wildlife

Did you know robins were once hunted and eaten by humans?

Hunting earthworms on our lawns or building nests in our shrubbery, robins are so ubiquitous today that we barely give those attractive, red-breasted songbirds a second thought. 

The slaughter began with large mammals — elk and deer in the East, bison in the West. Once those populations were decimated, the professional hunters moved on to waterfowl: ducks, geese, and swans. After those species were depleted, shorebirds were next in line. Smaller than most waterfowl, shorebirds made up for their small size by numbering in the millions. They also decoyed readily and tasted good on the dinner table. 

Last on the list was songbirds.  

It’s the dog days of summer, when the air is close and sultry and the heat oppressive. The nasally drone of insects that go sight unseen comes at you, swarming, rising and falling, lapping like waves that come and go off a lake shore. 

More than 2,400 species of fireflies exist around the globe, including about two dozen that make a home in Ohio. Fireflies, or lightning bugs as some people call them, are not flies at all, but beetles characterized by heavily armored shells over wings. 

When they take to the wing, they move about as though they carry a heavy load; speed through the air is not a defense mechanism. Heck, they advertise their whereabouts, from just above the grass to chest-high to weaving through the treetops, for any would-be predator to swoop in and make them a snack.

Baltimore orioles, such as the adult male on the left and the juvenile at right, migrate through Ohio beginning in late April and early May each year.

Roman Mast’s backyard looks like a bird-feeding test kitchen.

“I have my oriole feeders out by the last week in April,” Mast says. “Through the years, I’ve tried a lot of different foods to attract orioles, including sliced oranges, but my main food now is simply grape jelly.” Orioles and a few other species, such as rose-breasted grosbeaks, gray catbirds, and some warblers, seem to love the stuff. “A red-bellied woodpecker even comes to my jelly feeders occasionally,” Mast says.

There’s a whole network of folks around the state who find and send in photos of Ohio’s largest trees to be posted on Marc DeWerth’s Big Trees Facebook and Instagram feeds — such as the national champion northern catalpa tree in Lawrence County.

Spring comes into full bloom in May.

For DeWerth, it’s a moral imperative. “People need to know about nature,” he says. “We need to look up — there is so much to see and learn in nature. I want youth to understand the significance of Ohio’s trees.”

Burrowing crayfish build mud chimneys — or “castles” — several inches high, giving away their location.

Sometime when you feel like getting outdoors and impressing your young kids/grandkids this spring, tell them this story: Say you’re going to visit a king who lives in a castle. Would they like to come along and meet him?

Known variously as crayfish, crawfish, crawdads, mudbugs, or by many other local names, these crustaceans look like mini freshwater lobsters — and taste like it, too. Crawfish boils in the South (especially in Louisiana, where the clawed critters routinely grow much larger than here in Ohio) are highly anticipated party gatherings.     

Karl Maslowski served as a combat cameraman for the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II. He filmed aircraft and camp life at an airbase in Corsica under famed director Capt. William Wyler. Some of Maslowski’s footage was later used in the 1947 film Thunderbolt!

Like most wildlife photographers of the early 20th century — though there were only a handful — Karl Maslowski was a hunter before he became a photographer.

The answer to his problem, he believed, was acquiring one of those newfangled 16mm movie cameras he had been hearing so much about. “But they were just too expensive, and our family was dirt poor,” Maslowski remembered. Fate, however, sometimes has a way of intervening in such situations.  

Wonderlands of frozen, misty lakes and woods of snow-covered branches are reasons to head outdoors. Between state parks, Metroparks, KOA campgrounds, and more, there are several options for a tent or RV winter getaway. 

Both Charles Mill and Pleasant Hill Lake, two district parks, have campgrounds with RV and tent sites with groomed trails that are perfect for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. To stay warm, “the key is staying dry,” says Andres. He recommends dressing in layers including polar fleece to combat the chill.  

Aldo Leopold, the “Father of Wildlife Management,” described his classic book, A Sand County Almanac, like this: “There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot. These essays are the delights and dilemmas of one who cannot.”  

To conserve and improve fish and wildlife resources and their habitats for sustainable use and appreciation by all. - Mission statement of the Ohio Division of Wildlife

Bibi, mother of the infamous Fiona and Fritz

For her 6th birthday, Cora Stover went to the Cincinnati Zoo’s Hippo Cove exhibit to visit Fiona, her favorite hippopotamus. Cora was born shortly before Fiona and has practically grown up with the remarkably charming and friendly hippo.

Henry

HENRY, FIONA’S FATHER

Birthplace

Had it not been for Ohio’s duck hunters, much of Ohio’s marshland, which is so important to both birding and hunting today, may well have been lost to development.

"There’s a singular reason that some of the best Lake Erie marshes in Ohio have been saved from destruction. One reason, two words: duck hunters. It sounds blunt and oversimplified, but from the viewpoint of wildlife, duck hunters saved the marshes.”

During settlement, the Buckeye State lost an estimated 95% of its original wetlands, much of that the Great Black Swamp, which once covered nearly all of northwestern Ohio and northeastern Indiana. That gigantic region was a haven for wildlife of all sorts — not just waterfowl — as the water slowly drained into the vast marshes that ringed the western edge of Lake Erie from Toledo to Sandusky.