Kennedy Creek Preserve

Near Kamilche, WA

The Kennedy Creek Natural Area Preserve protects 340 acres of wildlife-rich salt flats on Oyster Bay at its confluence with Kennedy and Schneider Creeks. This rich estuarine environment supports a large and diverse population of both residential and migratory shorebirds. This inlet also supports one of the largest flocks of wintering black-bellied plovers in Puget Sound.

Look too for dunlins, western sandpipers, least sandpipers, greater yellowlegs and short-billed dowitchers.  The preserve is also an excellent place to watch for buffleheads, northern pintails, and peregrine falcons (who feast on plovers). Caspian terns, Bonaparte’s gulls, glaucous-winged gulls, mergansers, grebes and ruddy ducks are also common sightings. The preserve also contains several nesting boxes for purple martins.

Kennedy Creek which feeds into the preserve is an excellent salmon-rearing waterway producing up to 80,000 spawning salmon. After spawning, the salmon die and their carcasses wash downstream to the estuary providing food for eagles, gulls, and other animals. Not too far from the preserve parking lot is the Kennedy Creek Salmon Trail which is open in November for salmon viewing and field trips. 

Kennedy Creek

IBA (Important Birding Area)

Directions: From Olympia follow US 101 north for 11 miles. Then turn right onto the Old Olympic Highway and proceed for 0.2 mile to parking area on your right.
Ownership: WA Dept of Natural Resources
Trail Distance: 0.1 mile
Difficulty: easy short path to overlook
Fees/Permits: Discover Pass
Notes: Kid-friendly