Mercer Slough Nature Park — Thursday, May. 8, 2025

Met up with a friend and their dog to do this pretty relaxing walk in nature. We ended up doing a figure 8 route with the Bellefields Loop and Heritage Loop trails and included a visit to the Otsbo Boiler House remains near the Winters House trailhead. This would be a 2.5-3 mile flat walk depending on which trailhead you use. There were occasional swarms of gnats, but no mosquitoes…yet.

The water level of the slough is quite high right now. A couple of the nature info signs on the Bellefields side next to the water were in some very soggy ground, which made me wonder about the longevity of their posts. On this loop there were also the largest bush-sized skunk cabbage I’d ever seen. I had no clue until today they could be this big. Other plants we enjoyed included yellow water lilies in the slough, creeping buttercups in the fields around the blueberry bushes, blueberry flowers on those bushes, “wild” flowering rhododendrons, and numerous small spring flowers. We kept an eye open for river otters that have been spotted here but did not have the pleasure of their company. We did see geese, ducks, pollinators, and much to our surprise, shiny green faced bullfrogs jumping back into the marshy blueberry farm water as we walked past on the Heritage trail.