My World: Purgatory Creek

Another location that I am looking forward to visiting now that spring is here is Purgatory Creek.

Purgatory Creek is a small local park in Eden Prairie, MN. It consists of trails around a wetland area that is fed by Purgatory Creek.

I visited the park for the first time last summer when I herd, through the MOU list server, that it was a good spot to find shorebirds. When I got out there I did find that the water in one section of the wetlands was very low making it nice habitat for sandpipers, killdeer and lesser yellowlegs, as shown above.

The shallow water also made nice habitat for wading birds like great blue heron, great egrets, and green heron.

Not all of the water was shallow though, there were still several areas that had quite of bit of water.

The deeper water was home to several types of waterfowl like mallards, hooded merganser, and wood ducks.

The trees surrounding the wetlands provided food and shelter for different types of passerines.

At different times I spotted warblers, sparrows, flycatchers, catbirds, goldfinch and once even an indigo bunting.

Other life besides birds occupy Purgatory Creek. Reptiles like snakes, turtles and frogs can be found in and around the wetlands.

Small mammals like squirrels, muskrat and rabbits can also be found here.

However the thing that usually kept me coming to Purgatory Creek was the insects. Plenty of wild flowers growing around the wetlands attracted many different types of butterflies, including sulfurs, blues, coppers, viceroys and monarchs.

Even more impressive were all of the dragonflies living in the wetlands. Early in the summer there were many yellow phase Halloween Pennants hanging around.

There were also plenty of eastern amberwing, eastern pondhawk, blue dasher, variegated meadowhawk, twelve spot and four spotted skimmers, as pictured above.