Over a year ago, I told the story of West Windsor’s biggest park, what is known as the Richard J. Coffee Mercer County Park.
It takes up about 4 square miles of West Windsor Township and has a main entrance on Old Trenton Road. A central feature of the park is the lake, that is Lake Mercer. Formed by damming up the Assunpink Creek along the West Windsor-Hamilton border, Lake Mercer provides for numerous pubic activities in the park, principally competitive rowing. This is based at the Casperson Rowing Center on the north side of the lake. It is said that the facilities there for competitive rowing are among the best anywhere.
A memorable aspect of the construction of the lake was the nearly simultaneous construction of nearby new highways, including I-195. It turned out that much of the material that had to be excavated from the lake site could be used as fill for the new roads. Today, on the south side of the lake there is a public boathouse and marina. Here, the public is invited to visit a restaurant and lease the facility for special occasions. This facility was under renovation for several years and is now in full operation once again.
Not long ago, one of my friends thought it would be fun to see what the county offered in the way of a guided tour around the lake—in a boat, that is.
For this purpose a pontoon boat is used. That is a motor driven boat with a pilot who sits at a steering wheel and has complete control over where the boat goes and how fast.
Passengers sit in cushioned seats around the edge of the boat, and, with the canopy on the top, the sides are completely open so there is no obstruction of the view wherever you look. For our specific trip the boat was going to observe wildlife in the lake area, so a very knowledgeable guide was on board to point out wildlife and other features of the landscape along the edge of the lake.
Because of the presence of the special guide, it was important that we arrived on time for the start of the trip. We also had to allow time to buy a ticket, which I believe cost $8. Eating during the trip was also permitted, and several of the passengers had lunch snacks with them. These could be either purchased at the boat house or brought from home.
When we left the marina dock we headed for the south shore of the lake to the east. We soon realized that the most interesting things to see from the boat would be those close to the shore.
There would be no way to observe them from shore since most of the lake is surrounded by natural wooded areas. There are very few places to walk right down to the water’s edge. The pontoon boat offers the easiest way to see what lies along the edge of the lake.
The first thing that caught our attention was a pair of blue herons.
We didn’t get very close to them so as not to frighten them. They seemed to be unconcerned and ignored us. It turned out that we saw blue herons at two other locations along the edge of the lake.
I suppose we shouldn’t have been surprised to see them since they have always been quite common in parts of West Windsor. There are almost always a few at Grovers Mill pond for a while in the spring.
As we worked our way along the lake shore to the east, we began to appreciate how natural the landscape was. And we soon realized that since the lake had been first impounded in around 1985, much of the growth along its shoreline had been maturing for over 30 years.
By this time there would be plenty of places for blue herons and other wildlife to become part of the natural surroundings. Another part of the natural surroundings was a couple of deer that appeared not far away as we went along off shore. They appeared to be at the water’s edge to get a drink.
Other parts of the surroundings along the lake’s edge included Canada geese and a variety of ducks. At one point we looked above and saw a large flight of hawks circling around.
The guide pointed out that a natural area like the one around the lake would be ready with game in the form of small animals to attract birds of prey like hawks, although I don’t recall what variety of hawk they were.
Along the north shore of the lake there is a beaver dam. Although we didn’t see any beavers, it was obvious that it had been there for some time. It was a surprise to most of us to learn that beavers inhabit Mercer County and West Windsor.
The last of the “natural wonders” we observed on our paddle boat excursion was up in the air: a dragon fly colony. In fact, we were told there was more than one and that there were many, many dragonflies in the lake area. They were hard to see from the boat, but they were there silhouetted against the sky.
After a complete circuit of the lake we arrived back at our starting point with the feeling that we had had a thorough look at the wildlife of Mercer County, New Jersey. It was a unique experience that I recommend to anyone who would like some relaxing time on the water.
