Last weekend, I hopped down to Florida to visit family. At the instigation of a friend, we visited the Wakodahatchee Wetlands, an artificial wetland in Delray Beach in southern Palm Beach County, set up by the water management district.
It’s an “artificial wetland”, in that the ponds were dug and the water is pumped in as part of the water treatment process. From the web site:
Every day, the Palm Beach County Water Utilities Department’s Southern Region Water Reclaimation [sic] Facility pumps approximately two million gallons of highly treated water into the Wakodahatchee Wetlands. By acting as a natural filter for the nutrients that remain, the wetlands work to further clense [sic] the water.
As they built Wakodahatchee, a name they say comes from Seminole words meaning “created waters”, they set up different areas with different characteristics, appealing to different species of wildlife. The result is sections where one finds herons, sections with alligators, sections with ducks and moorhens, and so on.
And as with many of these sorts of places, you can breeze through and see plenty of birds, but if you take your time, the variety is fascinating.
A small selection of my photos from the visit are in a Picasa album, with each animal identified. I think my favourite is this Great Blue Heron who struck a nice profile pose for us.
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