Woods, Waters & Wildlife

About a year ago, I shared a few true wildlife tales in this column, and I asked readers to send me theirs. Though I received more responses than we have room to share, I wanted to pass along some of the best.

North America’s prairies once stretched from the foothills of the Rocky Mountains east into western Ohio, a staggering 1 million square miles or more of native grasslands that covered a third to nearly half of our country.

But what took millennia to develop disappeared in only half a century. The transformation began in 1833, when John Lane Sr. created the polished-steel, self-scouring plow, which could penetrate heavy prairie soils. A fellow blacksmith then improved upon Lane’s original design and marketed the new plow aggressively. That second blacksmith was John Deere.

Ohio is privileged to have a national park within its borders: Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Lying between Cleveland and Akron, CVNP sprawls over 33,000 acres and is considered an urban/suburban national park — and unlike many national parks, there is no entrance fee.

During the early 1800s, Ohio was the western edge of America’s frontier. A few Native American tribes still remained in the state, but the Indian Removal Act numbered their days. Passed by the U.S. Congress in 1830, the Act required all Indians living on reservations to move west of the Mississippi. The last to leave the Buckeye State were the Wyandot, and the man tasked with making that happen was John Johnston (1774–1861).

Some of the best birding in all of North America takes place in the marshes, seasonal wetlands, and swamp forests bordering western Lake Erie. At the heart of that region sits Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge (ONWR), home to everything from huge trumpeter swans with 8-foot wingspans to tiny, colorful wood warblers weighing mere ounces.

I admit it: I’m hooked on fishing. Like most addicts, I like to believe I can quit at any time — just walk away. But deep down I know that’s not true. We fishermen even have an expression to explain our illness: “The tug is the drug.”

Last April, for instance, I was fishing the Detroit River, which is always cold in early spring. Even though the air temperature was in the low 50s that morning, high winds had 2-foot waves white-capping the 42-degree water, and it felt like winter.

Kelleys Island residents welcome the return each spring of their “feathered tourists” — songbirds, waterfowl, and raptors that pass through on their way to Canada.

So it was a rather obvious decision for the island’s innkeepers to band together to create an event around it. “Nest with the Birds” began in the 1980s as a way to drum up some early-season bookings by offering guided hikes and migration-related programs for birdwatchers.

Ohio, the Buckeye State, was admitted to the Union in 1803, but even 15 years later it remained a very wild place — too wild, in the opinions of some settlers, and they determined to do something about it, frontier style.

By far, the question Kevin and Debbie Kleer hear most this time of year is, “Can reindeer really fly?”

The Kleers run Kleerview Farm near Bellville, Ohio, in southern Richland County, and kids are there with their parents mostly to pick out a Christmas tree and see Santa. The real attraction, however, is the Kleers’ small herd of nine live reindeer — Blitzen, Noel, Belle, Nicholas, Crystal, Jingles, Clarice, Felice, and Cherry — which obviously prompts lots of questions, from both kids and adults.

Twenty years ago this fall, Rick Wilson was driving along a Virginia highway when he spotted a woman standing beside a car with the trunk open. “From the way she was dressed and by the appearance of the car, it looked like she was not doing too well financially,” Wilson says. “When I stopped and asked if her car was broken down, she said, ‘No, but could you please help me load a deer into the trunk?’”