How to Protect Your Land and Community Forever

Richard Stallard (far right) and Howard Gratz (middle) pass around plants during a tour of wetlands on Dan Galbraith's (in green jacket) land .  Galbraith donated conservation easements on 410 acres in an area that provides drinking water fro more than 40 percent of the people of Knox County, Ohio.  Stallard is vice president for land protection for the Owl Creek Conservancy, which acquired the easements.  Gratz, a former Conservancy trustee, is now a board adviser and volunteer easement monitor.  (Photo by Don Comis) 

Where do you go to if you'd like to protect all or part of your land or land in your neighborhood from development?  A land trust organization.

In the United States, you can find the organizations that are in your county by going to the Land Trust Alliance' wesbsite .  Click on "Find a Land Trust" and you get a map.  Click on your state and then your county and you'll find the land trusts in your county.

For example, in my current county of Knox, Ohio, there are two land trusts:  the Owl Creek Conservancy and the Philander Chase Corporation.   I joined the Owl Creek Conservancy.  Their recent 2014 annual report says that between July 1, 2013 and June 30, 2014, the organization worked with two landowners to complete seven conservation easements totaling 719 acres, more than another square mile of land conserved since their last annual meeting.''

Each of the landowners donated the easements in honor of a deceased loved one.  The report also cites a partnership with Kenyon College's Philander Chase Corporation to include a local 386-acre farm in the state's agricultural easement purchase program.

The report also states that since the Owl Creek Conservancy's founding in 2000, the private nonprofit organization has focused special effort on conserving land northwest of the City of Mount Vernon.  The report says that, "In addition to being prime farmland, that area is the site of the large aquifer recharge, providing drinking water for more than 40% of the population of Knox County...Five of the seven easements completed since we last met cover 410 acres within this area.  They bring our total in this area to 821 acres."

The report explains that "Conservation easements are in essence plans for the future use of land.  Land owners are legally empowered by our system of property rights to lay such plans in accord with their desires."

As an example of how the easements work, farmer Dan Galbraith granted an easement to protect two wetlands on his land from being farmed.   They are a small area of his land that should not be farmed because the wetlands have many environmental benefits including filtering possible pollutants before they reach waterways and aquifers.  Water from Galbraith's land drains into Knox Lake.


The easement carries forwarded perpetually whenever the land changes hands.

The Owl Creek Conservancy's mission is to work with landowners to conserve "farmlands, stream corridors, aquifer-and watershed-protection areas, wildlife habitats, woodlands, scenic vistas, and ecologically sensitive area of environmental, historic, and community importance."

Sometimes people think that such preservation work is against agriculture, but far from it, they work with farmers who want to preserve farmland and not let it be torn apart for business or housing complexes.

Likewise, the Philander Chase Corporation's mission is to "To preserve and maintain the farmland, open spaces, scenic views, and characteristic landscapes surrounding Kenyon College and Gambier, Ohio."

When I moved to Ohio, I felt I had abandoned my life goal of preserving 25,000-plus acres of federal and other public land where I worked in Maryland .   But, in fact, the people at the Owl Creek Conservancy helped me learn the first step in the process, contacting the land trust organizations in the counties the land sits on.

Now that I'm back in Ohio, I've become similarly protective of the green space where the Mt. Vernon Developmental Center sits, where I once also worked.  I'd hate to see that place close and have its 310 acres of varied natural habitats paved over for more stores or homes.  One of many benefits of preserving green space is also reducing vehicle traffic and Vernonview Road, which passes the Center, is already clogged.

Donating easements or land to the Owl Creek Conservancy or similar land trust not only benefits the community and the environment, but also may bring significant tax breaks to landowners.

Visiting Guy Denny's Ohio Prairie

I finally made it to Guy Denny’s prairie in Fredericktown and boy was it worth it!  A riot of colors, including red cardinal and royal catchfly flowers;  orange/yellow ox-eye daisies;  yellow sunflowers, senna, prairie dock, and compass plant flowers;  pink marsh mallow flowers; white culver’s-root and rattlesnake master flowers;  red-pink  ironweed flower; pink coneflowers and Queen-of-the-Prairie; and tall blue larkspur flowers.

It seemed like each flower had at least one bee on it, not to mention beetles, butterflies, and other pollinators.

Just driving to the parking for the tour was an adventure and thrill, driving a one-lane path a long way off of Route 95.   There I was welcomed by the group, the prairie, and two cats.

Denny created the prairie on one side of the path we walked 10 years ago and the prairie on the other side about 6 years ago, Ray Heithaus said.  Ray, professor emeritus of environmental science and biology at Kenyon College, led the tour, substituting for Denny.   His wife Pat, a retired Kenyon biology instructor, helped the group with plant identification.  Denny retired from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

Ray said that Denny maintains the prairie by annual controlled burning, which involves techniques that lead to a low temperature burn that does not reach underground to plant roots.  Denny does this to keep the trees and shrubs he removed from returning.

Ray set the stage for the tour by explaining the history of prairies in the Midwest and Eastern United States. He said that about 12,000 years ago, glaciers destroyed forests and flattened the land, paving the way for the prairies that awaited the European settlers.

4,000-Year Drought Spreads Prairies to East Coast

Then a 4,000 year dry period kept the forests from re-growing, spreading prairies from the Midwest to the East Coast.  After that Native Americans burned the prairies to prevent them from becoming forests again.

That gave me a better understanding of why the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Maryland, where I worked, found prairie plants sprouting when they stopped mowing certain areas.   And why there was a similar prairie formation in Baltimore, about 25 miles from Beltsville.

Heithaus said that prairies have a symbiotic relationship to people since they need people to periodically burn and clear the land of tree and shrub growth.   And people needed the cleared areas to hunt.   The settlers continued the burning.   Unfortunately their plows ended the symbiotic relationship and destroyed most of the prairies—along with bison and other wildlife.

Jim McCormac, in his July 23 blog says that Ohio has lost more than 99 percent of its original prairies to farming.   He says that all we are left with are “postage stamp-sized museum remnants.”

Heithaus said there are 138 Ohio Nature preserves that need to be managed-- with fire, removing invasive plants, or pesticides-- to preserve original prairie remnants.

Pat gave the gardeners among us practical tips, such as the fact that Queen of the Prairie is hard to grow from seed.  She said Denny has given gardeners seeds of his prairie plants and that he welcomes learning what works as far as getting the seeds to germinate because he is still searching for what works for various seeds.

Heithaus said that Denny’s prairie is eclectic because he obtained his plants from various parts of Ohio including along the Ohio River in Adams County and the Oak Openings Region of Northwest Ohio.  The Oak Openings have a restored oak savanna, in which scattered oak trees grow in grassland.  The Beltsville Agricultural Research Center also restored an oak savanna.

Ray and Pat have experience with creating and maintaining prairies because they have a prairie at the Brown Family Environmental Center at Kenyon and at their home.

We saw two ponds on the tour, one framed by the large pink flowers of marsh mallow.  We also saw a yellow-throated warbler on a bluebird box.

Dearth of Butterflies

The Heithauses said they both have noticed a lack of butterflies in general this year, possibly caused by the cool spring they think also reduced the number of flowers blooming at Denny’s prairie.

I didn’t notice a decrease in blooming because this was my first visit and it was more than colorful enough for me.  Besides the plants mentioned earlier, I remember seeing big bluestem grass, coreopsis, bee balm, tall larkspur, milkweed, and elderberry bushes.  This was the first milkweed I’d seen in a very long time.

I also saw my first Monarch butterfly in a long time.  And we saw a red admiral butterfly, a silver-spotted skipper (a close relative of butterflies), and probably either a meadow or great spangled fritillary butterfly.

Pat said that gardeners could buy prairie plants and seeds at www.prairienursery.com, from which the Brown Center created their wildflower garden and prairie.

This event is part of the 13th annual “Explore the Nature of Knox County” series.   The Owl Creek Conservancy, whose mission is to conserve natural and agricultural areas in Knox County, sponsors the series in collaboration with the Brown Family Environmental Center at Kenyon College, the Knox County Park District, Mission Oaks Gardens in Zanesville, and the Ramser Arboretum near the Village of Jelloway.

Staff of the Brown Center and the Knox Park District will lead the next event , from 1 to 3 p.m. on August 2, meeting at the canoe access area off Laymon Road, near the Brown Center.  Its theme is “Exploring the Kokosing River”.   The description of the event, at the Conservancy’s website  says:  “Wade the Kokosing to discover the diversity of life in our state scenic river and to learn how to measure the river's health.”

Also, check out my website.

Merlin Bird ID App a Slam Dunk for Beginners

Ad in current issue of Birding magazine that has an article evaluating iBird and other bird identification apps.

The American Birding Association (ABA) says that "Merlin Bird ID, a simple and free app, is a slam dunk in every beginning  birder's collection.  Get it onto all your neighbors' smartphones.  And start 'em young--Merlin Bird ID is easy and game-like, so a child can discover a new hobby identifying neighborhood birds."

As I mentioned in my June 25 blog, this app works for iPhone and Android.  To get it, go to "www.merlin.allaboutbirds.org".

In the May-June 2014 issue of ABA's Birding magazine, Diana Doyle says, "The power of its search engine derives not from its simple question key, but from its access to eBird observations--more than 70 million of them, to put this in perspective!  Assuming that any bird a beginner sees has likely been seen by experienced birders in the area, Merlin narrows down the choices from hundreds of possibilities to a few, based on location and date."

In her article she reviews other major field guide apps:  Audubon Birds, iBird Pro, National Geographic Birds, Peterson Birds, Sibley eGuide, and Waite's Guide to Birds of America.  I think she's saying that Waite's Guide is best for advanced birdwatchers.

Also, check out my website.

Chandler Robbins, Father of Ornithology, Still Saving Birds

Red-tailed hawk on its first flight from its nest, symbol of the resurgence of some bird species, especially bald eagles, due to the banning of DDT in 1972.  Chan Robbins' research showed the danger of the pesticide to birds.  (Photo by Don Comis) 

I was thrilled to find Chandler "Chan" Robbins in the August/September 2014 issue of National Wildlife magazine today.

Robbins, "Father of Modern Ornithology", has helped make birdwatching a popular activity. He was the senior author of "The Field Guide to Birds of North America" and was an author of the Golden Guide to Birds of North America.  In 1945, he began work  as a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at Laurel, Maryland.  A website (http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/whatsnew/events/robbins/) devoted to him at his "retirement" in 2005 says that, "In the late 1940s, Chandler’s studies pointed out the deadly effects of DDT on bird populations and led to the 1972 U.S. ban on DDT as a pesticide."

The National Wildlife story describes how Robbins, in 1966, started the North American Breeding Bird Survey to monitor bird populations.  He first tested the techniques on the approximately 25,000 acres the Fish and Wildlife Service and many other agencies--federal and local--share with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Agricultural Research Service in Beltsville, Maryland.

The article also mentions his research on forest fragmentation , the idea that development can make islands of forests too small to support certain bird species.

When I worked as a science writer for the USDA in Beltsville, I interviewed Robbins twice for a story on wildlife on those 25,000 acres, a couple of years before his official retirment.

The first interview didn't go so well, partly because I was just beginning my birdwatching hobby.  But the second interview was astounding.  Robbins was nearing retirement then and I think forgot our appointment the day he got back from vacation.

As a result, he was in a more contemplative mood, and all I had to do was listen and take notes as he reminisced about his long career.  He held the same job and lived in the same house nearby all these years.  I found out from the magazine article that, although retired, he still goes to his office at times.

As he talked he sadly said he couldn't believe a certain warbler had disappeared in his lifetime.  He's seen the changes in bird populations both from his work and from his bird feeders and observations at home.

Just for the heck of it, I asked him how many birds migrated over the federal lands' where we worked and he had a fairly exact number.  He got that by staying up with his wife all night and counting silhouettes flying across a full moon.  He watched through a telescope through a grid for counting.

Unfortunately, the powers that be decided to cut two-thirds of my article, including all of the Robbins stuff, because it didn't fit the magazine's emphasis on research, especially present-day research, they felt.  But Robbins and other scientists had cleared the entire article for accuracy.

The remnant article can be seen at:  http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/oct03/farm1003.pdf.  It at least gives a hint of the value of this land mass and its historical contributions to the conservation movement.

When I find the full article I'll make it avaialble on this site and on my website at www.doncomis.simplesite.com.  And I'll highlight the Robbins section which I think is precious because it contains Robbins' thoughts, as well as a mention of other scientists in the Beltsville-Laurel area who developed the island fragmentation concept with experiments on the 25,000 acre "Green Wedge" in the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. corridor.

The more I think about it, Robbins is also the Father of Modern Citizen Science.  Not only does he rely on volunteers for the Breeding Bird Survey, but he and his father go way back as participants in the Audubon Christmas Bird Count.

Butterfly Workshop Turns Bioblitz

Caterpillar strategically waits on dogbane plant for dogbane beetle to prey on.  (Photo by Don Comis)

Dogbane beetle blissfully unaware that this might be his last meal of dogbane.  (Photo by Don Comis) 

Even mating of butterflies is exposed when Jim McCormac leads a field trip.  (Photo by Don Comis)

This young northern leopard frog is actually one of the bigger-sized creatures unearthed on a recent field trip.  (Photo by Don Comis) 

The sping peeper is definitely not the smallest creature found on the July 12 wetland field trip.  (Photo by Don Comis) 

I don't know how this moth gets any sleep, unless it was sleeping when we found it.  I've photographed  this same moth at about 1 in the morning in my yard!  (Photo by Don Comis)

The pondhawk dragonfly looks small and weak when held by Jim McCormac, but it is a big fierce hunter that kills other dragonflies when it's free.  McCormac rescued this pondhawk from a spider and let it go unharmed.  It did bite McCormac, though.  (Photo by Don Comis)

Jim McCormac points out a plant on a field trip he led for the Midwest Native Plant Society's butterfly workshop on July 12.  (Photo by Don Comis) 

A butterfly workshop complete with field trips led by Jim McCormac  and Jeff Belth, author of "Butterflies of Indiana", was an eye-opener for the crowd of about 150 people who came to Caesar Creek Lake in Waynesville, Ohio, to participate.  The workshop was sponsored by the Midwest Native Plant Society.

We never walked far because McCormac or someone else in the group would spot an insect or a plant or a bird. McCormac showed us a baby katydid nestled in a fleabane plant, three dogbane beetles and a fuzzy white Tiger Moth caterpillar on dogbane plants--waiting to eat a dogbane beetle-- a monarch butterfly that was likely laying eggs in milkweed plants, a rare comet darner dragonfly, a white “albino” plant, a young northern leopard frog, a spring peeper, a gall on a plant harboring a gall fly grub, buttonbushes in bloom, a potter wasp, a golden digger wasp….well, you get the idea.

Of course he pointed out many different butterflies, dragonflies and damselflies and at least one day-flying moth and several birds. He enjoyed seeing a yellow-breasted chat bird  [www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chat_(bird] constantly re-appear and pose for us. This was the first time I even knew this bird existed.

Besides the albino plant, he spotted another plant anomaly—foxtail sedge with both male and female plant parts. The normal sedge has separate male and female plants for reproduction.

He also heard things I would have missed, like the singing of tiny crickets, the cry of a red-shouldered hawk, and the call of a willow flycatcher bird.

Later the two wetland groups met and merged so now we had Belth with us too. And boy did that ever give us more of a peek into the hidden world outdoors. His most amazing find was the tiny egg of a butterfly, placed near the edge of a leaf blade, so small I couldn’t see it at all until one of our group loaned me a 10-power magnifying lens! Then I saw it was a beautiful little green gem ball with ribbed lines, like a watermelon several times smaller than a green pea.

Murder and Mayhem Right Under Our Noses

On the trip the leaders pointed out many scenes of violence: an aging blue darner dragon fly eating prey, a pearl crescent butterfly carried off by maybe a robber fly, and an Eastern kingbird waiting to catch dragonflies patrolling the lake for their own prey.

McCormac spotted one assault that put us in the moral dilemma of whether to interfere with Nature—he saw a pondhawk dragonfly caught in a spider web, with the spider approaching to wrap up his snack, dead or alive. We voted with McCormac so he rescued the pondhawk, holding him gently for us to take photos first. It was a fair deal and the pondhawk was now free now to wreak violence on his fellow dragonflies.

One participant told me her main interest in observing moths is to learn what goes on at night in her yard while she sleeps. We all learned more about the mayhem that is part of the wild but wonderful world out there.

Or, to paraphrase what Bleth said in his earlier talk, “I hope more people get outside and realize that there are small things out there that really do run the world.”

For a longer version of this blog, check out my "Daily Nature Blog" on my website.

The Exquisite Moths of Mothapalooza

 

This is one of three photos I've taken that show moths that match or closely match those shown in photos posted by Jim McCormac on his blog, after his recent "Mothapalooza" weekend.  But I haven't seen moths as colorful as he has!  (Photo by Don Comis)

 

On his blogsite, Jim McCormac, a wildlife biologist for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, has fantastic photographs of moths taken at his annual Mothapalooza weekend, held the last weekend of June this year.

Although I'm on a moth kick too, and learned recently that moths aren't as dull as they seem, I still find some of his moth photos unbelievable, especially the giant leopard moth shown on his July 4th blog.  Originally I though the moth had yellow eyes like jewels, but I read closer tonight and realized the yellow is a form of bleeding the moth does when attacked, to deter predators.  Jim's crew pushed on the moth's thorax to induce the bleeding defense, but no moths were harmed in this production!

I hope to go to his Mothapalooza some year.   I just ordered a mercury vapor bulb to better equip myself for National Moth Week, July 19-27, although my porch lights already give me more moths than I can handle.  I'll try to observe moths for at least an hour each of those nine nights.

That's the easiest part, although it can wreck my day life and chores.  The hard part is submitting all those photos for identification.  Lately I've been sending one photo a night to three websites for identification:  www.butterfliesandmoths.org, www.projectnoah.org, and www.iNaturalist.org.  And those photos were all taken in June or earlier!

I think all three sites are linked to National Moth Week so a submission to any of them gets in the National Moth Week count.

I used to send my photos only to "butterflies and moths", but I haven't got any identified in a while, so I decided to try the other two sites--but I haven't gotten any id's there either.  I think my problem with "butterflies and moths" is just temporary and local, but I suspect that Project Noah and iNaturalist participants rarely get quick identifications, at least not for moths, a creature with far fewer fans than butterflies.  My "butterflies and moths" sightings used to get a response from a regional expert sometimes in less than an hour and rarely in more than three days.

But Project Noah and iNaturalist are still promising sites for other reasons.  iNaturalist has a smartphone app and both sites seem to share my "crazy" idea of documenting every living creature we see wherever we are, including plants.  So I have to love them.

I joined Project Noah when I found out that the Mothapalooza crew would submit its photos of species found to Project Noah.   In fact, tonight I noticed that some of those photos are already posted there and can be found by searching "Mothapalooza Lodge" under "Organisms".  Naturally the participants can't resist sending in photos of all other living things they saw at the Mothapalooza headquartered at a lodge in Burr Oak State Park.

I get a lot of ideas from Jim McCormac's blog and I tend to want to copy his equipment.  Someday I'll get a true macro lens and I hope to get his recommendation on that if I make it to the Midwest Native Plant Society's butterfly workshop on July 12, where McCormac will be. 

I learned from his recent blog that his smartphone is an iPhone 5S and he likes its camera and video features.  I'm overdue for my first smartphone and I think some young people I've talked to were recommending this iPhone model as well ;o)


Other links:

http://insects.about.com/od/entomologytools/ss/How-To-Build-Your-Own-Mercury-Vapor-Light-Setup.htm  (This site taught me I could get by with a 160-watt self-ballasted clear mercury vapor bulb
bought at an online bulb supply store for $25 and a clamp light with a ceramic bulb socket, rated for higher than the bulb wattage.  The guy at that site bought a 300-watt clamp light for $15 at his local big box store, which for me would be Lowe's or Walmart.  He clamps the light to an old camera tripod and secures it with zip ties.  Until I get my camera tripods back from Maryland, I'll probably use a shepherd's hook to clamp to and secure that with zip ties.)

http://www.bioquip.com/  (I decided to order my bulb from this company for convenience, even though it cost me about $50.  I also liked being able to order UV safety glasses from this company with my bulb order, for about $10, just in case looking at the mercury vapor light could hurt my eyes.. We'll see if I get it in time for National Moth Week.)

 

This is the second moth I've photographed that resembles one on Jim McCormac's recent blogs.  I'm waiting for identification of this one, but am pretty sure it's a grass-vaneer moth and may be the Pasture Grass-veneer, Crambus saltuellus shown on his blog.  I had one of my earlier moth photographs identified as this moth.  As McCormac says, this moth is so little it can easily be overlooked, but it's worth a closer look.  (Photo by Don Comis)

 

This is the third moth I've photographed that matches one on McCormac's recent blogs.  I had this one identified so I know it's the same moth species,  The Beggar, Eubapha mendica.  (Photo by Don Comis)

(Also check out my website.)

Mission Oaks Gardens: Green Space for All

Mighty Gardens from Little Yards Grow



After visiting the Chelsea Flower Show in London in 1990, Susan Hendley made the “mistake” of telling her husband Bert that they should have a garden of their own at the home in Zanesville they had recently bought and renovated.



As Susan says, “This is his idea of a garden,” referring to present day Mission Oaks Gardens--more than 5 acres filled with hundreds of trees—including 200 kinds of conifers and 25 kinds of magnolia—1,200 varieties of perennials, two ponds, a spectacular rocky waterfall, a bog garden, and numerous azaleas and rhododendrons, just to mention some of the attractions.



The Hendleys formed the non-profit Mission Oaks Gardens Foundation to operate the Gardens as a community education garden getting more children and their parents outdoors. In 2010, they donated the Gardens to the Muskingum Valley Park District, with the Foundation doing the day-to-day operations. The gardens are now protected forever as green space and open to the public from dawn to dusk seven days a week.



They named the Gardens for the Mission Revival style of their 1920s era home and the mature white oaks in a ravine behind their house.



The name also reminds that the gardens have a mission. As Bert says, it is to preserve green space and introduce the public to plants they may not be familiar with, those not typically available at garden centers and those not thought to grow well in central Ohio. Susan adds that the mission is also to show the importance of parks to families, giving children a chance for outdoor recreation.



One of the secrets to Bert’s success it that he joins garden societies dedicated to each plant he wants to learn more about, including ivy, hosta, conifer, rhododendron, azalea, and holly.



There are three sections to the Gardens: a 1 ½ acre conifer garden with 300 trees—many not native to North America—and a large pond and a spectacular rock waterfall; a 1/4 -acre perennial garden with the classic color chart arrangement, from red to blue; and a 2-acre woodland garden.



The Gardens have so many plants and varieties, I can hardly do them justice as a beginning gardener—starting with the rhododendrons and azaleas near the entrance and on to serviceberry, magnolia, holly, maple, persimmon, dogwood, buckeye, and evergreen trees, to hellebores and primrose. They include unusual weeping versions of familiar trees, like redbud and cypress. Bert plans to add more native plants in the future.



Along with almost every plant you get a story relating to things like the variety’s origins and even Bert’s recipe for an organic fertilizer for rhododendron along with the advice to plant container-grown rhododendron a bit above ground and then cover with pine bark mulch.

 

But his main advice, offered repeatedly and pointedly on a tour I took on May 25, was that you’ll never know what will work in your garden unless you try it. He’s found success with many plants that were said not to be hardy enough to survive in Ohio.



The Gardens grew over time as properties came up for sale. He bought one such property, which included a dump. To clear it, Bert had to cart away over 50 dump loads of everything from refrigerators to invasive plants. But he found that the clay shards from a former manufacturer of decorative tiles provided the perfect drainage for part of the conifer garden, which includes conifers from a wide range of areas, including China, Japan, and Korea. He found that many of these conifers don't mind Ohio's cold winters, as long as they can keep their "feet" dry.



The sight of what he did with that property caused an adjacent neighbor to offer the use of some of her land for the gardens. Then an estate sale gave the Park District the chance to buy another property. And, a neighbor leaving town sold his property to the Park District. That land had auto parts buried by a mechanic in the 1930s, near a large sewer ditch. The Mayor of Zanesville at the time made a deal with Bert--if he paid for the pipes the town would install them since it would help keep Zanesville's waterways clean. It took Bert six months to clean the area of car parts and invasive plants, with care taken not to disturb the natural terrain.


Bert admires what Karen Buchwald of the Ariel Corporation does for Mt. Vernon, such as expanding Foundation Park and believes that this gives Mt. Vernon an edge over many other small towns without such great parks--an edge he hopes Zanesville also has with the Mission Oaks Gardens.



The tour of the Mission Oaks Gardens was the fifth event in the “13th Annual Explore the Nature of Knox County” series. I went to the sixth event, the Brown Family Environmental Center’s “Frogs and Tadpoles Family Adventure Day”, at Kenyon College, in Gambier, Ohio, on July 5. Anyone doubting the value of parks to families should take a look at some of the photos I took that day.



The Brown Center collaborates in the series, along with the Knox County Park District, Mission Oaks Gardens, and the Ramser Arboretum. The next event will be at 10 a.m. on July 26, at the Guy Denny wildflower prairie in Fredericktown.



Denny is an advisor to the Owl Creek Conservancy, which sponsors the series, and shares the Mission Oaks Gardens goal of preserving green space.



For more information on the Mission Oaks Gardens go to http://missionoaksgardens.org. For information on the “Explore the Nature of Knox County” series and the Owl Creek Conservancy, go to: www.owlcreekconservancy.org.

Also check out my website:  www.doncomis.simplesite.com.

Bert Hendley shows our tour group one of the many scenic spots at the Mission Oaks Gardens, a treasure he has donated to the public, forever.  (Photo by Don Comis)

Bert Hendley points out some trees to a group touring as part of the "13th Annual Explore the Nature of Knox County" series.  (Photo by Don Comis)

Bert Hendley points out the residential neighborhood the Mission Oaks Gardens sits in the midst of, something rare for showy gardens.  (Photo by Don Comis)

You can get an idea of Bert's friendly, thoughtful manner, as he leads of tour of Mission Oaks Gardens, in Zanesville, Ohio.  (Photo by Don Comis)
 

 

Bert Hendley talks to his dog (hidden in shade in far right), as well as to  plants.  (Photo by Don Comis)

Richard Stallard, Owl Creek Conservancy trustee and retired Kenyon College professor, (wearing black hat, far left) listens, along with others on tour, to Bert Hendley near the Hendleys home at the entrance to Mission Oaks Gardens.  (Photo by Don Comis)

Before the tour begins, Stallard talks with landowner who came to learn more about the rights and responsibilities involved in granting easements to conservancy organizations such as the Owl Creek Conservancy.  (Photo by Don Comis)
 

Families Enjoy Green Spaces

Kenyon College student Matti Freiberg engages Kailee Foreman, a regular visitor to the Brown Family Environmental Center at Kenyon, in Gambier, Ohio.  (Photo by Don Comis)

Clay, 11, hunts for water creatures, along

 with  Lindsay Mills  (yellow blouse),

Olivia Mills (blue blouse),

and Hannah Mills (black shirt). 

(Photo by Don Comis)

Watching children circling mini-ponds and excitedly bringing back their hand nets full of snails, tadpoles, beetles, larvae, and a spider--along with sightings of  a green frog and a turtle--makes you realize the value of natural areas to families.

Proud mothers and a father and a grandmother shared in the childrens' excitement at their finds as they emptied their nets into water in a bin for temporary storage before release.

The excitement and interest level was written in the faces of some of the younger children like 6-year-ol Emma Parsisson and the older children like Walker Mills, 11.   Walker yelled that he had seen a turtle and enjoyed seeing both the turtle and the adult frogs he couldn't net.

But his net and that of the other children ended up filling the bin with a tree frog tadpole, a bullfrog tadpole, snails, a "backswimmer" water bug, a "giant water bug', a diving beetle, dragonfly and damselfy nymphs, and a "fishing spider".  Not to be confused with a water strider, the fishing spider is a semi-aquatic spider that uses water like a spider uses a web--to travel on and to sense vibrations of prey, which can include water striders.

The interaction between Kenyon student Matti Freiberg and Kailee Foreman so captures the value of green spaces like that of the Brown Family Environmental Center at Kenyon in Gambier, Ohio, that I couldn't resist this series of closeups, as Kailee amused and amazed me.  (Photos by Don Comis)

 

For a slightly different version, check out my website.

 

Mother Nature Says Happy 4th With Her Own Special (Quiet) Fireworks!

 

I thought some of the flowers in the Apple Valley Memorial Garden looked like fireworks, especially the ones in this first photo, and the last two photos.  I'll post the others below:

 

 

 

 

Photos by Don Comis.

 

Note:  The only flowers whose names I know in these photos are salvia (blue flowers on narrow stalk, in fourth photo from top), poppies (red flowers in fifth photo from top), and lemon lilies (in same photo as poppies).

Wishing for Milkweed-Clover Honey

I felt bad—or at least nostalgic for better environmental conditions in years past—reading Hal Borland’s Nature note for July 2 in his book “Twelve Moons of the Year”.   (See my blog for July 1.) Borland describes patches of milkweed so large in the countryside that you could smell it.  He says it and clover smelled like the honey that bees would make from it.  I believe he wrote that note in the 1940s.

This reminded me that bees are another creature that benefits from milkweed.

Sadly, born in 1948, I haven’t smelled a big patch of milkweed in my lifetime—and the chances have greatly diminished in recent decades.  I remember raising a Monarch butterfly caterpillar, around the late 1990s, and how hard it was to find enough milkweed to give the caterpillar its daily needs for milkweed leaves.

At least we’re still “in the clover”.   Borland confirms my observations recently that clover types grow at different heights:  The white clover on some lawns grows very low, thankfully; red clover grows fairly tall.

I read an article in a recent Columbus Dispatch newspaper article saying that white clover on lawns has gotten a bad rap over the years.  The writer likes it because it attracts bees, makes nitrogen fertilizer for lawns, and reminds her of her youthful days enjoying a rest on a clover-laden lawn.

We have white clover on our lawn—the only “weed” there I’m proud of—and I see red clover in the vacant lots along Ridgeland Drive and in the “wildflower oasis” at the far edge of the Clubhouse area meadow that fronts Apple Valley Drive.  But I don't know why it's called red clover when it looks very purple to me.

And I do relive my childhood when our toy poodle, Friendly, "forces" me to rest on our lawn with him!

"Buck Moon" July Opens With a Bang

Welcome to July's "Buck Moon"

Illustration from "Twelve Moons of the Year"

"BUCK MOON
A baffler, but perhaps because
buck deer were fat and their meat
could be quickly dried in the
hot July sun."--from Hal Borland's "Twelve Moons of the Year"

Reading John Switzer every Sunday in the Columbus Dispatch got me to borrow a copy of Hal Borland's "Twelve Moons of the Year" from the library and eventually to buy it.  Switzer refers each month to the name for that month's moon, given by Native Americans or early settlers.

The "Twelve Moons of the Year" is a compilation of Borland's nature editorials in The New York Times newspaper.  What I like about the book is that he breaks it down by days of the month, so you can keep it alongside another book you're reading and just read--and re-read--a page or two a day--and re-read it all over again the next year, and the next...

I've been keeping that book and Aldo Leopold's "Sand County Almanac" and the Farmer's Almanac in a stack on our coffee table.  To be honest, I tend only to read Borland's book lately because I can take it in smaller segments than Leopold's book and I don't fully trust the Almanac, especially after this past winter!

I do like the Almanac's astronomy section, though.  It tells you about a year in advance about celestial events that are on schedule, while TV news tells you abou a week in advance.  The main one I look for is the Perseid meteor shower in August, although the almanac says the shower on August 11 will be ruined by moon's light since it comes closest to earth this year on August 10.  Last August I saw a shooting star every two minutes or so.

Tonight is a wild Nature night, showing that Nature is more powerful and entertaining than any July 4th fireworks show.  While I was watching fireflies tonight, the sky kept lighting up like fireworks, but everywhere--due to heat lightning.  We had a very hot and humid day.  And as I type this thunder is making threatening sounds and vibrations, more thrilling than the sound of fireworks--and a lot scarier!

And the seeming failure of the Perseid meteor shower this August, the most reliable of the shooting stars show, proves to me once again that fireflies beat meteor showers as well as fireworks!

 

Illustration from "Twelve Moons of the Year".