I have discovered this year that some of my favorite parks are bogs and fens as they tend to be very lush with plants and wildlife you don’t see often in other locations. Now I certainly didn’t know what the difference was between a bog and a fen, and I’m not sure that I had even ever heard of a fen before.
A bog is a mossy wetland where most of the water comes from rain or snow. There is little to no water runoff which makes them low in oxygen and very acidic. There are very few bogs in Ohio.
A fen is similar to a bog in that it is a wetland, but some of the water in a fen comes from a stream or groundwater, so that there is some water exchange which makes the fen less acidic and richer in nutrients. Over time a bog may become a fen.
Not only does Brown’s Lake Bog Nature Preserve have a kettle hole bog, it also has a kame. Both geological features are a result of the glaciers. A kettle hole is created by a pocket of glacial ice being left behind when the glaciers disappear, leaving a depression in the earth when the chunk of ice melted. When a kettle hole fills with water it is called a kettle hole lake.
A kame is a large deposit of rocks and gravel that is left behind when the glacier receded. There are kames all over Ohio.
There are two trails at Brown’s Lake Bog. The trail starts out as a narrow boardwalk that meanders through the woods. Eventually you come to a split and you have to decide if you want to go to the bog or to the kame first.
The trail to the right is a dirt trail which goes through the kame. There is nothing visually exciting about the kame, if you hadn’t read the signs you would just think you were walking around on a hill in the woods.
But there are some interesting plants and insects along the way.
The trail to the left is a continuation of the boardwalk that goes to the bog. This beautiful wooden trail meanders through ferns and trees. It had rained earlier in the day so everything felt lush and green.
You cannot actually get all the way to the kettle hole lake as the boardwalk ends a ways away from the lake.
Bogs often contain rare plants that are not normally seen elsewhere in Ohio.
Sphagnum Moss, also known as peat moss, covers the ground in the bog. The moss absorbs large quantities of water which is what make the ground of a bog feel spongy.
Due to the low nutrients in the soil, pitcher plants and other insect-eating plants are common in bogs. I was very excited to at the prospect of seeing the Round-Leaf Sundew plant, but I had walked most of the trail and had not yet found it, so I doubled back on the boardwalk to look again. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but there were some pretty tall plants along the boardwalk and I apparently had not looked all the way to the ground, but there they were all snuggled up in the Sphagnum Moss. Their bright green and red colors are very eye catching once you know where to look. And the spines and water droplets make them look other-worldly.
I’m going to have to come back in the spring to see some of the plants that I did not see in late summer when I was here, such as the pitcher plant, highbush blueberry, rose pogonia, large cranberry, and the bog buckbean.
Brown’s Lake Bog Nature Preserve – Shreve, OH – Wayne County