HEADLANDS DUNES
STATE NATURE PRESERVE - 25 ACRES

Main Feature:

Scenic natural beach on Lake Erie with many rare and unusual Atlantic coastal plain plants; good site for migrating birds and monarch butterflies.

Extensive development along the shores of Lake Erie has all but totally eliminated the presence of sandy beaches and dunes at the western mouths of river bays and inlets from Sandusky Bay to Dunkirk, New York. Headlands Dunes State Nature Preserve remains today as one of the last of its kind in the entire state.

This community is much more than merely an accumulation of sand along a shoreline. It is a living assemblage of fascinating and highly specialized plants and animals occurring in an environment too hostile for most other organisms to survive.

The most important dune developers along the Lake and Ashtabula County coast are switchgrass and/or beach grass (Hicks, 1934). Switchgrass or beach grass becomes established on the upper beach along with annuals, such as cocklebur and sea rocket. These lone grass plants quickly spread into huge root-like mats.

Sand rapidly drifts into the relatively quiet vicinity of the switchgrass crown, and deposition occurs.

Switchgrass and beach grass have an adaptation shared by many dune plants, such as cottonwood, red osier, Canada wild-rye and sandbar willow. Coincidental with the accumulation of sand around its crown, switchgrass or beach grass continues to grow upward through the sand. Eventually it will grow several feet above the original locality of germination or initial rhizome establishment.

As the dune becomes more or less stabilized by the switchgrass or beach grass, grape vines and poison ivy become established on the dunes; eventually cottonwood and willow appear, and finally oak (usually black oak).

The historical factors which allowed the migration of the coastal species into the Great Lakes are no longer at play; once we lose our sand dune communities, they will be lost forever.

Headlands Dunes State Nature Preserve protects a vestige of the Lake Erie dunes community.

Location:

Located in Lake County west of Fairport Harbor at the north end of State Route 44 and extreme east end of Headlands Beach State Park. Parking, restrooms and trail are available.