Gypsies At Heart: Sandy Ridge Reservation

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Sandy Ridge Reservation

Today we decided to do some hiking and some bird watching. There are just tons of birding areas around these parts of Ohio especially during spring and fall migrations. After reading a bit about the various places we decided to head to Sandy Ridge Reservation which is one of the Lorain Country Metro Parks.

What really inspired us to go there was because Sandy Ridge is a wet lands mitigation project. This area was originally a wetland but had been drained and used for farm land for many years. After it sat fallow for many years it started to revert to a wetland and the Metro Parks bought the land in 1990. It took two years to do the planning and construction of the area. The wetland area of the park was left alone during that year and the wildlife began to repopulate the marsh on their own. They said that new species were arriving every year. So it was worth a look.

Park Offices

Pond Behind The Park Offices

Trail through the woodlands

Great Egret

We started out by walking the woodland trail that led into the marshlands. The trails through the marsh have really been done well and you can walk around sometimes with water on both sides of you. It is a beautiful place to walk and Lee was able to capture quite a few birds on his camera. The trails go on and on so it pays to have a morning to walk the whole place.

Wetlands

We took pictures of the signs about the
wetland mitigation process.

Aren't these beautiful!

Cedar Wax Wing

When we first saw the Cedar Wax Wing we couldn't tell what he was because he just kept posing so that it was hard to tell. Later Lee was able to get better pictures of him or someone who looked like him! When we lived at Whitters Way in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, I was working in the den one day and a whole flock of these guys landed on my cherry tree in the front yard and they stayed until they ate every morsel. It was amazing. I hadn't seen one since.