Re-posted -
No man loves marshes and bogs more than I do. The variety of life they contain, protect, and support, from protozoans to minnowsto bass to amphibians to snakes to deer to woodpeckers to geese and ducks to eagles to bears is astonishing, and feels primeval.
Except for river-fed or run-off-fed marshes, though, most sizeable fresh-water marshes are ephemeral geographical features. In the northern US, most are the remnants of post-glacial ponds and lakes, gradually filled in with plant detritus and, just before they become the damp meadows that the Moose enjoy so much, the sphagnum bogs which, in Canada, are the source of most of our soil-enhancing peat moss.
The only sources of new marshes in the US are man (who is more inclined to fill them for building lots than to create them or rehabilitate them - except for Ducks Unlimited), and the Beaver:
And that is one reason we appreciate the remarkable beaver so much. He not only creates marshes, but he recycles them. I doubt that there is a single beaver marsh in the US which has not been used, on and off (until they have eaten or cut down everything they can find) over the several thousands of years since our last Ice Age buried Manhattan under a mile of ice.
Here are some of the critters I see (or hear) most often in the immediate vicinity of our small (8 acre) beaver marsh in western MA over the past few years - off the top of my head and probably omitting some:
Beavers (of course)
Otter
Black Bear
Raccoon
White-tailed Deer
Red Fox
Coyote (alas)
Wood Duck (nesting)
Black Duck (nesting)
Mallard (nesting)
Canada Goose (nesting)
Pileated Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
Red-bellied Wodpecker
Ruby-Throated Hummingbird
Veery
Wood thrush
E. Phoebe
Wood Pewee
Great Blue Heron
Green Heron
Tree Swallow
Barn Swallow
Kingfisher
Swamp Sparrow
Grasshopper Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Barred Owl
Screech Owl
Great Horned Owl
Baltimore Oriole (Northern Oriole)
Marsh Wren
Turkey
Goldfinch (nesting)
Warblers of all sorts (during migration)
Turkey Vulture
Red-Tailed Hawk
Sharp-Shinned hawk
Red-shouldered Hawk
Broad-winged Hawk
Sparrow Hawk (Kestrel)
E. Bluebird
E. Kingbird
Ruffed Grouse
Cedar Waxwing
Catbird
Wood Turtle
Eastern Painted Turtle
Snapping Turtle
Garter Snake
Eastern Water Snake
Black Snake
Bullfrog
Eastern Newt (and their Red Efts by the trillions in the adjacent woods)
Leopard Frog
Green Frog
American Toad
Wood Frog
Spring Peeper
E. Gray Tree Frog
I like to keep track of our wildlife. It is one way of loving and embracing this world.