On the Trail of Two Wetlands: Event #4

On May 10, I toured the Galbraith Farm with farmer Dan Galbraith and four others, a year after he donated an agricultural conservation easement for the 210-acre farm to the Owl Creek Conservancy to keep the land in farming forever.

Howard Gratz, and Owl Creek Conservancy trustee and avid birdwatcher, led the tour, accompanied by Richard Stallard, a geneticist and Conservancy trustee.  Galbraith enjoyed the tour as much as the rest of us, seeing the diverse plants and abundant wildlife, including birds and toads.

The tour focused on two wetlands on the farm.  Stallard said that the main reason the farm was chosen for the easement was the need for these wetlands to filter out soil and possible attached pollutants before reaching nearby Knox Lake.  Two creeks run through these wetlands and drain into the lake.  Gratz added that Ohio had already lost 90 percent of its wetlands, having drained them for farming and other development.  Besides filtering out pollutants, wetlands reduce flooding potential and provide habitat for wildlife and plant diversity.

Gratz identified many plants for us as well as many birds by sound, including three types of warblers and a rose-breasted grosbeak, which he said are particularly plentiful this year.   Many of the plants were indicators of wetlands, such as marsh marigold and skunk cabbage.  We also saw jewelweed, nettles, common milkweed, horsetails, willow, elderberries, angelica, spring beauty, yellow violets, white violets, wild blue phlox, ferns, ramps, Dutchman’s breeches, wild geranium, false Solomon’s seal, and meadow rue.

A wooded area connecting the two wetlands had an airy feeling and consisted of numerous trees, including black cherry, sycamore, ash, and oak.

The tour of the Galbraith Farm was the fourth event in the “13^th Annual Explore Knox Nature” series, which began with the Earth Day festival at Kenyon College on April 6.   There will be one or two events every month through December.  The next event will be at 2 p.m. on May 25, at the Mission Oak Gardens in Zanesville, where I’m told we’ll meet another amazing man, who did his own urban renewal project by turning his neighborhood from littered lots to wondrous public gardens.

For more information on the “Explore Knox Nature” series and the Conservancy, go to:  www.owlcreekconservancy.org.

One of three American toads that delighted us on tour.  (Photo by Don Comis)

This toad charmed us.  (Photo by Don Comis)

We were treated to a great display of marsh marigolds in a wetland on the Galbraith Farm.  (Photo by Don Comis)

Birds, Blooms, and Butterflies

We have to be patient waiting for spring.  These red-winged blackbirds were only babes in a pond in Gambier, Ohio, on July 6, 2013.  I admit they were probably a second brood since red-winged blackbird males  are here in late February and the females arrive in early March.  (Photo by Don Comis)

I was looking at an article in last spring's Birds & Bloom magazine and got inspired to start my own list of my favorite signs of spring, mostly in order as I've seen them so far this year:


1.  A red-winged blackbird coming to my feeders.  (Feb. 23 two years in a row.)
2.  Northern robins visiting my feeders or coming to other yards.  (Feb.23 this year, Feb. 9 last year)
3.  Male house sparrow checking out my bluebird houses.  (This year: Feb. 24, Feb. 22, and a day or so earlier.)
4.  Skunk cabbage sprouting.  (I haven't looked for this but Jim McCormac's blog notes he always sees this in either the first or second week of February, and saw them well along in his yard when he checked on February 22.)


But heck, why limit signs of springs to birds and blooms?  Why not butterflies.  I haven't looked for or seen any yet but I have an e-mail report from a Virginia-Maryland group of a sighting of a mourning cloak butterfly.  I think this is the earliest butterfly in both those states and in Ohio.


I also got an e-mail from an Ohio bird group that reported seeing a lot of robins flying in a mixed flock of blackbirds and others.  I know on my drive to Westerville, Ohio, today I saw a lot of medium-sized bird flocks in the air, too far for me to identify.  With the snow flurries today and increasing cold, I can see why birds would be on the move and flocking together.