The Oak Openings Preserve is, at 3,600 acres, the largest property in Toledo Ohio's impressive Metropark system, but it's actually part of a larger region known as the center of biodiversity in Ohio.
The metropark and preserve takes its name the surrounding region, just west of Toledo, which at 130 square miles is 23 times the size of the park itself and home to over 125 animals and plants classified as endangered by the state of Ohio. It includes the northwest portion of Lucas County, just south of Ohio's border with Michigan, as well as portions of Ohio's Fulton and Henry counties. Other parks and preserves in the Toledo area that fall entirely or partially within the Oak Openings region include Secor Metropark and the National Center for Nature Photography, Wildwood Metropark, Maumee State forest, Kitty Todd Preserve, Irwin Prairie and the Wabash-Cannonball bike trail.
Receding lake waters after the area's last ice age left behind a terrain marked by old beaches and low sand dunes, along with oak savanna and grassland prairie, which makes it unique to the rest of the state.
Early European settlers in the area called it Oak Openings as the band of sandy soil, prairie grass and oak savanna came as a distinct relief after slogging through the heavy forest and muck of the Great Black Swamp.
Logging that removed many of the region's old-growth forest and farming during the early 1800s adversely affected and altered the land. Most animals calling the region area home before the logging and farming took over the area left, leaving only the white-tail deer behind.
People did not consider the land as valuable for development as the twentieth century arrived, but some visionaries saw the value of the land and its biodiversity and worked to preserve more of the region's original character.
Their success in doing so moved The Nature Conservancy to name Oak Openings as one of the 200 "Last Great Places on Earth".
Ohio's northern shore along Lake Erie is one of the nation's premiere birding spots and draws many bird lovers especially to look for unique species during the spring warbler migration.
Wildlife watchers will also find many animals here more commonly found in prairies out West and wildflower fans will find plants like prickly pear cactus, wild lupine and sand cherry plants not typically growing in Ohio atop arid sand dunes near plants like orchids growing in the region's more swampy land.
Development in the Oak Openings Metropark, like many of our favorite parks, is minimal.
The park has a nature center with an indoor viewing center called Window on Wildlife, a couple of rental shelters and buildings, a playground, fishing, a four-mile intermediate cross-country ski trail, a 14.5-mile horse trail and a small primitive campground.
Park officials maintain the preserve and its biodiversity with limited tree cutting and occasional prescribed burns to rid the area of non-native plants.
Birders should check out birding check lists and birding tips at the Oak Openings Metropark site.
Oak Openings Metropark and Preserve is open daily from 7 a.m. until dark and admission, as it is in all Toledo Metroparks, is free.
Interested in learning more about the Oak Openings and Ohio's birds, flora and fauna? Try checking out The Ohio Lands by John Fleischman, Birds of Ohio Field Guide by Stan Tekiela or Wild flowers of Ohio by Robert L. Henn.
© Dominique King 2015 All rights reserved
This is impressive that they have maintained such a large area as green space. Wishing I could drive to Ohio today to explore. If only I was not so far away ... :-)
Posted by: Gretchen Garrison | March 25, 2015 at 05:48 AM
what a gorgeous place!
Posted by: Wandering Educators | March 25, 2015 at 06:45 AM
The fact that they maintained such a large area as a green space is enough to make it impressive, Gretchen, but the amount of diversity among the plant and animal life there is doubly so!
Thanks for stopping by Gretchen and Jessie. I hope you'll both be able to make it to some of these parks I've been featuring lately. We're pretty lucky to be close enough to many of them to make it a nice day trip.
Posted by: Dominique King | March 25, 2015 at 03:33 PM
Very informative. We have family who just moved to Toledo for work. It's on our list, but we're really not city people. Great to know that there are places like this to get lost in.
Posted by: Tara | March 26, 2015 at 04:11 AM
Tara-Toledo has a really nice Metroparks System. I've done stories on Secor (which has the National Center for Nature Photography in it) and Pearson (which is just off of Route 2 heading east out of Toledo). There are also a couple along Route 24/424 that include Providence Metropark, which has a lot of canal history and includes the opportunity to ride a working canal boat--I'm hoping to get back down there and ride it soon as it wasn't running during when we were last down there because of rain. The parks are all worth checking out :)
Posted by: Dominique King | March 26, 2015 at 05:45 AM