The Natural Athlete

Excuse me, while I ramble, but being off-task is something I do well--something that, no matter how earnestly I try to walk that straight and narrow path, always takes me on a detour. I eventually find my way back, but not without having pored cover-to-cover over multiple field guides, browsed internet images, and consulted the text, once again. In the end, I am better for my effort. But, the process isn’t linear, by any means. I zig and zag my way through each and every outing. My interest in becoming a better naturalist consumes much of every day.

Roadside Flowers

Determined to focus on birds, I stand at the shoulder of the road, straining to hear a faint song from deep in the woods beyond a field. Atlasing for the Ohio Breeding Bird Atlas (OBBAII) is training my mind to listen better to what it is likely that I have heard all along, to separate from the chorus of song each individual voice, to think in advance of what might be chipping, unseen, within each fence row. It’s less an exercise for the ears, more an exercise in figure-ground—and with each day, a bit more of my initial difficulty eases. I hear the subtle sounds, and gradually learn to put names to them.

Beyond the white board fence at the roadside, my neighbor’s horses graze in the distance, shielded from the midday sun by the broad arms of four large maples lining the gravel drive. This pasture rings with the song of Eastern Meadowlarks each morning. Barred Owls call from the dimness of the woods behind it by afternoon. And I know a pair of Louisiana Waterthrushes has tucked a nest where I will never find it. Last week, I caught a glimpse of them up the road as they bobbed their way along the creek bed and disappeared in this direction.

Scarlet Pimpernel, Anagallis arvensis

Beneath the fence, a small fleck of red peeks out of the weedy road’s edge in front of my toes. Scarlet Pimpernel? Its fleeting flowers fully open, and I without my camera! I know it’s not native. Yet, I’ve seen it only once before, and never on this path I walk. From birds, I turn and think of flowers. Flowers are what I am studying at home.

Books have become my weight-training—a repetitive task whose benefit isn’t fully recognized until tested. Weeks ago it was books about warblers. In the heat of summer, I’ve switched from books about birds, to books full of plants and insects. And the test, is my daily walk, which at times, with the pace of change, seems like a race I will never finish. I think of others in the race before me, those more-skilled naturalists running circles while I still purposely plant each foot, those able to lithely name each plant, each bird, each frog, each butterfly. Not competitors, fellow-athletes, who by closely following whenever I’m able, catapult me yards ahead with an afternoon of birding or botanizing. Just a few strides ahead of me, are others, too, their place within my reach. Many jog by my side.

I read about Scarlet Pimpernel, Anagallis arvensis, and learn it is a member of the Primrose family and a Eurasian native, but 4 pages ahead of its description in my manual is Bird’s-Eye Primrose, Primula mistassinica, a native with the diminutive pale pink petals I saw early this summer on the gravelly Michigan shore. I find Whorled Loosestrife listed here too, Lysimachia quadrifolia, that I saw on the prairies of Adams County weeks ago.
With photos gathered, the text begins to come alive.
I study the Primrose family.

Bird's-Eye Primrose, Primula Mistassinica

Bird's-Eye Primrose, Primula mistassinica

Whorled Loosestrife, Lysimachia quadrifolia

Scarlet Pimpernel, Anagallis arvensis

But with a little knowledge gathered, the quest begins again. What about those other loosestrifes that are in a different family? I know I saw one bloom last year, along this country road. Was it Purple Loosestrife, the much-hated invasive, or Winged Loosestrife, the native species, still purple, but with the single flowers? Can I catch it flowering before the township cuts it back?

The afternoon sun is blazing as I walk the country block to the place I knew that I had seen it. Bikes fly past me, bikers drenched in the sweat of their workout. But I move with a different purpose—putting names to as much as I am able as I walk steadily down the path…birds, plants, and more. Here, on a straight lane that runs between 2 soy fields, the shoulder is blanketed with clover. Zebra swallowtails drink in its nectar while Sulphurs and Eastern-Tailed Blues tumble between them. Only the quick-to-recover chicory stands taller than the shorn weeds of the roadside. But it is enough to provide perches for several Halloween Pennant dragonflies.
Tonight I will read about insects—prepare the natural athlete for the next race.

Halloween Pennant dragonfly

Halloween Pennant in obelisk

Immersion

Dense Blazing Star/Dense Gayfeather, Liatris spicata

Last weekend was my much-awaited return to Killdeer Plains Wildlife Area, a date marked with exuberance on my calendar of summer events by colorful rings and several stars. Last year I had attended a workshop there for the first time, not as an Ohio Certified Volunteer Naturalist (OCVN) for whom these weekends are designed to offer advanced training, but just as an extra—someone interested in an opportunity to explore a wonderful wildlife area and learn from the experts about it.
Since last year’s visit, having had such a great experience I investigated the OCVN program, “a research-based scientific training program that emphasizes hands on natural resource education coupled with community-based volunteer service,” enrolled in classes and completed the coursework. In a sense, this return brought me back to where it all began.
Why a second look?
Because a prairie is a place you must feel to understand.

Pinnate Prairie Coneflower, Ratibida pinnata

Defined by Webster, a prairie is “land in or predominantly in grass.” And for most of my life, the only image I knew of a prairie was the rolling field of swaying grass and waving wildflowers that Laura Ingalls, her hair in 2 long braids, bounded through as a young pioneer heroine on Wednesday night TV. Typically treeless, prairies are often primarily composed of grasses—native prairie grasses that often tower 4 feet or more such as Big Bluestem, Little Bluestem, Switch Grass or Prairie Cord Grass.
And, just as the land itself can range from wet to dry, providing a dark rich loam or the challenge of leached sand flats, each is distinguished by unique prairie wildflowers that bloom wildly in profusions of color, thriving in, what to many would be, inhospitable ground.
But, the definition of a prairie is almost incomplete without the mention of time—they’re our most native landform, expanding with the retreat of the glaciers and remaining for thousands of years until European settlement.
While most of the original million plus acres of prairie in the Midwest have been claimed for agriculture and tilled until only a small fraction remains, a remnant can be found at Killdeer Plains Wildlife Area in north central Ohio.

Purple Coneflower, Echinacea purpurea

For 2 days, our group of 40, led by instructors David Brandenburg (botany), Jim Davidson (butterflies), George Keeney (beetles), and Bob Placier (birds) spent mornings in the classroom and afternoons walking the fields of Killdeer Plains. With spotting scopes in tow and hand lenses dangling from our necks, we dove into the flora and fauna of this tallgrass prairie habitat.
It was immersion—from dawn until dark.

Prairie Dock, Silphium terebinthinaceum

Bald eagles soared above our heads while we peered into the corollas of the tiniest flowers of a mountain mint resting in the palms of our hands. We tasted the tasty flowers and rubbed our hands against the roughness of prairie dock. We hopped in and out of vehicles as we laced our way along the narrow dusty roads, stopping to stoop at carcasses where carrion beetles performed the thankless task of decomposer.

Pipevine Swallowtail, Battus Philenor

In the bright sunshine, Pipevine swallowtails flashed us with iridescent blue against a field of early goldenrod while Halloween pennant dragonflies adorned the tops of every teasel.

Halloween Pennant, Celithemis eponina

By dark, the sounds of the night took over.
Where the rhythmic drones of scissor-grinder cicadas had filled the heated hours of daylight, nighttime resounded with the trills and scrapes and buzzes and ticks of countless katydids.
Jim McCormac led a night hike and we waded through the brush searching with our flashlights for the leafy green singers whose songs he played as they called to us at eye level from within dense tall stands of prairie cord grass. Night brought a heavy dew, and by morning the misty web-covered field lay quiet.

Misty Morning

A prairie is more than a shrinking shape on a map, its makeup more than a list of hardy, drought-tolerant, fire-resistant plants.
It is heat and sound,
tenderness and strength,
woven into a colorful tapestry that is rolled out beneath a wide sky.
To understand a prairie you must walk within one.

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