In its first 14 months of existence, Howard Marsh Metropark in eastern Lucas County is off to a flying start as a bird and wildlife sanctuary.
Mark Shieldcastle, Black Swamp Bird Observatory research director, told the Metroparks Toledo board of park commissioners Wednesday the facility known as the Great Lakes region’s largest coastal wetland restoration project has equaled or surpassed expectations in nearly all biological metrics.
Anything from red-winged blackbirds to iconic waders such as snowy egrets and great blue herons are moving in, as are osprey — a majestic raptor hard to establish in this part of the western Lake Erie region because of the number of bald eagles.
Those two raptors tend to keep their distances from one another, Mr. Shieldcastle said.
“It's not easy for them to get established up here. Bald eagles don't let osprey around. But they and the eagles seem to be working out their differences,” said Mr. Shieldcastle, who ran the state of Ohio’s bald eagle recovery program until retiring from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources several years ago. “Just to see [osprey] come in and use the platform makes you feel a little spoiled.”
There are now more than twice as many red-winged blackbirds as there were before the new metropark was finished, and there were almost no egrets or herons back then.
The results are based on 30 surveys performed in 2018 compared to 57 in 2014-15, Mr. Shieldcastle said during his presentation, which was made inside Side Cut Metropark’s Lamb Center.
Results of an online information exchange frequented by serious birders also shows some 226 species — about half of all known birds in Ohio — have already been spotted at Howard Marsh at one time or another.
“It shows you're getting what you went after,” Mr. Shieldcastle said of the abundance and diversity.
Park officials such as Tim Schetter, Metroparks Toledo’s natural resources director, said they can use such data to show government agencies and private donors that money they invest in conservation projects yields results.
“This is by far the most compelling data set we have,” Mr. Schetter told park commissioners.
Birds at Howard Marsh are a combination of somewhat permanent residents and many species that use this area as a critical stopover region en route to breeding in far northern climates, Mr. Shieldcastle said.
He told The Blade afterward it’s reasonable to believe its habitat - especially after newly planted trees reach maturity years from now - will be as popular to birds as other world-class wetlands along the western Lake Erie shoreline, mostly in eastern Lucas and Ottawa counties.
Ohio is second only to California in wetlands destroyed, but most of that was during the 1800s and early 1900s when the Great Black Swamp was drained and tiled for use as consistently moist farmland.
Howard Marsh was a popular site during the Biggest Week in American Birding this spring, drawing about 5,300 visitors. Attendance is expected to grow as trees and other habitats become more established.
Birders from all over the world participate in that annual event, one of the Great Lakes region’s biggest for ecotourism.
“Now, it’s not just Magee Marsh,” Mr. Shieldcastle said of popular birding sites during that event. “It's Howard Marsh, too. It's only going to improve.”
Denis Franklin, a Metroparks supervisor on the lookout for invasive species and pests, said he has worked with Mr. Shieldcastle for 30 years.
“This is a once-in-a-career project,” he said of Howard Marsh.
Howard Marsh opened in April, 2018. It has received multiple awards, including Metroparks Toledo’s first Governor’s Award from the Ohio Parks and Recreation Association this past February. It was one of the highest state honors bestowed upon the park district, and the project is now in the running for one of the top national awards this fall.
Ducks Unlimited had a lead role in the engineering needed to convert the 600-acre Lake Erie coastal site back into a marsh. It features 12,000 new trees and shrubs.
The $17.6 million project reconverted marshland that had been drained and used for farming for many years back into wetlands, with recreational amenities that include a boardwalk, fishing platform, hiking trails and canoeing/kayaking water trails for the public. The site is now a valuable addition to an important Lake Erie coastal wetlands system that helps filter out contaminants and improve water quality.
Howard Marsh is in Lucas County’s Jerusalem Township, just north of State Rt. 2 at 611 S. Howard Rd., Curtice, and adjacent to the Metzger Marsh Wildlife Area.
Reconverting it into a wetlands and low-impact recreational site has been one of the largest and most ambitious projects in Metroparks Toledo’s history. Work on it began years ago.
First Published June 26, 2019, 5:26 p.m.
