The Williamstown Wetlands

Grab your handkerchief. We will be hot. Today I'm taking you to The Williamstown Wetlands.

Located in Williamstown, West Virginia on Highland Avenue, The Williamstown Wetlands are on property owned mostly by DaVinci's Restaurant. DaVinci's has leased the land to the Williamstown Women's Club who are developing the small wetlands into an observation, study and sanctuary site.

The best parking is behind the restaurant where we will find the beginning of a wide trail that circles the wetland. 

     Volunteers, led by Betsy Caltrider and Rita Stephan of the Williamstown Women's Club, have begun building a boardwalk over the wet areas of the trail.  Today we will head left onto the completed part of that boardwalk.  Let's pause at the observation deck.

Sagittaria or Duck potato covers a large area before us.

With plenty of Narrow-leaved cattail (Typha augustfolia) around.

Looking toward our left we see the far end of the wetland.

looking down, just beyond the observation deck, we are met with "the in-between" - that area where dry fades into wet.

Back on the trail there is plenty to see also.  Volunteers planted some of the surrounding plants such as 

Button bush  and Pin oak but there is a good chance that this sweet-flowerd thistle was planted by Nature.

They also put up bat houses. If you ever lived near a wetland you know about mosquitoes.  Bats will eat thousands of them. It seems only fair to provide them nice lodging. Do you see that board at the bottom of the house? Evidently bats need a rough, flat place to crawl up into the house. 

Swallows and bluebirds will help control the insect population, too.

Today, though there is very little activity by anything. Humidity is heavy enough to convince us that we are part of the swamp.  Mosquitoes are the only life with enough energy to overcome the heat-induced inertia that has affected us all.   My glasses fog . . . my camera eyepiece fogs between it and my glasses . . . my brain fogs.  But the four o'clock light is actually not too bad here at the wetlands so let's keep walking.

Further along the gravel path we see Teasel (Dipsacus),

. . . both naked and dressed.

There's a Mallow (Hibiscus), some sort of Swamp mallow I assume because, after all, we are in a swamp.

 On the woods side of our path there are plenty of blackberries,

Field mint (Mentha arvensis)

and Wild grapes (Vitis rotundifolia). According to several internet sites, our Wild grapes are the same as the Scuppernongs and Muscadines prevalent in trained rows in so many back yards of the southern United States.

A nice thing about the Williamstown Wetlands is that there is already seating available in the way of benches provided by area businesses.  

These benches will be great - on cooler days - to sit and watch the songbirds and migrating ducks. Today, though, there are just a couple ducks that have ventured out from the shade.

Today is NOT one of those cool days, so as I, once again wipe the fog from my glasses, we shall return to our path. The air conditioned car will feel good and will quickly revive us so that we forget the heat and only remember the quiet, verdant beauty of The Williamstown Wetlands.

check my store at the link, above for books about the wetland.