The welcome mat is always out at Mother Nature's city home

You could almost get lost paddling the bird-rich, turtle-crazy cattail corridors that surround Foster Island in the Washington Park Arboretum -- except for that damned floating freeway and its wheels-on-concrete- internal- combustion commotion.

Paddling a canoe or kayak around Foster Island -- deep into the Arboretum's wetlands -- is a decades-old Seattle tradition, and a fairly convincing demonstration that a flourishing, biologically rich ecosystem can coexist with rampant roadways and mass humanity.

The birding is excellent, the turtling phenomenal, and you even may see beavers, muskrats, raccoons and otters. Plus it's just a fun paddle trip, for decades made accessible by canoe rentals, at first from the old University of Washington crew house and now via the UW Waterfront Activities Center. In recent years, too, a few kayak rental operations have paddled onto the scene, situated just to the west in Portage Bay and Lake Union.

"It's incredible to have a place like this in an urban area," says Hilary Hilscher, spokeswoman for Audubon Washington, the state organization of the Audubon Society. "Even in a concentration of humanity, with so much pavement and fragmentation of habitat, if you have an area with a healthy biological niche, you'll have wildlife. It's a rich connection to the natural world. It's good for your soul."

And actually, the Evergreen Point Bridge and its ramps -- including the unused and infamous "ramp to nowhere" that ends abruptly out over the water -- while certainly not natural, somehow lend an urban aesthetic to the paddle. You can glide under its off-ramps, weave between its pillars, explore its dark recesses.

Recently we paddled the Arboretum with a small crew of birders and staff from the Washington Water Trails Association, a local group dedicated to promoting public paddling access to the state's myriad waterways. The Arboretum is part of the association's Lakes-to-Locks Water Trail, which begins in Lake Sammamish and ends at Puget Sound and includes more than 100 public sites to launch and land small, non-motorized boats. Three of those sites are newly built in the Arboretum, part of a major redesign of the park.

We put in at a well-designed launch site on Duck Bay near the Graham Visitors Center, and before we even paddled out we saw a gorgeously patterned male wood duck and its mate, several pairs of gadwalls, a great blue heron, dozens of turtles sunning themselves on logs and, crazy enough, a beaver swimming across the middle of the bay during the middle of the day.

It was a sunny March afternoon and several other paddlers were out as we slipped under the freeway and then the boardwalk of the Foster Island Trail, passing groups of buffleheads, coots, ring-necked ducks, cormorants and other fowl. Against the din of the freeway we could hear the occasional chatter of kingfishers, and after rounding Foster Island and entering thick stands of cattails and reeds, the constant song and chirping of red-winged blackbirds and marsh wrens.

DAN DELONG / P-I

Though the Evergreen Point Bridge provides a decidedly urban soundtrack, it's not all that difficult to lose oneself in the natural beauty of the Washington Park Arboretum. Within just feet of a busy highway, a rich ecosystem flourishes.

This area is home to a thriving colony of beavers. They've created two huge lodges of mud and sticks and chewed down many alder saplings and even good-size cottonwood trees.

"How often can you go to a major city and be right in the heart of it, next to a 40,000-student university and see all this stuff?" asks Reed Waite, executive director of the Water Trails Association.

Several years ago, Waite and his wife rented canoes and paddled south past the Arboretum to Madison Park.

"We got yelled off the beach," he says, "because it was illegal to land in a city park."

In the past, Seattle regulations actually prohibited paddlers from landing at city parks. Such rules, as well as the private property that virtually surrounds shorelines throughout Western Washington, are the reason for water trails. The Lakes-to-Locks Water Trail, sanctioned by several lakeside cites as well as King County and federal agencies, ensures paddlers and rowers access to public waters.

Seattle Parks and Recreation has modified its old rule, specifying more than 50 sites at city parks where operators of human-powered craft may launch or land. One of them is the new site at Duck Bay.

DAN DELONG / P-I

It's hard to miss the attention-getting plumage of a male wood duck, seen here huddled close to his mate.

After paddling around Foster Island and deep inside a dense, dead-end patch of cattails, we crossed Union Bay toward the UW into a building wind. Here along the cattail-lined shore we watched both tree and violet-green swallows, newly returned for the breeding season from points south, common mergansers and assorted ducks and geese. Then we paddled waterways that lace the UW shore, past Husky Stadium and the Waterfront Activities Center, which has been a busy place this year due to the fine weather.

On a sunny weekend, you won't be paddling alone in the Arboretum. The UW's rental canoe fleet can launch 500 trips on a busy day. Canoeing the Arboretum is a tradition that goes back generations, for both students and the public.

"Oh, yes it is," says Jenny Fitzsimmons, recreation coordinator at the activities center. "Some people like to take their books out and study. Other people like to go out and get tan and fit. Also, I think part of the appeal is being able to see the Arboretum from the water."

DAN DELONG / P-I

Hilary Hilscher of Audubon Washington marvels at the Arboretum's natural diversity. "It's incredible to have a place like this in an urban area," she says.

The wind by then was blowing stiffly and piling up 1-foot waves as we paddled across the entrance to the Montlake Cut, under the boardwalk and bridge and back to the put-in, having spotted perhaps 30 bird species.

This is usually an easy, flat-water paddle, but remember that weather can get messy and you really need to use caution any time you're on the water. Always wear an approved flotation jacket, pay attention to boating traffic, especially while in or around the cut, and don't take chances.

That way you can safely experience a piece of natural Seattle while tuning out the mechanized hum of civilization.

If you go

• See cityofseattle.net/parks/Boats/boatingmapsall.htm for details on the launch site at the Washington Park Arboretum, as well as more than 50 other sites to put in and take out human-powered craft at parks around the city.
• Details about the Lakes-to-Locks Water Trail can be found at the Washington Water Trails Web site, www.wwta.org/trails/L2L/ or by calling 206-545-9161.
• Canoes or kayaks can be rented from several places within paddling distance of Foster Island and Union Bay. These include the Northwest Outdoor Center (nwoc.com/rental; 800-683-0637), the Moss Bay Rowing and Kayaking Center on Lake Union (mossbay.net/; 877-244-8896), Agua Verde Paddle Club Cafe on Portage Bay (www.aguaverde.com/; 206-545-8570) and the UW Waterfront Activities Center (depts.washington.edu/ima/IMA_wac.php; 206-543-9433).

Copyright © Seattle Post-Intelligencer