Spring arrives at the Metroparks

SWANTON, Ohio (WTVG) - As we’re making our way through the first few weeks of spring, the Metroparks are blooming with the sights and sounds of the new season.

You can already catch the chorus or spy the sprouts.

Kim High is the Master Interpreter for Metroparks Toledo.

“Our first flower to bloom is the skunk cabbage, and it can actually heat itself, it self-regulates, and it can be 70-degrees in the little flower when it’s 28-degrees outside,” High said.

High adds that warmer days are bringing the berries, too.

“We also have things that will always give you some green beneath the scene, like Wintergreen,” she says. “It’s really green right now, right at this site.”

And spring is busting out the buds.

“The Spice Bush, which is a nice shrub, is beginning to bloom,” High said. “It’s just getting its buds, but it’s going to burst as soon as we get some 60-degree weather.”

You can see all of these signs of brighter days at Oak Openings. And you can hear it warming up, too.

“Listening for chorus frogs, which are the little frogs that sound similar to you running your finger down the edge of a comb, or the little spring peepers that sound like birds. They’re going to be singing too, very much so, next week.”

But while you’re exploring, Metroparks leaders ask that you be careful.

“The parks are all preserves, so we ask that you stay on the trails,” says High. “We have birds that are ground-nesting birds that are coming in. You can really bother their nests and flush them from eggs, and maybe even step on young if you’re off the trails. No picking or foraging or collecting in the parks.”

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