Smith and Bybee Wetlands Natural Area

The park includes restrooms, interpretive displays, a covered shelter, parking for 40 cars, a bus drop-off, and public art, all near North Marine Drive, which skirts the north edge of the wetland. The parking lot is about west of the Delta Park – Marine Drive West exit from Interstate 5. A paved, wheelchair-accessible path called the Interlakes Trail leads from the parking lot to two wildlife viewing platforms between the lakes. Boaters in non-motorized craft can use the park's canoe-launch to enter the lakes for recreation, wildlife viewing, or fishing for non-native species. Bicyclists and walkers can reach the park via a bicycle path, which runs along North Marine Drive and is part of the Portland metropolitan area's system of greenway trails known as the 40-Mile Loop. ==Vegetation and wildlife==

Black cottonwood, Oregon ash, red alder, big leaf maple, willows, and shrubs grow in the park's forests. Some of the ash trees are more than 100 years old. Swamps include willow thickets, red-osier dogwoods, spiraea, and other small shrubs. Sedges, rushes, beggars tick, rice cutgrass, and reed canary grass grow in open meadows. Aquatic plants such as pond lilies, duckweed, and algae flourish in the sloughs and ponds. The only reptiles found at the lakes are garter snakes and turtles, including more than 200 western painted turtles, listed as a sensitive-critical species by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. Amphibians include salamanders and frogs such as the Pacific chorus frog and the non-native bullfrog. Non-native fish introduced to the lakes include largemouth bass, crappie, bluegill, and carp. Most species of waterbirds and migrant songbirds in the region visit the park. Birds observed in the wetlands include bald eagles, house wrens, yellow warblers, red-eyed vireos, goldfinches, great horned owls, red-tailed hawks, great egrets, and double-crested cormorants, as many as a thousand at a time. ==Restoration projects==

Historically, the wetland lay in the floodplain of the Columbia and Willamette rivers, and seasonal floods inundated the area. In 2003, to help restore historic hydrologic cycles in the wetland, Ducks Unlimited installed a water-control structure at Bybee Lake. Metro uses it to hold as much water as possible in the lake during winter and spring. This improves habitat for waterfowl and young salmon and inhibits reed canary grass, an invasive plant. ==See also==

• Houck, Mike, and Cody, M.J., eds. (2000). Wild in the City. Portland, Oregon: Oregon Historical Society Press. . ==External links==