Fall Warbler Migration

With a tradition of spending time hiking in the late summer and early autumn woods it’s not like we haven’t noticed fall migrating warblers in past years, but this is the first year we’ve made a concerted effort to see just how many we can spot as they move through our area making central Ohio home for just a few days as they head…

A Walk In The Woods

Clear Creek Metro Park, about 40 miles southeast of our home in Columbus, is a different world. It is an area where the glaciers of the last ice age stopped their southward advance. It is a world of hills, deep ravines that quietly resonate with the gurgle of small spring streams, imposing hemlock and beech, and spring wildflowers that are hard to find closer…

Trout Lilies

During spring in central Ohio, before the overhead canopy leaf’s out, magic might be found at your feet off well-traveled paths near home. The less often seen yellow. Thanks for stopping by.

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…

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker Takes Up Residence

So far this spring it’s been colder than normal and rainy. Migrating birds and the resident wildflowers that would have enchanted us in the first week of April continue to be illusive. A couple of days ago we returned from a local metro park with just the barest of photographic evidence that spring is actually here. Today, as I write this, snowflakes can be…

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 Close To Home

We do a fair amount of exploring of natural areas farther afield. Recently an unexpected development brought us back to Ohio from warm and sunny Florida a month ahead of schedule. Burr!!! Our trip south each winter is a real treat as we spend almost all of our time outdoors, hiking, canoeing, and photographing critters we see. *** A couple of days after our…

A Moment of Magic

The central Ohio winter landscape seldom beckons with snow draped conifers or the flowing design of a meandering creek through a landscape blanketed in white. Still, if one looks closely there is beauty. “Flowers” in a season when there are none. *** For several days temperatures struggled to get out of the teens. *** Yesterday it finally warmed into the thirties. Even though our…

Autumn On Griggs Reservoir

By mid to late October in central Ohio, should we be blessed with a nice day, we wonder if it might be the season’s last opportunity for an enjoyable paddle. It’s true that on days with little wind, if colder temperatures can be tolerated, one can usually paddle through December on Griggs Reservoir. But once the trees and leaves part company, the landscape takes…