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Cattail Heaven

 I love the name of the water reclamation facility a bit upriver from where we live, in northwest Tucson:
Sweetwater Wetlands.

It is, of course, a place just downpipe from a sewage treatment plant, where lots of nasty little things are reclaimed by plants and animals, and where the water can be percolated down into the ground, again.



The best times of the year to visit the Sweetwater Swamp is during the periods of migration, and the best time of day is early morning.  I went yesterday afternoon, because I do not believe that doing things the easy way builds character, and I do so want to be a character.

I saw almost no birds except for ducks.  And I know there are lots of turtles in the water, but some of the ponds were so blanketed with green algae that even the lower half of the ducks was impossible to see.


No matter!  It was quiet, except for the gossiping ducks, and the crunch of shoes on the new gravel.  More even than the delight of water in the desert for ducks, was the enthusiasm of the cattails, so tall that it was hard to find a place to see beyond them.  If it were not the practice of whoever manages the place to burn selected areas of cattails early each spring, there would soon be no open water at all.  It is cattail heaven.  

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