Oak Openings--Buehner Center and Mallard Lake

Tips for Birding

Oak Openings Preserve Metropark is a stop on the Lake Erie Birding Trail.

About this Location

The Window on Wildlife at the Oak Openings Metropark is located in the Buehner Center.

Take a seat in a warm, dry place where you can observe birds and other wildlife attracted to feeding stations and water features. Windows On Wildlife are mini-nature centers open every day during park hours.

This room looks out onto professionally created and maintained wildlife feeding stations outside, with interpretive information inside to help you identify the birds and other animals that you are looking at. Windows on Wildlife are handicap accessible and heated for year-round use by everyone.

There are handicap-accessible paved paths to all facilities and around the lake at Mallard Lake.

About Oak Openings Preserve Metropark

See all hotspots at Oak Openings Preserve Metropark

Located between Whitehouse and Swanton, Oak Openings Preserve takes its name from the surrounding region, which is 23 times larger than the park itself. That’s something to consider when you realize that Oak Openings Preserve is over 4,000 acres.

Pioneers trudging through a dense swamp called this area “Oak Openings.” Most of the park is an oak savanna ecosystem, characterized by alternating wetlands and vegetated dunes. The Nature Conservancy once named the sandy region one of the 200 “Last Great Places on Earth.”

Prickly-pear cactus, wild lupine, and sand cherry bloom atop dry, hot sand dunes just yards away from orchids growing in low, wet swales. There are more than 50 miles of trails in Oak Openings Preserve. Stands of isolated pine and spruce planted by the WPA during the Great Depression are still visible.

Oak Openings is a birder’s paradise. It is the nesting place of Bluebirds, Indigo Buntings, Whippoorwills, Lark Sparrows, and many other species, as well as an excellent location to see migrating songbirds in the spring.

Features

  • Restrooms on site

  • Wheelchair accessible trail

  • Entrance fee

Content from Oak Openings Preserve Metropark Official Website, Toledo Metropark Windows on Wildlife webpage, and Ohio Ornithological Society