Because the park is so new, I wasn't sure what to expect, and at first sight, it is not immediately awe-inspiring.
The trees are youngsters, still needing protection from browsers, and most of the grasses are European, but the old farm is definitely coming back to life.
They were too far away for photography, but the entrance pond was hosting a number of waterfowl, including one of my favorites, the American coot with its ridiculous-looking white feet. Ducks were everywhere, as were seagulls which, as seagulls do, were taking advantage of human-made structures. This one seemed to have something to say about everything.
Great egrets were everywhere, indicating that the fishing in the marsh is already pretty good, at least by their standards.
For those who enjoy peaceful landscapes, the views are already worth viewing,
and lots of life was happening everywhere.
This particular blob of floating muck (some sort of aquatic vegetation)
was the site of a lot of activity by a variety of small creatures, with life and death dramas being played out by dragonflies and whatever the tiny silvery things were--tadpoles, maybe?
Perhaps the most exciting resident of Howard Marsh, however, is one of which I did not get a good look, although my binoculars were strong enough to confirm that ospreys were indeed using the osprey platform. I suspect that these apex predators of the marshlands will be increasing their numbers.
This old farm, reborn as newly-protected wetland, is likely to make the western shore of Lake Erie even more of a wildlife mecca than it currently is. Kudos to the visionaries of the Toledo Metropark system for their ambitions plan to have a metropark within a five-minute drive of every county resident.
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