Kayaking the Mercer Slough
We went to the Mercer Slough today to enjoy the nice weather with a little wildlife.
It’s a large wetland on the south end of Bellevue, WA. The best wildlife wetlands inside the Seattle metro region seem to be under highways, and this one isn’t an exception. We were both pretty amazed at how large it was though. It was strange to be in area which often felt pretty remote and then you’d go around a bend and see tall buildings just a couple of miles away. Farther down the slough you find office buildings backing right up to the water.
We parked at Entiat Park, but if I were going back I’d park at Mercer Slough Nature Park. Entiat Park has a skinny little area to load the boats and was really busy. There is good wildlife down at that end of the slough, but you could paddle there from the other put in. The end of the slough is a loop which made the paddling a little nicer than just doing an out and back.
We saw a ton of herons, ducks, and turtles. There were a lot of other birds too which we need to look up. No otters on this trip, but they are said to be living there.
it looks like the bird in the bottom photo is a cedar waxwing.
Thanks Dan, that is it. There were about 6 or 7 of them in a tree, but that is the only one that I got a photo of.
Very pretty.
Looks like a great area! We just got back with the canoe from Ski-to-Sea, this is now on the list to check out. Never heard of it, though I haven”t been good about searching out urban paddling beyond the Arboretum.
my favorite picture has to be the turtle.