An urban oasis: Visitors and wildlife find peace in North Creek Park
But no — it's a pack of coyotes, howling in woods on the edge of Mill Creek.
Snohomish County created North Creek Park in 1996 for the pragmatic purpose of flood protection combined with the more idealistic goal of wetlands preservation. The 79-acre park, somewhat hidden, lies just west of the busy Bothell-Everett Highway.
"This is great. It's tucked into all this craziness all the way around here," said Lake Stevens resident Nathan Thomsen, who works at a nearby business.
Thomsen's wife and their two children recently joined him for a lunch-hour walk through the park's network of trails and boardwalks, listening to songbirds and watching hawks float overhead.
Christian, 2, took a headlong tumble into shallow waters next to the main boardwalk, soaking himself, while pursuing "froggies" that he'd heard croaking. But he quickly recovered from the shock and soon was trotting happily down the walkway, surrounded by 7-foot-tall cattails.
A kiosk display near the parking lot tells of the land's 1891 homesteading by John Bailey, a pioneer who made his way by trapping, logging, farming and mining peat.
The Bailey family, which owned 160 acres of the North Creek valley for five generations, sold off most of its property in the 1980s to a development company. Snohomish County bought the park acreage from that firm in 1992.
Park maps indicate that the boardwalks form a loop, but half of the loop is unfinished. Visitors instead may walk from the park entrance to the Mill Creek limits, a half-mile north at the end of Ninth Avenue Southeast, then retrace their steps. Snohomish County hopes to complete the circuit within five years.
The boardwalk trails include two offshoots leading to a beaver dam on North Creek and a pond created by the Bailey peat-mining operations. Educational signs posted throughout the park explain that the pond attracts insects that feed a variety of wildlife, such as small brown bats.
Mallards, the pond's most visible — and least skittish — residents, paddle quietly across its smooth surface. Out of sight are the deer that bed down in the valley at night, leaving telltale indentations in the tall reeds.
The park attracts about 40 species of birds, 15 mammal species, a half-dozen varieties of amphibians and reptiles, and 20 species of fish. Naturalists have counted 80 plant species.
Birders say the park is especially appealing in the spring, when its bird population expands. It is known as a good place to spy secretive marsh birds such as the Virginia rail and the sora.
"I've never seen a place that has so many Virginia rail," said Fred Bird, a founder of the Washington Ornithological Society.
"They poke their heads out of the reeds, and you can see them from the boardwalks. It's a kick."
The park doesn't seem well-known, so the joggers, dog walkers and nature lovers who visit gain a sense of tranquility.
Mail carrier Scott Beane, 32, discovered the park while driving his postal route on nearby 183rd Street Southeast. Now he usually stops for lunch or a short break, stretching his legs on a short trail by the parking lot.
"It's right in the middle of a busy, yucky area," said Beane, who lives in Marysville. "It's peaceful."
Diane Brooks: 425-745-7802 or dbrooks@seattletimes.com.
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