Welcome to the Corey Marsh Ecological Research Center!
I’ve birdwatched here for about two years now, and with permission from Michigan State University, I have placed a series of several geocaches of varying types here to help others discover and enjoy this place. If you wish to read more about this marsh, I have added information regarding the history of the marsh and
If you see any birds at this marsh, tell me what you think you may have seen in your logs! If you can’t identify the bird you saw, describe what you think you saw, or you can use this handy tool.
Despite what you may think reading the name, this is a low-terrain cache that you should not have any problems finding. Corey Marsh is a 400-acre park and research centre for prairie and marshland reconstruction, and bird banding and research.
Corey Marsh Ecological Research Center, or CMERC is a 400-acre reconstructed marshland ecosystem in Clinton County between Bath and Laingsburg. CMERC opened in 2018 following the close of the Muck Soils Research Farm
History
The Muck Soils Research Center was established on the Michigan State University’s Bath Township property in 1945. Interest was growing in the four million or more acres of muck land in Michigan, and the State Board of Agriculture approved $5,000 to be used in starting a new experimental muck farm. Corey Marsh was a natural choice for the location of this new experimental muck farm, as Ernest Anthony, the Dean of Agriculture, describes in his address to the 23rd annual MMFA convention: “Fortunately the College has had in its possession since 1855 over 200 acres of undeveloped, excellent muck land, located in the Corey Marsh near Bath in Clinton County. The land is the last of the original grant of land made when the College was first established. It is located in a larger body of excellent muck of better than 1,000 acres which forms the Corey Marsh. It is quite uniform in character, running from four to twenty feet in depth, with a large proportion more than twelve feet deep, and it can be drained without difficulty." Early developments included clearing twenty-five acres of light brush cover, installing a pumping station, and establishing electric power. Arrangements were made to tile drain at least twenty-five acres that year, with more to be cleared and tiled as needed. An improved road was constructed to the center of the operations. It was also planned to build a house for the farm foreman and necessary tool sheds and other buildings to house the equipment. The initial 25 acres were broken and fallowed in spring 1941, and experiments began in 1942.
Information from https://www.canr.msu.edu/cmerc/history#:~:text=1941%3A%20The%20Muck%20Soils%20Research,a%20new%20experimental%20muck%20farm.
In accordance with the rules, please do not bring pets (including leashed pets), bicycles, or motorised vehicles anywhere west (towards the marsh) of the main gate at the front, due to the extremely sensitive nature of ecosystem reconstruction. Leashed dogs are welcome east of the gate, including this cache, but again, keep them leashed and do not let them cross the canal or the gate.
If you decide to go birdwatching closer to the marsh, which I strongly recommend, stay on the trails at all times. The marshland surrounding the ponds is prime habitat for secretive marsh birds like rails and soras, and going into this marshland would not only be a destruction of their habitat, but also a risk to their lives, as they are small enough for you to not notice them and accidentally step on them
The cache is a micro magnetic tube in a signpost that you should not have any problems finding. In the process of looking for this cache, you do not have to exit the trail.
Congratulations on First to Find to: dotdotdash
Congratulations on Second to Find to: terrifrog
Congratulations on Third to Find to: bigtom5776, curlysue1954, & wildbill1949