Hiking the Parks & Preserves of Ohio
We visited Kiser Lake State Park in Champaign County at the end of May. The park features a 396 acre lake man-made lake. Originally a moraine valley created during the ice age, the lake was formed when a dam was built on Mosquito Creek at one end of the valley.
The Galena Village Administrator, Jeanna Burrell, recently contacted me about a new nature club that is forming in central Ohio. If you are unfamiliar with the Village of Galena, it is in Delaware County at the northern end of Ohio’s Hoover Reservoir; this is the reservoir which supplies drinking water for our state’s capital, Columbus. Galena is also home to the Hoover Mudflats Boardwalk which we’ve written about on a number of occassions. Galena is an especially good site for bird watching; it’s attractions include:
Mineral, Moonville, Hope — all were towns active in Ohio’s mining and iron manufacturing industries during the 19th century. They were connected by the Moonville rail line which passed through two long tunnels on the way to the iron furnace at Hope.
The towns are long gone, as is the rail line, but the two tunnels remain and can be found in the Zaleski State Forest. The more famous of the two is the Moonville Tunnel which is the subject of numerous ghostly tales. We visited the Moonville Tunnel last year and wrote about it just before Halloween. Recently, we visited its less famous, but equally interesting cousin, the King’s Hollow Tunnel (also known as “Mineral Tunnel”, “King’s Switch Tunnel”, and “King’s Tunnel”)
Continue reading “Zaleski State Forest: King’s Hollow Tunnel”
When I entered information for Holden Arboretum into our on-line guide, I was impressed by the size of this Lake County arboretum – 3,600 acres (14.6 km²) with 19 miles (30.6 km) of trails. I added it to my must-see list. Would it live up to its statistics?
In mid-May, we visited Holden Arboretum. I’ll spare you the suspense, my only regret about my visit, is that I didn’t have a lot more time to explore this wonderful place.
In the spring we published a post describing Gallagher Fen State Nature Preserve in Clark County, Ohio. Since that publication, we learned that the preserve has an impressive variety of summer flowers. To view these we returned on June 29th and on August 11th of this year and took photos of many of the flowers that we saw. The photos can be seen below with the date each was taken in the caption to give some idea of when the flower is in bloom.
As the preserve’s name suggests, it contains something called a fen. A fen is a type of wetland in which the cold, alkaline water bubbles to the surface from an underground aquifer. Among the flowers below there are a few that are peculiar to such a habitat. There are a few more flowers that tend to be found more generally in wetlands, fens or not. However the preserve also contains land that is higher and drier, so most of the flowers found in the preserve that are outside of the fen are species that are widely distributed in Ohio.
Burton Wetlands is a 305 acre preserve in Geauga County whose terrain was shaped by glaciers during the most recent Ice Age. Most notably there are two glacial kettles in the preserve. A glacial kettle forms when a glacier calves over a land surface (that’s when a huge chunk breaks off). As the glacier recedes and the calved ice melts, a lake takes its place. The plants living in and around the glacial kettles of Ohio would normally be found farther north in Canada. They are living remnants of Ohio’s icy past.
When people go out looking for birds, they are birding, while those who are looking for moths are mothing. More amusingly, those who engage in mothing are called mothers; however, the word is often hyphenated as moth-ers to highlight its different meaning and pronunciation.
When we were invited to attend a private mothing event at the Wahkeena Nature Preserve, we decided to give it a try. We really weren’t sure how to go about it or what to expect, but Robyn and Tom of the preserve, as well as our fellow moth-ers, helped introduce us to the world of mothing.
Charleston Falls Preserve is 216 acre park in Miami County that’s perfect for outdoor trips for the whole family. We visited on a cool, but sunny weekend in early May. Many people were taking advantage of the fine weather to admire the scenery or get some exercise while walking their dog.
The Nature Center at Lake Hope State Park is well-known as the place to go if you want to try hand-feeding hummingbirds. This seasonal activity typically begins in July. This year park officials will continue to host the hand-feeding sessions on Thursday through Sunday from 1 to 3 PM until Labor Day.
This was the first time Bob and I had tried hand-feeding hummingbirds, and we both loved it. It is fascinating to watch hummingbirds perform their aerial acrobatics, but it was even more amazing to have these wild, little creatures come right up to us to accept our offerings of nectar. We could feel the wind from their rapid wing beats on our hands.
This post is meant as an aid to snake identification. In addition to posting photos of all the snakes, I try to point out color variations within a species, where the species is found in Ohio, and what the typical length of an adult is. I have tried to group snakes to make it easier to distinguish between similar-looking species.
I focus on the visual characteristics of the snakes; for a more detailed description of the snake (its habitats, behavior, etc.), I have provided links to three sources for each species:
Length: 36-54 inches
Color: yellow to brown background with dark brown or black bands across the back.
Location in Ohio: far south of state; before 1960 it was also seen on islands in western Lake Erie and on the Catawba and Marblehead Peninsulas.
Ohio Division of Wildlife video: Timber Rattlesnake: Scioto County, August 18, 2012