April 29 - Hawks Prairie Settling Ponds

My errands completed this afternoon, I drove over to the Hawks Prairie Settling Ponds to do a bit of birding.  It was mostly sunny, with a north wind at 3-8 knots, and 62-67° F, and I looped around the several ponds.

The Hawks Prairie facility consists of 40 acres in Lacey.  Class A Reclaimed Water circulates through a series of five constructed wetland ponds. Water from the ponds then flows to rectangular groundwater recharge basins. From there, the water infiltrates through the soils to replenish groundwater.

The water has sufficient nutrients to grow lots of duckweed . . .

According to the Washington Departments of Health and of Ecology, "Class A Reclaimed Water" means reclaimed water that, at a minimum, is at all times an oxidized, coagulated, filtered, disinfected wastewater. The wastewater shall be considered adequately disinfected if the median number of total coliform organisms in the wastewater after disinfection does not exceed 2.2 per 100 milliliters, as determined from the bacteriological results of the last 7 days for which analyses have been completed, and the number of total coliform organisms does not exceed 23 per 100 milliliters in any sample.”

Pied-billed Grebes nest in the cattails along the pond edges

There was not a lot of bird activity this afternoon.  Perhaps because it was late in the day, and so warm.

Puget Sound White-crowned Sparrow

The White-crowned and Chipping Sparrows seem to remain active, no matter what the weather.

Chipping Sparrow with its lunch

I did get to see a few Eastern Cottontails.  This is not a native species to Washington, but rather was introduced to several areas as a game animal beginning in the 1930s; now they are the ubiquitous rabbit in our area.

I was also intrigued by a patch of the Oregon fawn lily Erythronium oreganum.

I presume that these were planted with many of the other “Native Plants” at the facility, but I’m not certain about that.  The species has speckled leaves and white flowers with touches of yellow. I’ve only seen it at lower elevations.  My grandparents in the Willamette Valley called these “Lamb’s Tongue” lilies because of the spotting on the leaves, and I always love to see them, whether they are ‘wild’ or planted.

In all, I saw 32 species of birds, and had a very pleasant afternoon.

Hawks Prairie eBird Checklist is Here