The Rookery Facilities

• Great Blue Heron Lodge

Click here to learn more about, or reserve, a facility.

The Rookery Trails

Woodcock Trail – 0.58 – asphalt

• Accessible trails
• Cross country skiing
• Hiking, walking & running

Interurban Trail – 1.55 – gravel

• Accessible trails
• Cross country skiing
• Hiking, walking & running

The Rookery Habitat

Located in an old glacial lakebed, much of this land is considered high quality wetland. Open marshes and swamp forests – enhanced by the work of beavers – are found, as are several abandoned oxbows of the original channel of the Chagrin River.

The property surrounding the Silo Picnic Area is brush land. A beech-maple forest and several red-maple stands provide habitat for a variety of animals, including songbirds such as Wood Thrush and Veery. A large forested preserve protects cold water habitat for a endangered native Ohio brook trout, introduced by the Ohio Department of Natural Resource’s Division of Wildlife.

Great Blue Herons rest in treetop colonies of a few to several hundred nests. The isolated colony at The Rookery has been in existence for more than 60 years and has had more than 150 active nests. Since herons are apt to abandon eggs or young if disturbed, the heron rookery itself is accessible only during naturalist-led programs.