Читать книгу Afoot & Afield: Orange County. A Comprehensive Hiking Guide онлайн

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Make no mistake, though, the entire 300-acre wetland, in its present incarnation, is an urban park, planted densely with native trees and shrubs and irrigated with recycled water from the state-of-the-art wastewater treatment plant. Starting in the early 1990s, the Irvine Ranch Water District, with the support of the Irvine Company and the Sea and Sage chapter of the Audubon Society, began an ambitious project to transform the former duck-hunting-club property into a naturalistic landscape typical of Orange County’s original lowland and upland habitats. That effort resulted in a dense system of more than 11 miles of wide, smooth, wheelchair-accessible trails, restrooms, resting benches galore, and, most importantly, first-class habitat for birds.

A nesting platform high on a pole in Pond 4 has attracted a pair of ospreys, which you may see diving for large fish in the ponds. Audubon volunteers have installed 100 nestboxes throughout the sanctuary to attract tree swallows, and they conduct a monthly bird census that has documented nearly 300 species of resident and migratory birds.