Birds nest observation tower!

Monday 7 October
After breakfast we headed to the nature centre and boardwalk through the marsh. However, we discovered the nature centre was closed, but fortunately there was still access to the long boardwalk. I knew they had been working on it lately, after tornado damage sustained earlier in the year, and I thought it was all finished, but in fact there was still a segment closed. The first section was clearly the original wooden boardwalk, somewhat warped and uneven in places, but what a contrast with the new section, recently completed, using the composite boards, made of recycled wood fibers and recycled plastic. One of the new additions is the birds nest observation towers, shown in my thumbnail photo. Unfortunately we didn’t see that much bird life, lots of red winged blackbirds, a great blue heron and an egret. We also saw (briefly) a muskrat, but it quickly disappeared into the tall grasses.
In the afternoon, we explored the rest of the state park on our bikes, cycling to the beach and the lodge, and past other small lakes - quite an extensive area.