Explore Outdoors ~ another day, another salt marsh...

 A couple weeks ago we walked along the trail of a salt marsh at Caddy Memorial Park in Quincy, MA. It sits where Blacks Creek empties into Quincy Bay (part of the larger Massachusetts Bay).

Join us for a nature walk...

The salt marsh is flooded each day by salt water. Not only do the plants have to be adapted to that, but they need to be sturdy enough to endure the push and pull of the tides. Salt-resistant marsh grasses (Spartina) grow here and, in the fall, were cut and dried by colonists, and used for bedding and fodder for their horses and cattle.

According to the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, the salt marsh is edged with oak, cedar, elm, sumac, and pitch pine trees. We saw many red-winged blackbirds and bluejays, an osprey nest, and a horseshoe crab. Apparently the crabs use salt marshes for spawning and will show up even in daylight.

Explore Outdoors ~ a salt marsh

 One of the things I try to do wherever I am is to find a bit of wild. Even if - especially if - I'm in an urban area. So the other day we drove down the shore drive to a small natural area in Quincy, MA: Passanageset Park at the Broad Meadows Marsh.

 

Passanageset Park boasts flat trails to and around the marsh, and signs that tell of the history of the Massachusett people who lived there long before European settlers arrived. Others describe the ecology and wildlife ... but on a windy day in late March there weren't any birds clinging to tall stems and calling.

A salt marsh is a coastal wetland that is flooded and drained by the tides. We were clearly there at low tide. 

 

 

 

This week find a piece of the wild where you are.