Lily Pads and Dragonflies

We remembered from past visits that Kiser Lake, about an hour and a half drive west of our home in Columbus, had a lot of lily pads. Consistent with our experience in previous years as summer moved from July into August, we found ourselves increasingly enamored with our insect friends, particularly dragonflies and butterflies. What better spot to look for dragonflies than a lake…

Migrating Into Spring

For some living things it is a migration through time that ushers in their seemingly too brief visit each spring. For others it’s a journey through both time and space. In each case April brings “magic” to the central Ohio woods and meadows. It’s a time of beauty in small things as the grander landscape has just begun to put on its coat of…

Spring Walk

Despite a colder than normal spring with some trees showing just a hint of green, the longer days and the now more persuasive rays of the sun continue their call for nature to awake. Recently our walks in the wooded areas of local city parks have carried with them the unavoidable expectation of the season. Sometimes with the expectation of the season comes the…

Whisper Of Spring

On some days in early spring the whisper of life is not heard above the howl of wind through still bare branches of waking trees. A warm embrace under sunny blue skies one day turns into a gray freezing flurried rebuff the next. With it’s fits and starts spring makes doubters of us all. The woods do not yet invite. A stark barren seemingly…

Wonder Of Change

Along the path a spot where water collects is now a puddle of autumn’s amber leaves. A few months ago, as cliff swallows collected material for their nests, it was place for spring rain, mud, and new life. . Yesterday, as we walked, it was quiet, nothing competing with the small voice of a chickadee in a nearby tree, while along the path, the…

August Ramble

In August insects catch our attention more often than birds. Compared to the frenzied activity of spring it can seem very quiet unless you look closely. In some ways feeling a bit like the “dead of winter” except that it’s summer. During a recent visit to Prairie Oaks Metro Park it was hard not to notice the toll that a few weeks of dry…

Measuring Wealth

Certainly not an original thought, but most would say that if you have your health, enough resources to ensure adequate food and shelter, some leisure time when you are not dealing with “resources”, and good friends with whom you enjoy sharing life’s adventure, additional wealth is probably not going to contribute to life’s meaning or happiness. It also doesn’t hurt to have a curiosity…

A Quiet Voice

One of the wetlands in Prairie Oaks Metro Park, a park located not far from our home, is easy to pass right by as you drive into the west entrance. Unlike the grand vistas of Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon that overwhelm one’s senses making it hard to look away, wetlands speak with a quiet “voice”. A voice that can only be “heard” if…

With A Little Help From . . .

We are blessed to enjoy nature and this usually results in not being around a lot of people. A perfect combination for these times. Spring is the season of new life whether it be the young leaves and flowers of a buckeye tree, or the sometimes almost frantic activity of nesting and migrating birds. One day last week, along a wooded park road at…

They Eat Skunk???

This was supposed to be a post about spring wildflowers and migrating warblers but the other day, while I was bicycling with a friend, my wife was busy exploring the park near our home. What she discovered goes against everything I would have thought possible. . A Red Tailed hawk eating a skunk! . I case there are any doubters, “Maybe it was someone’s…