an 'urban refuge' for birds

Flyways Map from National Audubon

The Kah Tai bird survey continues to make friends and influence people. The headline in the Peninsula Daily News this morning is: "An 'urban refuge' for birds; Audubon lauds lagoon".

We had attended a Monday morning County Commissioners' meeting to hand out copies of the report to the Commissioners. The PDN reporter at the Commissioner's meeting accepted a copy, read it and asked a few questions. Then he quoted it extensively and only got a few facts bent a little in the re-telling. It's easy enough to still think that the park is protected because it was purchased with federal grant money, as the article says. The story is more complicated than that. Private parcels incorporated into the park were bought with federal and state funds. Public lands were intended to be included at no cost. But all the land within the boundary is protected if any of it was purchased with federal LWCF dollars. That's how LWCF parks work.

Last weekend, the report was handed to the President of National Audubon and to the Vice President for the Pacific Flyway at a meeting of Washington Audubon in Poulsbo. Kah Tai is a resting, nesting and feeding stop on the Pacific Flyway. That fact was noted more than 30 years ago in the documents supporting the grant proposal that created the park. Recently, National Audubon has re-organized to align with the flyways that migratory birds utilize. Our park is habitat on a migratory flight path that for some species runs from the Arctic to the tip of South America. And it just got a little more recognition.