The Backyard Biodiversity Project

I've been taking photos of the creatures in our backyard for some time.  I just haven't been blogging all these fascinating animals. There is an entire amazing world out there, just hiding among the native plant installations that have thrived over the last eight years since we moved here. I want to up the ante; I'm not going to just photograph these creatures, but I'm going to do my best to learn more about the insects (with the help of bugguide.net), do my best to put names on them, and to ultimately create a massive list of all the organisms that I have photographed in my quarter acre of Worthington, Ohio. How many species will I document?  1,000?  10,000?  Probably somewhere in between...

I've found the diversity of flies to be quite incredible.  While this one was encountered in Munroe Falls Ohio during are Weekend and Grandma's adventure, I thought this was the perfect image to kick off my backyard biodiversity project.



-Tom

Introducing Arbour Adventures

The boys watch quite a bit of YouTube. And they really want to have their own channel. After a little brainstorming, we came up with the idea of a channel called "Arbour Adventures". This is our first installment. I hope you enjoy a little look into the weekend of a life in the Arbour family! -Tom

Munroe Falls, Brust Park, and the Cuyahoga

A free-flowing Cuyahoga where the Munroe Falls Dam once stood.

Here's a post that I had lined up for late February but I never finished, so I'm presenting here as a photo essay.  These images document the after effects of 2005 removal of the Munroe Falls Dam on the Cuyahoga River in 2005. Yes, this is the same Cuyahoga that further downstream caught fire and help "spark" a great deal of new environmental legislation in the late 1960's.  What once was a stream heavily used for industry (there had been a dam here in one form or another since the 1830's) is now slowly being returned to a natural, free-flowing body of water.  Some of the plants pictured were mostly used to restore the banks around the river- some, to me, were questionable choices, while others fit in just well. 

Tom

A Hawk's Thanksgiving Meal

Hi All-

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. For three weeks I've been battling a nasty case of Sinusitis. I think I've cleared up the infection, but my head still feels like someone took the end of a bike pump, shoved in up my nose without me looking, pumped my head full of air, and then sealed it shut with super glue. It isn't fun. Fortunately I've been taking it easy and Megan has helped me immensely. Needless to say, we've put our metroparks challenge on hold until I get better. My nature adventures have been limited, but when I have had a chance to get a few nature photographs, I feel I have made the most of my opportunities.

We spent Thanksgiving at my Parents home in Munroe Falls, Ohio. Behind their house on city-owned property is a nice little gully that supports a spring fed head water stream. A pair of what I believe are red-shouldered hawks frequents this woods and lowlands, and I happened to glance outside the kitchen window on Thursday and spotted this well camouflaged bird.



Zeroing in on a prey item near the stream, the hawk let me approach without any sign that it knew I was there.



A glance down to change my camera settings, and I thought it was on to me and flew away, but after about thirty seconds, it alighted once again, this time closer to me. I hadn't scared this bird, but it had flown down into the bottomlands to capture a prey item. What would this hawk be going for? A mammal, I thought, like a small mouse, or perhaps a frog. I couldn't tell what exactly it had caught until I downloaded the images this evening. I believe the prey item was some type of crayfish- check out that claw extending out from the grip of the hawk. You might be able to see it more easily by clicking on the image.




I was lucky that I not only saw the hawk, but also got to witness some very cool behavior. After a little research, it seems that red shouldered hawks frequent swampy areas and lowland forests (an "ah ha" moment for me- that's why they're frequent in Sanibel, and they're also in my parent's stream gully) so I'm guessing this crayfish is a fairly typical food item for this individual.

Tom

In the Land of Snow

Megan and I safely arrived in Munroe Falls, Ohio last night, driving up from Columbus along interstate 71 in the wind and snow. It was slow going, and our normal 2 hour trip took 3, and we counted no less than four cars that had simply run off the road and spun out in the ditch or were caught in the safety wire in the median that prevents head on collisions. Most still had their lights on- I can't say I didn't feel sorry for the people who had just not been able to stay on the road. Perhaps they were driving too fast, maybe they were cut off, you just never know. It must be a horrible feeling- stuck in the snow in the middle of rural Ohio,waiting for the highway patrol officer and trying to come up with an explanation of just how your car wound up that way. By the time we reached Akron, the snow had subsided, and the roads were wet but mostly free of ice. We hunkered down at my parent's house, where I grew up. We slept well and awoke to snow-lots of snow, something that we are just not simply used to this winter. In Columbus, we've only had about four inches of snow-we seem to have gotten mostly rain recently, and a quick look on Dispatch.com reveals that Columbus isn't getting any snow, just freezing rain and/or rain.

But here in Summit County, it is coming down at about an inch an hour- We've delayed the baby shower until tomorrow, and we'll just enjoy a day in the house with family. Maybe I'll even venture outside to get a few photographs. Let it snow!

Tom

The First Ohio Nature Blog Podcast- Exploring a Headwater Stream

Well, here it is. I had fun exploring the small headwater stream behind my parent's house on Saturday, April 5th. This stream is where my love of natural history developed. This is an experiment- for me, it was something new to do, another way to explore both technology and natural history. Sit back, relax, and I hope you enjoy!

To play the podcast, just click the green arrow pointing right, and make sure your sound is turned on. And please, let me know what you think? Would you like to here another one?

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A Quick Visit to Munroe Falls Metro Park

Acid, acid, and more acid! The soils around Munroe Falls are so much more acidic that where I live now in Columbus, the area is host to a suite of plants that I don't see much in Columbus, or not at all. First up is the bigtooth aspen, or Populus grandidentata. I've never seen this tree as much larger than this- typically they grow in old upland farm fields or in other waste area. Check out the leaf, quite a good name, don't you think?



There's nothing like a nature walk with the family. My dad suggested this park for Saturday's walk, it it was an excellent idea. My mom and brother sure had fun.




The main trail at the park is named after this spring that flows right from the hillside, trickling down into a stream below. Skunk cabbage relishes these spring fed rivulets of water.




Some of the upland open areas look they have been allowed to revert-this field is full of last year's growth of broomsedge, Andropogon virginicus, which is a grass (Poaceae) and not really a sedge (Cyperaceae) at all.



And in the young forest, the ground is carpeted with a really interesting colony of moss. This isn't tiny stuff- it probably gets 2-3 inches tall and each individual plant is as big around as a pencil.



And finally, the last little bit of interest was this little pond, created by damming a small ephemeral stream. What was most interesting was the wooded edges of the pond, which were downright bog-like. Highbush blueberry shrubs grew here, and the ground was carpeted with a dense spongy carpet of Sphagnum species. In N.E. Ohio, you don't typically see Sphagnum in disturbed or successional situations, but here it was, growing on the edge of a disturbed pond. Give the moss 10,000 years, and who knows, maybe the pond will be a full blown peat bog. Ok, probably not, but I can wish!



Hope you enjoyed our quick trip to Munroe Falls Metro Park!

Tom

Munroe Falls Sunset Watercolor

Munroe Falls Sunset, originally uploaded by Tom Arbour.

Thanks to Chris, the Chicago Nature Lady, for inspiring me to paint a little bit. She often displays her artwork on her blog. This painting was inspired by a photo that I took over Christmas vacation while Megan and I were visiting my parents. It was fun and relaxing to paint with watercolors again.

Tom

Home

My home from 1981~2001

There is no place like home. There is no place like home- that's how I remember Dorothy hoping those words would bring her back to Kansas. But it is certainly true, as we all long for home, no matter how much we may deny it. Coming home brings with it a rush of memories, some good, some bad, but for all, I think we all hear a homing signal (pun intended) that will eventually lead us back to where we got our start. What memories do you have of home? I go home to visit my parents, my grandfather, and my brother. But for the botanical side of me, seeing a red maple tree brings me back home.

Munroe Falls, where my parents live now and have lived since I was born, sits in the glaciated region of the Allegheny Plateau. The once flat plateau was eroded down through the eons, and once the Wisconsin glaciers plowed through 20,000 thousand years ago or so, things really got jumbled up. Gentle hills and ravines now make up the landscape. Glacial erratics dot the ground, and the soil is a thick, sticky clay. And very acidic. All making excellent habitat for the aforementioned red maple tree that I just don't see here in calcareous western and central Columbus. The red maple was the tree I grew up with. Oh, a few maples and oaks, and even a sassafras, but red maple ruled the yard.

Red maple has smooth bark when young, but it eventually becomes rough and flaky with age.

Wild black cherry, with its distinctive dark plated bark, is also common here.

Sassafras, with its deeply ridged chestnut colored bark, also makes for great campfire kindling.

A few red oaks are getting bigger each year in my parent's back yard.

My parents live in suburbia. You can drive for 20 miles in each direction and not see any signs of rural Ohio. It wasn't always like that, as their neighborhood was once an farm. Their street cut through an old apple orchard. The land here was too steep for crops, but apples, and possibly cherries, grew where my parent's house now sits. There aren't many apple trees left- actually, they have all died, at least the ones in our yard. The woods behind their house were once reserved for a park but now is young forest that serves as a convenient yard waste dumping ground.

The woods are dotted with spindly trunks sweet cherry trees (Prunus avium) that look like somewhat like black birch. Their trunks no more than two feet in diameter, i'm not sure if these trees escaped or were actually planted long ago. They were always distinctive. They bled this gross amber colored sap that looked like puss from a wound. To the touch it felt like rubbery jelly. The bark, which strips off in horizontal bands, was always good for starting the backyard campfire. Those were the woods. Throw in a massive pin oak, a few red oaks and sassafrass, a white ash, a sourgum, and a wild black cherry, and you have the whole woods. These are the trees that remind me of home.

I also mentioned the shallow ravines that carve through eastern Summit County. The streams in this part of the state lead to the Cuyahoga River, and I was lucky to have such a stream in my backyard. This is where I caught creek chubs and black nosed dace. I moved up to catching two-lined salamanders under rocks, and then finally wised up and learned about the red backs and slimy salamanders that hid in the leaf litter further up the slopes from the creek.

A bend in the creek. It doesn't have a name, but I spent my childhood exploring this stream and it provided the basis of my love for natural history.

And finally, I got into the rocks themselves. The Pennsylvanian sandstones, siltsones and shales at the bottom of the ravine were rich in fossils. 280-320 Million year old fossils. I first remember thinking that I was finding dinosaur bones, but later, I would learn that the fossils were from ancient of the horsetail plants that we have in Ohio today in the genus Equisetum.

This fossil now sits in my paren'ts backyard. Several years ago, I brought it up from the creek and ravine pictured above. It warps my mind that a plant left this impression in sand at least 280 million years ago to create what you see here.

All of these things reminded me of home. Growing up, took them for granted, and I shouldn't have. Today I travel across Ohio, but still haven't found this same combination of geology, topography and biology that defines home for me.

Late winter sun shining on red oaks and red maples, Munroe Falls, Ohio.

Old Stomping Grounds

Megan and I were in Munroe Falls, Ohio today and yesterday to visit my parents and brother and celebrate my brother's twenty-fourth birthday. The weather yesterday was clear and warm, perfect for visiting a few places where my love of natural history was nurtured as a small child.

Behind our house in Munroe Falls ran a small, spring fed stream lined with sandstone and shale. It was here that I found some really cool stuff growing up. I managed to rediscover many of the things that I found fascinating when I was a kid.

Here you can see "The Creek". It is quite sunny there now without the leaves on the trees. Notice the sandstone strewn about. These rocks are perfect habitat for an animal that I would spend hours catching-- the Two-lined Salamander.


I wanted to see if the salamanders still lived in the creek. It did not take me long to find one. I overturned one of the large pieces of sandstone to reveal this little guy.


Satisfied at finding the two-lined salamander, I next turned my attention to the rocks under which the salamanders hide. I had always noticed strange parallel lines running through the sandstone. I later learned that the sandstone here was full of fossils from ancient plants called horsetails. The rocks in the stream are at least 286 million years old, and formed when non-flowering plants like the horsetails, which are considered a "fern ally" dominated the landscape. After looking for about 5 minutes, I managed to find this specimen. Although weathered somewhat, you can clearly see the ridged outline of the plant. I really think these fossils are amazing!