilities at the north lot, but the restrooms at the paved south lot are functional and in excellent shape.  Still no pets allowed and we saw some coyote sign on several trails - one more reason not to let little fido tag along. Both the salmonberries and huckleberries are starting to get ripe already.

There were a bunch of birds out, several woodpecker, (both the big pileated and a smaller black and white one I had never seen before,) bunches of summer song birds, band tail pigeon, robin, ducks, etc.  The northeastern pond had a single blue heron and three raven - we initially heard what we thought was a heron call from up in one of the trees but when we walked up it was actually a raven. The heron would >croak< and then one or more of the raven seemingly would try to imitate the much lower pitched heron call.  Then the three raven would then call between each other and fly a couple hundred yards away but the heron would follow calling again only to be mimicked by the raven. They did it 4-5 times. I’ve never seen/heard anything like it. Maybe three bored young raven and a heron with just enough interest to play along?  Who knows..

Even in the rain, the watershed is a very nice chunk of green in the middle of suburbia.