Two Really Big Shows in March in Ohio

Illustration of woodcock's "Sky Dance" from Aldo Leopold's "Sand County Almanac".

Soon, I hope to visit this vernal pool often, hoping to see migrations of spotted salamanders and other amphibians to the pool from their hibernation areas underground.  They like to lay their eggs in these temporary pools because there aren't fish in them.  This pool is a depression near the Kokosing River that collects snowmelt runoff, helping to prevent flooding of the Kokosing.  (Photographed April 6, 2013, after the migration

After about 45 years, I still remember certain passages from Aldo Leopold's "Sand County Almanac".  One of them is his description of the "Sky Dance" of male woodcocks during mating season, which is April in his native Wisconsin and March in Ohio.

So I was excited to find out last spring that there are woodcocks at the Brown Family Environmental Center at Kenyon College.  I had never seen a woodcock and still haven't, because I forgot they dance in March.  This year I'm remembering.

March also brings the spring migration of spotted salamanders and frogs and other amphibians from their underground hibernation spots to the nearest vernal pool.  I heard this occurs when the first rains of spring falls on a warm morning.   I knew the vernal pond it occurred at on the U.S. Department of Agriculture farm in Maryland where I used to work, and I know a vernal pool at the Brown Center,  but I've never seen that event either, in either state.

I remembered last spring in Ohio but I didn't know that  "warm" can mean about 40 degrees, I thought it meant about 50 degrees.  And I didn't know it might happen in the evening rather than at daybreak.

So I dream of walking through the Brown Center every evening or morning in March.   I know I'll at least make it once a week, starting with March 1 when the Center has its monthly Family Adventure Day, which I always attend anyway!