Oh the things you will find…

….in Seattle’s forests!

Tuesday, May 3rd saw the arrival of our semi-annual work party at College Street Ravine in honor of our friend, King County Executive Dow Constantine (for background on this, you can read this previous blog post). This time was extra-special & fun, as we were joined by Anna Birinyi’s first-grade class from Lowell Elementary School. We’ve had her class out with us a few times now and we always have a blast–this time was no exception! It was quite an eventful & productive day, as you can see from these pictures. And oh the things we saw!

We had buphalo demonstrating the very latest in English ivy stem fashion. Très chic!

He’s such a trend-setter!

Our always wonderful performing artist, Ben Smith, inspired some of the kids to start up an impromptu aluminum can drum circle.

Dow Constantine stopped by for a visit to say hello & thank us for our work, and also say a few words to the kids about how important their efforts are and why it matters. He’s not afraid to get out in the woods, even in his suit!

In addition to the first-graders, we had a few students of a different kind attend–members of the UW Baseball Team! They were also excited to meet Dow.

Lizzie managed to spot this tiny bird’s nest with three beautiful little eggs hidden among the foliage. We aren’t 100% certain about what kind of bird it belongs to–the eggs look like robin’s eggs, but the nest is on the ground, so it can’t be a robin. Our educated guess is that it’s some kind of sparrow. If you know, leave us a comment!

Those little ones might be small, but they sure are tough! A few of them survived brief encounters with stinging nettle (always a hazard in the woods during springtime) and they got a ton of work done–2,250 square feet of English ivy removed! Nice job everyone!

Stay tuned for another blog post soon about the wild success of Duwamish Alive!