Seward Park is a large forested peninsula jutting out into Washington Lake on the southeast side of Seattle. It has excellent paved and unpaved trails and views of Mount Rainier and downtown. In February I spent many hours birding, walking, running and enjoying the park.

I first saw this park at night when I went for a run around the paved outer trail. It was cold and clear and I had no idea what else was in there. I returned in the daytime and felt awestruck by this place. Every visit since has been like this, where I see it in a new light and discover something that’s neat.

Primeval forest

The inner part of the park is old-growth forest that was spared from clear cutting. The trails that snake through it feel like the rainforest of the Olympic Peninsula. Someone told me that some of the oldest trees in Seattle are here. Seattle has a 300 year old tree but it is on the other side of town.

I especially enjoy looking at the cedars. There is something about the flared legs of these trees, the linear papery grooves in the bark, and the symmetry of the young branches that’s really pleasing to the eye. They seem ancient in a way that other trees do not, even the handsome Douglas firs. When I recently read the earliest recorded epic poem, I noticed the text referred incessantly to “the land of cedars” when the author could have said, “forest” or “wilderness” or similar. Two mentions go like this:

“I have not established my name stamped on

bricks as my destiny decreed; therefore I will go to the

country where the cedar is felled.”

And:

“They gazed at the mountain of

cedars, the dwelling-place of the gods and the throne of Ishtar. The hugeness of the cedar rose in front of the mountain, its

shade was beautiful, full of comfort; mountain and glade were green with brushwood.”

I was struck with this fixation on cedars and I think the author was like me in that he liked and respected this type of tree.

The rotten trees in the old-growth forest are left to stand. The pileated woodpeckers ravage them with their large chiseled beaks. I hear and see these birds and feel gratitude that they excavate tree cavities for owls and other critters who can’t make their own.

I think fondly of Forest Park in Portland. This park is the largest forested park in a US city. I spent many hours there and loved it but I did notice patterns of ecological diminishment from having been clear cut so many decades ago. The process of succession is a very long process and some scars are slow to fade.

Nurse logs

A nurse log is a fallen tree trunk that now harbors life as it decays. The oldest, hugest, most rotten ones give the most life. They are the place where you can see life on life on life: a fern frond jutting out from a mossy bed attached to a substrate of lichen, with a tree sapling growing there as well.

A park naturalist mentioned them in a recent blog post. I think a nurse log is both an example of the ruthless, chaotic struggle for existence and a work of art. The canopy above is also full of contorted tree limbs, broken branches and trunks, weighed down by damp clumps of moss, all in a long fight for light and space.

Fern die-off

Although I am awestruck with what I see, some of it is in fact degraded and diminished. For the past several years, large patches of sword fern have been dying off. This is the plant that makes the Pacific Northwest forest floor instantly recognizable. But some are dying, and the cause is not yet known.

Turtle half-submerged

I found what I think was a western pond turtle half-submerged in the sand. I think it was getting oxygen and sun on a recent sunny (but still pretty cold) day before burrowing back under. Just its nose protruded. And its back was dry.

On this day I was sitting with my face toward the sun and my eyes closed. It was one of those cherished clear days with a dark blue sky that was cold and gentle. I was soaking it all up, quietly. Like so many pandemic days, I had not spoken to anyone yet despite running errands. Everything seems to be contactless, frictionless, wordless. Yet the human connection I craved came by chance when a friendly man came up and commented on me enjoying the sun. He seemed to want natural history info after noticing my binoculars. I showed him the turtle and we shared a small moment of discovery. He thanked me genuinely and his wife smiled warmly.

Meditating on the gravel beach

The gravel beach on the north shore is pristine and expansive. I tend to sit there and watch the ducks and cormorants. When you watch a pair of birds long enough their personality seems to come out. Recently I sat there on my blanket observing hooded mergansers. They bobbed and bumbled about, preening and dunking their heads. Then two female common mergansers sailed in from the nearby shore. They were actively hunting. They dipped their heads underwater while skimming the water to look for prey to dive after. Compared to the hooded mergansers, they looked like adept hunters in profile with their brown erect wedge shaped crest, their coordinated movement and their quick, deliberate motion across the still water near shore.

Cold plunge

After reading Wintering I felt inspired and finally jumped in some cold-ass water in Lake Washington. It was not that bad. The only way I could make myself do it was to combine it with a run to get my blood pumping. I felt good. If I can do this in February, I can do it any month. I could have skipped it that day because of the clouds and sprinkles, but I did it anyway. I might make it a weekly tradition, to be followed by the last half of my run and a cortado, extra hot.

Benches memorializing nature lovers

Several benches memorialize nature loves involved with the park. One of them said, “Helen Seaborn. Nature lover, children’s hospital volunteer.” Another said, “Julie Walwick. Love surrounds you and all who stop here.”

I would be happy if at the end of a long life, people remembered me as a nature lover and a volunteer. I would also be happy to leave behind a nice note like the second one.

One of these benches is high in the main trail in the woods. It’s an extremely quiet place and it’s easy to invoke the ghostly presence of the deceased people who loved the park. They were born, lived, visited the park and walked among the cedars, and died while those cedars still stood. The same is true for me. The cedars will still be there long after I am gone. Memories mingle in a place like this and I feel close to the people who helped me love nature in the first place.

Not good: off-leash dogs

Most dog owners leash their dogs. But some let their dogs run amok in the sensitive forest and on the beach. This is not cool.

Recent bird sightings

• Varied Thrush

• Bald Eagle

• Wren

• Dark Eyed Junco

• Anna’s Hummingbird

• Common Merganser

• Black Scoter

• Pileated Woodpecker

• Fox Sparrow

• Double-Crested Cormorant

• American Wigeon

• Brown Creeper

• Black Capped Chickadee

• Chestnut Backed Chickadee

• Spotted Towhee

Last word

I look forward to seeing this magnificent park in spring, summer and fall.

About the photo

A western pond turtle (I think) half-submerged on a sunny, cold February afternoon.

I checked out a strings competition at the University of Washington School of Music. The students performed to get a chance to join the UW Symphony Orchestra as a concert soloist.

I followed with total attention (easy to do when you just puffed on a potent cannabis vape pen) as the individual violinists and violists spun a web of charm. They each stepped up and to piano accompaniment sailed the small audience through wave after wave of emotion.

All were very good

The five students were very talented. They looked good in their subdued black and gray, with an occasional flash of color. Each had a close harmony and dynamic connection with the accompanist that seems faster than is really possible, as if it extends beyond real-time interaction and reflects the pairing of two minds through a long course of training that led them to inhabit a shared nonverbal sphere of the intellect, a state of mind the two can enter together at will and produce something amazing for we, the observers on the outside of this sphere, to enjoy and marvel at.

One of my personal favorite demonstrations of skill and sympathetic energies is the way the performer fluidly lowers the bow from a raised finishing position in the air after it is lifted from the strings for the final note to cede to the piano accompanist. In this moment the performer slows the arm there without quite stopping and then gently lowers it and collects him or herself for the next bout.

One performer heightened the effect because of the style she brought

The last performer, a violist, stepped up and walked to the front of the stage while her piano accompanist took his seat. She paused in position with her head slightly bowed, just as the others had. Then she allowed several seconds to pass while all eyes were on her, waiting for her to begin. Just at the moment when I began to think something was wrong, that perhaps she was going to choke or ask for some kind of delay or alteration to the plan, she waited three beats more. And then, instead of turning her head around to the accompanist to make eye contact and give him the go-ahead as the other performers had, she turned her head only 30 degrees to the right, and nodded slightly. He began.

Her style heightened the effect of the clever, complex concerto movement. Midway through, one of her bowstrings broke in the clash of gentle and forceful strokes playing out on the instrument and in the hearts of the audience. The loose string caught the light and waved about conspicuously above and in front of her for a couple of minutes. The flailing white fiber seemed to highlight the skill involved and helped me see the quick, precise movements of the bow that are hard for my untrained eye to catch.

At the next piano interlude, she plucked off the broken string and let it fall to the floor.

I love Seattle

After two years of covid and three years of living in a certain large Oregon city, with its relative impoverishment in fine arts, I was deeply susceptible to these works of skill, passion and intellect, and I was eager and ready to get some culture in Seattle. I’ve been visiting the UW School of Music regularly and I look forward to the next symphony performance in the big hall.

About the photo

It is a colorful crab carapace fragment from Alki Beach.