Mud Lake, Port Colborne

Made a trip down to Welland this weekend, to visit my aunt and step dad who were storing a round oak table for me. We decided to make a trip to Mud Lake, an area we had passed several times on multiple trips from Port Colborne to Welland back in the fall. My Grandparents came from Port Colborne.

It is not a large Conservation area, it can be travelled around in 1 hr, 2-3 if one stops and gawks and takes pics like I do. It is a man made wetland which now has a well established ecosystem happening. It's quite beautiful. The mosquitos on the one side of it though, wreaked havoc with us. With no bug spray, you'd last 5 mins at best in there in a couple areas.

There were a lot of extremely interesting things to see. When we first entered, there were huge tall wild cherry trees, just dripping with cherries and birds after the cherries. The path was literally strewn with cherries, and in other places only pits and stems of cherries. The birds were always ahead of us, scattering as we walked so no good looks at them nor pics. There were also wild strawberry bushes, fruit we could reach to try, as well as the odd apple tree. Given the area, The Niagara Region, it is most likely at one time there was an orchard there.

We were also treated to some rather interesting critters. A white crab spider, a female American black duck hybrid most likely, with her almost grown ducklings, leopard frogs leaping high into the air to escape our feet as we walked to the edge of a pond, humongous and teeney dragonflies, tiny toads, and one honking huge Bullfrog in the marsh. Waxwings were everywhere as well as Blue Jays. Marsh Wrens could be heard all over though not easily seen, as well as Swamp Sparrows. Huge scary frog sounds came from the marsh. We saw a female Wood Duck but very far away.

It was an amzing place to visit.