The Oak Openings
(including Irwin Prairie,
Secor Park, Oak Openings Park,
Maumee State Forest, and
Toledo Express Airport)

The Oak Openings of Lucas, Fulton, and Henry counties of northwest Ohio is one of Ohio's most unique natural assets. A wonderful diversity of landscape - broad sand dunes, open oak woods, swamp forest, alder bogs, wet and dry prairies - all contribute to making the area a naturalist's paradise. During the first part of the century, much of the wetlands were drained, forests were cut and grasslands burned. Although much reduced in size, small pockets of valuable habitat have been saved, and other areas are returning to their original state.

Oak Openings Metropolitan Park contains Ohio's only moving or "living" sand dunes. Nature hikes are a regular part of the park program during the warmer months.

The open oak woods on the dunes consist of black and white oaks with a forest floor of bracken fern, huckleberry and blueberry bushes, wintergreen, wild indigo, lupine, goldenrods and asters. Within the swamp forests, situated among the dunes, are pin oaks, elms, soft maples, wild cherries, tupelos, aspens, and poplars. Beneath these trees are buttonbush, blackberry tangles, spicebush, wild spirea, spikenard, bedstraw, and royal, cinnamon, and sensitive ferns. Wildflowers include: blazing star, wild phlox, lance-leafed and bird's-foot violets, and wild lily-of-the-valley.

The bogs provide the proper habitat for willows, alders, elderberry, and wild spirea. Large trees are few in number, but the undergrowth is almost impenetrable, consisting of wild raspberry, skunk cabbage, marsh marigold, jewelweed, boneset, prairie nettle, goldenrods, and a variety of other plants. When rainfall is normal, the scattered remnants of wet prairie retain water until mid-summer. According to Lou Campbell in his <B> Birds of the Toledo Area <B> , the dominant plants are blue joint-grass, slough-grass, clumps of willows, cornel, buttonbush, nine-bark, and aspens. For the herpetologist/birder, locations like Irwin Prairie are excellent for hearing frogs and toads in the springtime. At the end of the boardwalk east of Irwin Road, the chorus of spring peepers and common tree frogs can be deafening, especially on warm, showery nights in mid-May. The data for the following five accounts was supplied by Tom Kemp and provide an excellent birding guide to the most productive areas in the region.