Blue Heron Reserve, located on County Road 260 at U.S. Route 6, encompasses 160 acres. The property was acquired in 1986 through a donation from The Nature Conservancy and a federal Land and Water Conservation Fund grant. Its habitats include a restored wetland, a fen, a wet woods, and a natural spring. The fen is a type of wetland, or peatland, created by an upwelling of groundwater, and the groundwater in the fen and the natural spring are part of an area aquifer system that likely connects with other springs such as Cold Creek and the Blue Hole in Castalia. Over the years, many different items have been found there, including a tooth from a giant ground sloth, an extinct species that stood over 20 feet tall. It is also a noted birding location and part of the Lake Erie Birding Trail, which covers the entire Ohio shoreline and contains 88 sites. A one-mile boardwalk loop made of recycled plastic lumber begins at the gravel parking lot and was made possible by a grant from OSS Joint Solid Waste District and the ODNR Nature Works Program; its first section was constructed in 1993, and other trails loop through the wetlands and provide access to the fen.