Phinizy Swamp Nature Park is a

nature park A nature park, or sometimes natural park, is a designation for a protected natural area by means of long-term land planning, sustainable resource management and limitation of agricultural and real estate developments. These valuable landscape ...

Augusta, Georgia Augusta ( ), officially Augusta–Richmond County, is a consolidated city-county on the central eastern border of the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. The city lies across the Savannah River from South Carolina at the head of its navig ...

. The park contains

wetlands A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...

and

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...

s and has a campus for water research and environmental education, which includes a visitor center. It has many bald cypresses draped in

Spanish moss Spanish moss (''Tillandsia usneoides'') is an epiphytic flowering plant that often grows upon large trees in tropical and subtropical climates. It is native to much of Mexico, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Central America, South America, the Southern Uni ...

and forests of loblolly trees. Birds commonly found at Phinizy Swamp include: red-shouldered hawks,

great blue heron The great blue heron (''Ardea herodias'') is a large wading bird in the heron family Ardeidae, common near the shores of open water and in wetlands over most of North America and Central America, as well as the Caribbean and the Galápagos ...

s, sora,

wood duck The wood duck or Carolina duck (''Aix sponsa'') is a species of perching duck found in North America. The drake wood duck is one of the most colorful North American waterfowl. Description The wood duck is a medium-sized perching duck. A typi ...

s and

bald eagle The bald eagle (''Haliaeetus leucocephalus'') is a bird of prey found in North America. A sea eagle, it has two known subspecies and forms a species pair with the white-tailed eagle (''Haliaeetus albicilla''), which occupies the same niche as ...

s. Sometimes the park yields rarities for Georgia, including

black-bellied whistling duck The black-bellied whistling duck (''Dendrocygna autumnalis''), formerly called the black-bellied tree duck, is a whistling duck that breeds from the southernmost United States, Mexico, and tropical Central to south-central South America. In the ...

s,Whistling ducks appear to be nesting in Augusta
Black-Bellied Whistling-Ducks nest in GA. which nested in the park in 2010, and a cave swallow, in 2004.

History

As part of a

floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...

of the

Savannah River The Savannah River is a major river in the southeastern United States, forming most of the border between the states of South Carolina and Georgia. Two tributaries of the Savannah, the Tugaloo River and the Chattooga River, form the norther ...

, the area known as Phinizy Swamp is a natural wetland created by the confluence of Butler Creek and the Savannah River. The swamp derives its name from Victor Francois Phinizy and his family, who owned a homestead on the land, first settling in 1778. During the 19th and 20th centuries, the wetlands were converted to farm fields and cattle pastures, and in the 1950s and 60s they were part of a beef farm for the Gracewood state-run mental health institution. In 1973, the city of Augusta acquired the land, but it remained unused until 1993, when the city was ordered to update its wastewater treatment system. The city decided to restore the site to a wetlands ecosystem and use it as a tertiary treatment stage for water from the nearby wastewater treatment plant. As part of the construction of the wetlands, the city also established the Southeastern Natural Sciences Academy, which later became the Phinizy Center for Water Sciences.

Wildlife

Phinizy Swamp is designated an

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding ...

and hosts over 240 species of birds. Arthropod diversity is also high, with many odonate species occupying the wetland cells. Mosquitoes are abundant at dusk, predominantly ''

Culex salinarius ''Culex salinarius'', the unbanded saltmarsh mosquito, is a species of mosquito in the family Culicidae Mosquitoes (or mosquitos) are members of a group of almost 3,600 species of small flies within the family Culicidae (from the Latin ''cule ...

''. Both '' Uranotaenia sapphirina'' and '' lowii'' have been documented here.

References

Geography of Augusta, Georgia Parks in Georgia (U.S. state) Protected areas of Richmond County, Georgia Tourist attractions in Augusta, Georgia Nature centers in Georgia (U.S. state) {{RichmondCountyGA-geo-stub