Naturalist Adventure to Simpson Park and Talking Water Gardens

[Lisa Millbank]

We visited the Talking Water Gardens and nearby Simpson Park this morning.  The new wetlands at Talking Water Gardens are fabulous.  It's worth a special trip.  It's quite a wetland restoration project, planted and/or naturalized with Bidens (beggarticks, blazing yellow flowers) cattails, Hardstem Bulrushes (tules), Wapato (arrowhead), mannagrass for waterfowl and many more wetland plants.  It is the final stage in treating and cooling wastewater from Wah Chang and elsewhere.  For more about Talking Water Gardens, see the local newspaper's feature about it: http://www.gazettetimes.com/sports/recreation/article_e7d00e41-5a1f-5896-ab2b-b23c73129417.html

The waterfowl love the new wetlands and nearby First Lake. We saw MALLARDS, quite a few CINNAMON TEALS, AMERICAN WIGEONS, AMERICAN COOTS, many WOOD DUCKS, CANADA GEESE, NORTHERN SHOVELERS and PIED-BILLED GREBES.  Many of the male ducks had dull eclipse plumage or looked kind of patchy.  We heard a LESSER YELLOWLEGS in the vicinity of First Lake. BARN SWALLOWS were quite common, and there were some VIOLET-GREEN SWALLOWS too. Some other birds we encountered: BELTED KINGFISHERS, GREEN HERONS, a GREAT BLUE HERON, EURASIAN COLLARED-DOVES, RED-TAILED HAWKS, COMMON YELLOWTHROATS, AMERICAN GOLDFINCHES, BLACK-CAPPED CHICKADEES, BROWN CREEPERS, RED-BREASTED NUTHATCHES, BEWICK'S WREN, SONG SPARROWS, CEDAR WAXWINGS, SPOTTED TOWHEES.

Dragonflies and damselflies were quite active: Common Green Darner, Eight-spotted Skimmer, Common Whitetail, Striped Meadowhawk, Tule Bluet, Western Forktail, Pacific Forktail, Black Saddlebags, and a spreadwing species.

We got a good look at a Red Admiral butterfly, and lots of skippers.

There was a Western Pond Turtle basking on a log in First Lake.  The new wetlands have ample basking spots for turtles.

 

At Avery Park, after the field trip, we watched some Red-breasted Nuthatches removing seeds from Douglas-fir cones and flying away with them to stash them somewhere.  We also found a Raspberry Crown Borer moth laying her eggs on some Thimbleberry bushes.  She is in the clear-winged moth family (Sesiidae) and is a superb yellowjacket mimic.  See the attached photo.  These moths even fly almost exactly like yellowjackets, with their legs dangling.

 

Don Boucher & Lisa Millbank

www.neighborhood-naturalist.com

 

[Don Boucher]

Graham Kislingbury, reporter for Mid-valley Newspapers, visited this spot just a couple hours after we did. He wrote a short blog post about it:
http://grahamkislingbury.mvourtown.com/2011/09/18/beautiful-day-on-the-trails/comment-page-1/#comment-39310
I thanks Graham for introducing me to this the Talking Waters last spring. It's awesome!

-Don Boucher
www.neighborhood-naturalist.com