ABX Air will host the Ohio Native Reptile and Amphibian Exhibit on Saturday, July 19, at the Trailhead Pavilion from 10am to 5 pm. The Lytle Creek league joins ABX Air in sponsoring the event. Other co-sponsors include the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and Southern State Community College.
Coordinator Eric Davenport of the ABX Air Environmental Group said this exhibition is probably the largest exhibition of live specimens of reptiles and amphibians in the state of Ohio. “We have 21 species lined up already and I expect we will add many more by show time,” said Davenport. The specimens include salamanders, toads, frogs, lizards, turtles and snakes.
“We will definitely have an eastern timber rattlesnake and a copperhead,” Davenport said. “We think it is important for kids to be able to tell poisonous snakes from the harmless species that provide important ecological services.” It is particularly important to be able to identify a rattlesnake’s warning sound. “Believe me,” said Davenport, “Once you hear that buzz, you never forget it.”
All specimens will be properly enclosed and handled by experts who have volunteered their time for the exhibition.
The static exhibits will all be in the vicinity of the pavilion, but there will also be activities spaced out along the Greenway trail. Bob Thobaben is planning exercises showing how herpetologists carry out field work. Included will be opportunities to check out your identification skills.
Lori Williams said that the No Child Left Indoors group is planning a “toad house” program for kids. “We will have all the materials on hand for the kids to make their own toad houses that they can take home with them..” Lori said. “It’s a great way to get them started on nature study and a general interest in the outdoors.”
For further information, contact Eric Davenport at 937-366-2493. Don’t forget sunscreen and water and join us for something completely different.
No Child Left Indoors receives $10K Grant
Lori Williams recently announced that the No Child Left Indoors program has received an anonymous gift of $10,000 to support its activities. The grant came as the result of a number of speaking engagements over the winter outlining the ideas of Richard Louv.
Louv’s book The Last Child in the Woods is the point of departure for what has become a nationwide grass roots movement to get children back into the natural world. Clinton County’s No Child Left Indoors program, like others all across the country, sprang spontaneously from the passion of local people for Louv’s book. Louv points out that major societal shifts with respect to children’s activities and education have acted to isolate children from nature. Consequently, children tend to grow up with the attitude that the natural world is sinister and dangerous. Louv calls this a nature-deficit disorder.
The No Child Left Indoors program supports activities that promote a personal relationship between the child and the natural world, so the child perceives its environment as, well, natural.
If you would like to get involved with this program, call Lori Williams at 382-3682.
A Message from our leader . . .
A PATH RUNS ALONG IT
A great river is a collection of its tributaries. Some have rail beds along them. A precious few of these can provide an almost continuous corridor of trees, water, and solitude accessible to everyone. They have the potential to form linear parks which can protect a vestige of what once was a vast forest. If realized, these possible recreational areas can increase quality of life for countless people, plants, fishes and animals.
In such a favored position is Lytle Creek which begins under the old Clinton County Air Base, now the US hub of the DHL world-wide overnight delivery service. The creek then meanders through the Wilmington College Campus and the City of Wilmington to a relatively pristine Todd’s Fork which flows into the State and National Scenic Little Miami River at Morrow, Ohio. Along this twenty-five mile water course, runs the abandoned rail bed of the former Pennsylvania Railroad. This right-of-way is being slowly converted to a bike, horse and nature path by the Clinton County Rails-to-Trails Coalition. This effort is assisted by Clinton County Open Lands, which certifies tax credit conservation easements, and the Lytle Creek League of Conservators whose mission is to help obtain environmental designation as an exceptional warm water habitat, as well as a tributary extension of the Little Miami River, a designated State and National Scenic River. Also the League has been working for the past five years to assist county, city, college, and private citizens to dedicate portions of the Lytle Creek corridor to bike paths, equestrian trails or nature foot paths.
—Roy Joe Stuckey
Board acts to establish annual Lytle Creek Day
The Board of Directors of the Lytle Creek League of Conservators met at the Trailhead Pavilion on June 10. The principal order of business was to establish the first Saturday in October as the annual Lytle Creek Day. The board took this action in view of the positive response to the Lytle Creek Day we held last year and to fall activities in previous years. By setting this weekend as a recurring date, we hope to establish it as a custom in the minds of residents of Wilmington and Clinton County and to facilitate planning.
Maria Butcher accepted the chairmanship of this year’s event, which will take place on Saturday, October 4, 2008. If you would like to help out, give Maria a call at 383-2265.
In other business, the Board recognized the contributions of Kathy Springsteen and Phil Warner, both of whom were very active in the League and have moved out of the community to take advantage of other opportunities.
The nominating committee offered the following persons for various open positions: Bob Powell for secretary, Tanya Carey for treasurer, and Chris Burns-DiBiasio, Terry Habermehl, and Ron Sexton for open positions on the Board of Directors. All were approved by acclamation and happily all accepted.
The next meeting of the Board will be Tuesday, 8 July, at noon at the Trailhead Pavilion.
Trees planted
Chris Hodgson found some nice trees to enhance the area around the Trailhead Pavilion. Shown here is the intrepid crew from the ABX Air Environmental Group that planted the trees.
There is an old saying to the effect that planting a tree is an act of faith. I suppose that is because the tree almost invariably outlasts the planter. Despite that, it is comforting to think of our great grandchildren playing in the shade of these trees.
Contact Us
We would love to hear from you on just about any topic you can imagine. Contact our President, Roy Joe Stuckey, at 937-728-9887 or on email at rstuckey1@earthlink.net, or our secretary, Bob Powell, at 382-3557 or rdp1710@gmail.com. We also have a web page at lclc.wordpress.com
The Lytle Creek League of Conservators is a not-for-profit organization. We do not hold fund-raisers, but gratefully accept donations to further our work. If you would like to make a donation, send a check to The Clinton Foundation, PO Box 831, Wilmington, OH 45177. Indicate on the check that you wish the funds to be credited to LCLC. You may also earmark funds for the No Child Left Indoors program. Donations are fully tax-deductible.
On the trail . . .
Summer Wildflowers
The delicate wildflowers of the spring are gone now. The trilliums, toadshades, jack-in-the-pulpits, Dutchman’s britches, and columbines have completed their cycles. Now is the time of the robust, sun-loving flowers of summer. Most of them are composites, their flowers composed of many (sometimes thousands) of tiny flowers arranged densely into assemblages we commonly accept as flowers. Here is a small collection, mostly found and photographed along the 4‑C bike path.
Daisy Fleabane has many branches, each ending in a small flower, less than an inch across. This is a native species. It is an early colonizer of waste ground, what ecologists call an “early-successional” species.
Contrast the small flower heads of daisy fleabane with the large, robust heads of the ox-eye daisy, often more that two inches across. This is the classic daisy, form which all the florist-shop daisies are descended. Ox-eye daisies love full sun (the name is derived from “day’s eye”).
Next is the familiar Queen Anne’s lace, sometimes called wild carrot or cow parsley. Queen Anne’s lace is one of the best-known wildflowers of our region. It is an import from Europe, one of literally hundreds of alien species brought over by the colonists, who apparently did not find our native wildflowers to their taste. Queen Anne’s lace likes meadows, pastures, and hayfields. It is not a composite despite its densely packed flower heads. The individual pictured is bigger than my hand. Contrast it with similar yarrow, shown below.
The plant my wife is standing under is a wildflower called water hemlock. If you’re thinking about Socrates, you’re right: the juice of this plant flavored his last cocktail. Not all of the members of this family are poison, but it is best not to take chances with any flower that looks like an umbrella.
Here are some more common summer wildflowers that we didn’t have room for in the print edition:
Yarrow is superficially similar to Queen Anne’s lace, but is much smaller and sits on much shorter stems. If in doubt look at the highly divided leaves, from which the flower derives its alternate name mille-foil, or “thousand leaves.”
Black-eyed susans are common and showy, often found with Queen Anne’s lace on road sides and in vacant lots. These are the first yellow-with-a-dark-center composites to appear in the summer. Later on, they may be confused with coneflowers and native sunflowers.
Canada thistle is a wide-spread invasive species. Cabbage white butterflies and American Goldfinches love them, but farmers hate ‘em. They grow in dense clusters, have fibrous stems, and leathery bristly leaves. Few animals, wild or domesticated, use it for forage. In a Scientific American article a couple of years ago, it was hailed as “the perfect weed.”
Milkweed has large showy flowers at this time of the year, but it is best known for its large seed pods in the fall. The pods are full of soft, down-like fluff. During World War II, this down was used as a substitute for kapok, which was not available, in sleeping bags and life vests. This is a tall, fleshy plant, which oozes thick, noxious sap when wounded
-Bob Powell
