Cuyahoga Valley National Park Wetland Restoration

The Cuyahoga Valley National Park has established a wetland restoration area near the Boston Store visitor center.   This has been an ambitious process to slowly restore native grasses, flowers, plants and animals to this part of the park.

Recently I was walking around the area and found the most impressive display of native flowers called black eyed susans.  A fairly common native wild flower that likes these types of 'disturbed' areas. It is impressive to see such a large amount in a relatively small space.

This is one of the restored ponds.  The park biologists check water content and quality to insure that the goals of restoration are being meet.

During my early morning outings to the area, white tailed deer are abundant.  The combination of flower landscape, along with the deer make for a beautiful setting.

Being a lover of insects, I was most anxious to check out the black eyed susan flowers.  They are favorites of katydid, grasshoppers and various other insect types.    The above is one of the largest katydids in this area - the bush katydid.    They are so large, they occupy the entire flower.  

Then while heading back to my car the other morning, this red squirrel was eating a nut on a tree near my car.   I setup my camera to try and photograph the cute squirrel and it ended up dropping its meal.   I was able to get a bit closer because the squirrel was not going to leave.   It was waiting for me to leave so it could go down to the ground to pick up its morning meal.    It kept looking at me and finally after about 15 minutes the squirrel began to rest.  You can almost hear it saying 'Are you done yet??!!!'.   I got the message and left the cute squirrel to finish its meal.