Oakland County Trails

Happy Michigan Trails Week, Oakland County!

Oakland County, MI Government Leave a comment

Celebrate Michigan Trails Week, Sept. 18-25, on an Oakland County trail. The county and its surrounding areas offer miles and miles of trails for your fitness and enjoyment. Fall is the perfect time to get outside to see the changing colors on the trails. Take a stroll, jog through a park, bike with friends, kick up some dirt at Holly Oaks ORV Park, saddle up on a horse, or paddle down a river. Whether you’re looking to get some vitamin D, exercise, or just want to enjoy some quiet time with nature, there’s no shortage of trails to meet your needs in Oakland County.

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Celebrate National Trails Day on an Oakland County trail

Oakland County, MI Government Leave a comment
Two people walking on trail at Catalpa Oaks County Park in Southfield

Oakland County and its surrounding areas offer miles and miles of trails for your fitness and enjoyment on National Trails Day, June 4! It’s the perfect time to get outside and take a stroll, jog through a park, bike with friends, kick up some dirt at Holly Oaks ORV Park, saddle up on a horse, or paddle down a river. Whether you’re looking to get some vitamin D, exercise, or just want to enjoy some quiet time with nature, there’s no shortage of trails to meet your needs in Oakland County.

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October Snake Tales

Oakland County, MI Government 2 Comments
snake with tongue out

WILDER SIDE OF OAKLAND COUNTY

“The wild requires that we learn the terrain, nod to all the plants and animals and birds, ford the streams and cross the ridges, and tell a good story when we get back home.” That is perhaps my favorite quote from Gary Snyder in his celebration of the ways of nature in The Practice of the Wild (Snyder, 1990).

I have friends who revel in Snyder’s words. They share stories of wildlife encounters with excitement and joy. However, when it comes to sharing encounters with snakes, sometimes their words and phrases confirm their extreme anxieties and near-phobic horrors of even seeing a snake. These colorful days of October remind us of winter’s approach. That means, it’s time to share snake facts with a disclaimer: although I am not a herpetologist by any means, I am an unabashed partisan of these slithering creatures that often take center stage for a few weeks during the season of leaf fall. Perhaps you are too.

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Fall Foliage Adventuring

Oakland County, MI Government Leave a comment
fall foliage

WILDER SIDE OF OAKLAND COUNTY

Oakland County woodlands, meadows, and lakes are attractive throughout the year, but take on a special aura of beauty in autumn. As shades of summer green surrender to the fiery scarlet of sassafras, glittering yellows of aspens, the reddish-orange hues of maples, and finally, the misty pale yellow of swamp-loving tamaracks, our changing patchwork of kaleidoscope-like colors against a sky of blue can almost overwhelm the human eye. If that’s not enough to lure a nature lover to our hundreds of miles of trails and thousands of acres of parks and wildlands, fantastic fruiting fungi in a rainbow of colors is also emerging along our trails.

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Oakland County’s White-Tailed Deer

Oakland County, MI Government 2 Comments
a buck in green field

WILDER SIDE OF OAKLAND COUNTY

White-tailed deer are the smallest members of the deer family, which include moose and elk, but without a doubt, they are the largest and one of the most frequently seen mammals of Oakland County. Love them or hate them, they are here to stay. Our diverse natural habitats, landscaping practices, and travel corridors gift them with an abundant food supply, places to take shelter, and the opportunity to leisurely graze on a great variety of seasonally changing wild plants and fruits, including leaves, grasses, forbs, fiddleheads, mushrooms, acorns, twigs, nuts, wild fruits, and at times, our vegetable and flower gardens, and farm crops.

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