Mercer Slough's Wetland Delights -- In The Heart Of Bellevue, A Gem Of A Nature Park Offers A Surprisingly Wild Side To The Urban Winter

It's not Mercer Slough Park's rows of blueberry bushes, acres of wetlands or families of mallards that impress Julie Schafer per se.

It's that these life forms are thriving in the center of Bellevue, sandwiched by city blocks of skyscrapers and wide lanes of highway.

"I mean, you can hear the rush- hour traffic," she says, motioning to the cars whizzing by in the distance. "It's nice that a city would care to preserve this rather than get it developed."

In a city that has proven that it values park lands, Mercer Slough is perhaps the most impressive example of preservation. Beaver, otter, muskrats, mallards, geese, goldeneyes, grebes and great blue herons all dwell in its 320-plus acres of wetland, bordered by Interstate 405 to the east and Interstate 90 to the south.

Winter is an especially good time for wildlife viewing here. Fewer people in the park means better chances of seeing animals; and many species, including goldeneyes and ruddy ducks, live here only in winter.

"I've seen weasels and all sorts of critters," says Nick Beal, a software engineer who works in nearby Factoria.

Beal spends his lunch hour in the park nearly every day, often sharing the trails with other walkers and joggers craving a quick dose of fresh air and exercise. "I walk, I look, I think," he says.

Mercer Slough's five-plus miles of boardwalk, wood chip and asphalt trails wind past a blueberry farm, lady ferns, snowberries, a cattail marsh and a forest of Douglas fir, cedar and hundreds of other plant species.

Schafer ambles past the blueberry bushes, with galoshes on her feet, two Pomeranians at her side and binoculars around her neck. It was her first visit to Mercer Slough, spent in a very fruitful day of bird-watching, the Minneapolis woman says.

She lived in the Puget Sound area nine years ago, and recently returned for a visit. She says she was surprised to see how much the Eastside has grown.

"I just can't believe it now," she says. "In Issaquah, the houses are just stacked on each other."

In Bellevue, of course, development is far more extensive than in Issaquah. In recent decades, Bellevue has gone from a sleepy suburb to the fifth-largest city in Washington, with a population of 103,700 and a considerable downtown.

During the same time, the city parks department has nearly completed a 10-mile trail through parks and greenways connecting lakes Sammamish and Washington, and has maintained and added to Mercer Slough. The slough is one of the premier urban wetland parks in the country, many say.

"Most cities simply don't have wetlands," says James Davis, author of "Seasonal Guide to the Natural Year: A Month by Month Guide to Natural Events." "There's just no question that Bellevue . . . has a great park system. They're cutting edge, very visitor- and user-oriented."

Park officials at Mercer Slough lead guided walks every Sunday and offer a variety of educational programs throughout the year. At the Winters House, a Spanish-style 1929 mansion on the National Register of Historic Places, visitors can pick up a self-guided interpretive-trail map, a city-parks program schedule, a 37-page "Nature Trail Guide" detailing Bellevue's major trails, and a dozen other pamphlets, maps and announcements.

Schafer walks toward the Winters House parking lot, her red Gore-Tex parka zipped and her hood atop her head. It's a chilly late afternoon, the kind that sends people burrowing under blankets on their couches.

That's fine with Schafer. While most in Bellevue are stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic, she's had 320 acres of wetland nearly to herself, her most conspicuous companions being the Pomeranians and several species of wintering birds.

"I have to give Bellevue credit," she says. "They did a beautiful job with this." ------------------------------------------- If you go

To get to Mercer Slough Park, take the Bellevue Way exit from Interstate 90 and head north. Look for the blue Winters House sign on your right (you'll pass a sign for Mercer Slough; don't try to turn in here, since it marks only a trailhead, not the parking lot). Winters House is at 2102 Bellevue Way S.E., Bellevue. For more information about Mercer Slough and its programs, call 425-452-2752.