Secrets of Tobico Marsh

all photos by Jonathan Schechter

Tobico Marsh in Michigan's Bay City State Recreation Area is one of the largest open-water
 marshes of Saginaw Bay, a historic bay on  the western shore of Lake Huron.
These photos   supplement the Sunday, February 12 hiking column in The Oakland Press
 (www.theoaklandpress.com that profiles the 2,200 acre marsh, the State Recreation Area and
their upcoming winter festival.  Tobico Marsh highlights for nature-loving  humans include
 a boardwalk,  two 40-foot foot observation towers, a floating marsh dock with mounted
 spotting scopes, beautiful  interpretive signs and  The Saginaw Bay Visitor Center.  
For wildlife it's home!
Go hike and make your own discoveries!
NOTE: After the last photo you find advance notice on a new Michigan wildlife book!

The paved Anderson Trail leads from the visitor center to the edge of the bay.

Interpretive signs tell the tale of water-loving wildlife and plants.

Mute swans rest on thin ice

Spotting scopes or a zoom lens make the photo capture easy.

Beavers engineered part of the marsh with dams of cattails and mud. See their lodge?

Here's  a close up look at luxury lodging for a beaver family.

A newly rebuilt observation tower at the wood's edge is a trail highlight!

A bird's eye view of the edge of the marsh and Anderson Trail.

This summer local Michigan author/journalist Elizabeth Shaw will have her book,
The Lone Wolverine – Tracking Michigan’s Most Elusive Animal, on bookshelves. 
It is co-authored with Jeff Ford, the self- made naturalist and rural science
teacher that tracked the wolverine for 370 days before capturing her first photo
 in  2005 on the far side of Saginaw Bay and ended when the wolverine was found
dead  five years later. The wolverine (above) is now displayed in the Saginaw Bay
Visitor Center at the  trailhead of the Anderson Trail. The Lone Wolverine offers
 an unprecedented visual and factual chronicle of our wild wolverine in its natural
habitat and her documented struggle for food and survival. 
 It can be preordered now at Amazon.com