She will be joined by Albany Adult School bird instructor Rusty Scalf and master trumpet musician Marina Garza.

Through movement, dance and poetry, the free weekend program, "Sharing Watershed: Honoring Birds, Two," is being cosponsored by the Oakland Public Library, Lakeview Branch, in association with the Urban Creeks Council and the Friends of Oakland Parks and Recreation. Walkers should meet the group at the lake-side door of the Lakeview Branch at 4 p.m.

Bulitt, who has long felt inspiration from the world of nature, conducts an ongoing "Migrating Woman with Bird" series in which she collaborates with other artists, including costume designers who contribute one-of-a-kind capes and garments for her to wear during her performances.

Monday, starting at 6:30 p.m., the program continues at the library, with a poetry reading and writing workshop where poet Chris Olander joins Bulitt in reading original works honoring birds. Olander is a regular participant with the Poets in the Schools and the annual Watershed Poetry Festival in Berkeley. Participants are invited to bring poetry to share to build a collective homage to the birds, says Bulitt.

According to Oakland history author Beth Bagwell, what we know today as Lake Merritt was once a vast tidal slough, surrounded by acres of marsh. Four creeks flowed into the slough from the nearby hills, and for countless generations, the original human inhabitants of the region sought out the wildfowl, "which flocked there in great abundance."

In the 1860s, New Yorker newcomer Samuel Merritt, a medical doctor by profession and a land speculator and city founder by inclination, "conceived a grand scheme: to dam the slough and create a lake." Merritt, Bagwell writes, was a man who thought big. "Perhaps he could not think any other way, for he himself stood six feet three and weighed 340."

After arriving in the East Bay — drawn to California like so many countless others — by the lure of gold and riches, Merritt bought a large tract of land west of the marsh, then known as San Antonio Slough. Through wealth acquired through shipbuilding, lumber milling and other interests, Merritt purchased more and more real estate on both sides of the slough during the 1850s and 1860s. Largely with his own funds, says Bagwell, Merritt had a dam and bridge built at 12th Street, which was completed in 1869. By this time he was also mayor of the town.

"If the lake also increased the value of Samuel Merritt's real estate, people praised his imagination and enterprise and thought he deserved his good fortune," writes Bagwell. Mayor Merritt was responsible for persuading the state Legislature to designate the lake as a wildfowl refuge in 1870, the first wildlife refuge declared by any legislative body in North America. It was the only one in the United States until 1903 when President Theodore Roosevelt began creating others.

After the turn of the last century, another far-seeing mayor, Frank K. Mott, used voter-approved bond measure funds to greatly improve the lake area by laying out boulevards and shoreline park areas. Local architects were called upon to design structures and other amenities to further enhance the city's "crown jewel," say the history files.

Architect Walter Reed (born in Alameda and educated at the University of California, Berkeley, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of his generation's California-born architects who would eventually achieve national stature), designed an elegantly curving colonnade and pergola at the Lakeshore end of the lake. It was completed in 1913. Its name, "El Embarcadero," was a reference to the Peralta Rancho days when that end of the marsh was used for sloops and freight vessals to pick up and deliver cargo.

In 1949, a small branch library building opened a short distance from the pergola, with good views of the lake, the birds and, at certain times of the year, the setting sun. Although one of the library system's smaller branches, Lakeview is a popular location for poetry readings, art exhibits and performances such as Bulitt's.

Joanna Pavlinec, the Landmarks Advisory Board's staffer, says El Embarcadero recently underwent an extensive restoration and rehabilitation after many years of deferred maintenance.

For more information about today's Bird Dance/Bird Walk at Lake Merritt, go to http://www.oaklandlibrary.org. Bagwell's excellent "Oakland, The Story of a City" is available at the library's history room, which is open daily, although hours vary, so call 238-3222 for more information.

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