In this Issue:

Beaver Creek Wetlands Association

The Spotted Turtle

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Orchard Oriole at Siebenthaler Fen, May 18, 2019

CalendarAugust

Saturday, Aug. 3, 9 a.m.Breakfast & CoffeeMembers & neighbors only event Dane Mutter Prairie

Sunday, Aug. 11, 1 p.m.Damselfly & Dragonfly HikeBeaver Creek Wildlife Area

Fairborn Sweet Corn FestivalSaturday, Aug. 17th, 201911 a.m.-7 p.m.Sunday, Aug. 18th, 201911 a.m.-6 p.m.Community Park

SeptemberBeavercreek Popcorn FestivalSaturday, Sep. 8, 201910 a.m.-8 p.m.Sunday, Sep. 9, 201911 a.m.-6 p.m.Dayton-Xenia Road

Monarch TaggingSaturday, Sep. 21, 20191-3 p.m.Koogler Wetland/Prairie Reserve

Calamity and Resilience ............1President’s Message ...................2Volunteer Activity ...................3-5Science Corner ...........................6History of the Beaver Creek ......7News and Notes .........................9Wetland Wows .........................10Volunteering ............................. 11

Volume 33, Issue 3 Summer 2019

Calamity ... and ResilienceAs we go through the Summer

of 2019 following the Memorial Day tornado outbreaks and June floods, we in the Beaver Creek Wetlands Association offer sym-pathy and best wishes to those friends, supporters, members and volunteers who suffered disruption and loss from the storms. We know we will feel the effects of these weather calamities into the future, as rebuilding and restoration takes time. Our hope is that our neigh-bors will find strength and solace by getting out into nature. Nature-connectedness contributes to psy-chological well-being and builds resilience in the face of adversity. Visiting a natural area or wetland can help make you strong!

In the wetlands, some trees came down and there was some boardwalk damage at Siebenthaler Fen. Most of the debris has been

cleaned up and repairs made, and most locations are open. One ex-ception is Cemex Reserve on Sanc-tuary Drive in Fairborn; Greene County Parks & Trails has closed the reserve until further notice. The parking lot there is being used for temporary storage of dead trees and vegetation from the Beavercreek tornado.

Meanwhile, river otters con-tinue to swim in Beaver Creek. The Baltimore Checkerspot butterfly has made its annual appearance. Bluebirds are nesting in the boxes provided for them, and a variety of woodpeckers make use of the dead trees. Life goes on in the wetlands. We can expect an amazing display of colorful flowers in late summer due to this year’s abundant rains. See you in the wetlands!

—Sue Rytel

2 Spotted Turtle—Summer 2019

President’s Message: Tornadoes, People & Forests

Wanted:• A working continuous-drain dehumidifier for BCWA’s basement

office in the Coy House, about 600 square feet in size. The office is uncomfortable, the fluorescent lights are acting up, and soon our paper and labels won’t feed through the printer properly! If you have a working unit to donate, please contact the office at admin@beavercreekwetlands.org or 937-320-9042.

• Donations toward a tractor for the land management team. We found a 1962 John Deere tractor in good condition that will meet many of our crucial land management goals. If you are interested in “chipping in” on this equipment purchase, contact us at admin@beavercreekwetlands.org, or call our office at 937-320-9042.

On the evening of May 31, a series of powerful tornadoes, as many as 15, tore swaths through several parts of the Miami Valley, including Brookville, Trotwood, North Dayton, Beavercreek, and Beavercreek Township. Miracu-lously there was only one fatality, but the damage to property and the daily lives of thousands of people is, and will be for some time, enor-mous.

Tornadoes destroyed 211 homes and 43 businesses in Montgomery County, and caused major damage to another 420 homes and 54 busi-nesses. In Beavercreek and Beaver-creek Township 500 homes were heavily or moderately damaged, as well as some 70 apartments and 20 commercial buildings. This destruction will take an ongoing effort by the affected communities and individuals to restore a sense of normalcy. Many people continue to need assistance, and perhaps the best way to help is to give to a fund such as the Greater Dayton Disaster Relief Fund. Contributions can be mailed to The Dayton Foundation,

40 N. Main Street, Suite 500, Day-ton, OH 45423. Another avenue is a contribution to the American Red Cross, https://develop.aem.dev.redcross.us/donate/donation.html/.

The natural world was also af-fected by the storms. Fortunately, the Beaver Creek Wetlands were not severely affected. However, several forested parks in the region were. The beautiful ancient oak grove of Sinclair Park in Harrison Township in Montgomery County was almost completely destroyed. Several park areas along the Still-water and Great Miami Rivers owned by Five Rivers MetroParks, including Shoup Mill and Need-more Conservation Areas, and Wegerzyn Gardens MetroPark, had massive destruction of mature trees that will take decades or longer to recover. Russ Nature Reserve, a beautiful forest area that has been a Greene County Parks & Trails facility since 2014 took a direct hit, and the damage is hard to believe.

Mother Nature has a process to heal damaged systems like these forests, called natural succession,

where a series of succeeding plant communities transform the vegeta-tion over time from herbaceous vegetation to shrubs and small trees, then to a young forest, and ultimately a forest like the one that was destroyed. Problem is, this pro-cess has been altered by humans. Now non-native invasive plants are often the first to colonize a damaged area, and many formerly important species such as oaks and hickories can’t become established. Restoration of these natural areas is going to take substantial research and resources. Perhaps our region needs to host a conference on re-storing our damaged forest lands to share information and bring atten-tion to this issue.

—Dave Nolin

Needmore Conservation Area

Russ Nature Reserve

Tornado Damage

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Spring Volunteer Activity

After a winter break, BCWA regular volunteers are in the field whenever the weather permits, usually starting in mid-March. The Sunday crew concentrates its efforts at sites along the main channel of the Beaver Creek while the Saturday crew gener-ally works at sites along the Little Beaver Creek.

The first projects on the Sat-urday crew’s agenda were clean-ups of both Hagenbuch Reserve and Little Beaver Creek Prairie, which were coordinated with the City of Beavercreek. Spring is also the time to work on manual control of certain invasive spe-cies. Poison hemlock was the target at multiple sites – Hershner Reserve, Little Beaver Creek Prairie, and Phillips Park. A

specially designed shovel was used to sever the taproot an inch or so below the surface. Garlic mustard was also targeted at Hagenbuch Re-serve. String trimmers were used to cut it down in several sections from the top down as the seeds were developing, but before ripe. Using these techniques every spring has greatly reduced the amount of both species. Planting of native plants followed invasive control – more shrubs were planted at the west end of Hagenbuch Reserve, where thick stands of honeysuckle had previ-ously been removed. This included a few more donated wafer ash and wahoo, plus gray dogwoods that were transplanted from the Mon-arch Waystation at the opposite end of the reserve. In addition, a few donated swamp white oaks were

planted in a clearing created by a large hackberry tree that had been uprooted during one of the winter storms. A few wet-land flowers, cardinal flower and swamp asters, were also planted near a spring wetland – not exactly a vernal pool, but more like an overflow from the ODOT mitigation site to the west. A chinquapin oak sapling was planted at the edge of Little Beaver Creek Prairie, as the large, mature specimen there has been in decline for a couple of years. The remain-ing site maintained by the Saturday crew is Zimmerman Prairie. The impact of 2018 narrow-leaved cattail control efforts was assessed, and control efforts were begun on the usual woody invasive species at the west end – Callery pear, honeysuckle, privet, and common buckthorn. Two surprises were found during this activity - a native lance-leaved buckthorn and eastern wahoo were discovered mixed in with the inva-sive common buckthorn.

The Sunday crew was also busy; they started with an early season cleanup of Koogler Wet-land/Prairie Reserve, and then worked on poison hemlock control there and at Fairborn Marsh, using herbicide. Much effort goes into caring for the 340+ trees planted over the last three years at Fairborn Marsh – mulching and trimming around them and repairing cages that protect them from deer. Volun-teers kept the marsh trail trimmed and also rerouted two sections of

Volunteers clearing boardwalks at Siebenthaler Fen Continued on Page 4

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this trail to higher ground. Addi-tional activity at Koogler Reserve included trail maintenance – re-plenishing gravel where washed out by flooding and trimming overhanging vegetation. A clean-up of leftover deck boards from recent boardwalk repair was done at Siebenthaler Fen.

The Monarch Waystation vol-unteers usually meet on Thursday mornings, but since it has rained nearly every Thursday this spring, work sessions have been resched-uled to take advantage of better weather. The spring cleaning of the Waystation involved break-ing up the previous year’s dead stalks. The non-native cool-season grasses were mowed and were then treated with a grass-specific herbicide. A few weeks later, seed of low-growing native grasses

was sown; this included prairie dropseed, little bluestem, and side oats grama grass, all collected from Dane Mutter Prairie for this pur-pose last fall. The landscaped bor-der of the Waystation was mulched – special thanks to Ed and Patti Bogden for filling eleven 30-gallon garbage cans with wood chips from the yard waste site in Xenia and hauling it back to the Waystation for the rest of us to spread! This border is also regularly trimmed to keep it tidy, making it an aes-thetically pleasing transition from the formal landscape of the 9/11 Memorial to our informal butterfly habitat. Additional royal catchfly, foxglove beardtongue, and hairy mountain mint were planted, with more planting to follow as spring progresses.

In addition to these land man-

agement activities, two volunteers regularly monitor BCWA’s Fair-born Marsh and Beerman Fen. Two others have been monitoring water quality at Koogler Wetland/Prairie Reserve.

Volunteers for these land man-agement activities included Deb Adams, Jim Amon, Skip Beehler, Matt Biggers, Ed & Patti Bogden, Matt Cary, Wayne Cook, Aaron Deckard, Abram DaSilva, Kristen Diesburg, Tessa Farthing, Bethany Gray, Lois Gschwender, Jim Hoyer, Dan Karr, Debbie Karr, Jim Lucot, Alana Milool, Dave Nolin, Kathy Potter, Sarah Potter, Jim Schnei-der, Jon Smith, Richard Swigart, TJ Theopolis, Hitesh Trivedi, Jeff Wehmeyer, and Mandy Wolski.

Spring brings one of BCWA’s volunteers’ favorite events – the Knollwood Garden Party! A long-time tradition, BCWA vol-unteers staff the food booth and in exchange, the good folks at Knollwood Garden Center make a generous donation to BCWA. BCWA participated in both Glen Helen’s Earth Day celebration and the City of Beavercreek’s Arbor Day event, with its display staffed by volunteers. Others assisted with the “envelope-stuffing party” for the annual meeting mailing at the office in the Coy House.

Volunteers for these activities included Jim Amon, Art Bauer, Eric & Faby Bee, Skip Beehler, Dorothy Bordewisch, Wayne Cook, Niki Foor, Lois Gschwender, Tom McCrate, Heidi McGrew, Dave Nolin, Margie Perenic, Kathy Pot-

Spring Volunteer ActivityContinued from Page 3

Little Miami River Kleeners held their annual Clean Sweep event on Saturday, June 8, 2019. BCWA has participated in this event for several years. From BCWA Trustee Eric Bee: “We managed to pick up a bit of trash on our stretch of river.” Continued on Page 5

See this newsletter online at www.beavercreekwetlands.org 5

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Spring Volunteer Activity

ter, Judy Renz, Susie Scott, David Shumway, Bill Skelly, Richard Swigart, and Paul Wolfe.

BCWA held a hike each month this spring to showcase different areas in the wetlands. The March Skunk Cabbage Hike was led by Jim Amon at Siebenthaler Fen, followed by an Earth Day hike in April. This one was at Creekside Reserve and was led by Sean Hol-lowell, one of BCWA’s contribut-ing photographers.

In May, Bethany Gray led the Nest Box Trail Hike at Phillips Park, sharing her knowledge of cavity nesting birds. In addition, Rob Evans leads hikes at different sites in the wetlands for Dayton Hikers and Ohio Paddlers meetup groups, and also led a full moon hike at Koogler Wetland/Prairie Reserve in collaboration with Greene County Parks & Trails.

Would you like to become involved in BCWA’s conservation work with the Saturday or Sun-day crews? You may sign up for these weekend land management volunteer opportunities through BCWA’s website www.beavercree-kwetlands.org. If you have an inter-est in weekday land management activities or would like to help with mailings, please contact me at admin@beavercreekwetlands.org or 937-320-9042.

—Debbie Karr

A Surprise from Young Donors... Primrose school in Beavercreek

In early May, we heard from a teacher at Primrose School who works with children who come to her after-school “explorers” pro-gram. The children are learning about the importance of conserva-tion, that relates primarily to protecting the environment. One of their projects was to make key chains and sell them at the front office for $.50 each. The children made red and white beaded key chains. The red beads represented Ohio’s State Bird, the Northern Cardinal, while the white beads represented the White Trillium, Ohio’s official wild-flower. The children decided to donate the proceeds to Beaver Creek Wetlands Association.

BCWA Treasurer Tom McCrate visited Primrose School in May to meet with the 28 students, ages 5-10, and their teacher Kathy Otte. We are grateful for their thoughtful donation and have subsequently invited the class to schedule a trip to the wetlands.

Pollinator exPo at WPaFBDebbie Karr and Eric Bee worked the Pollinator Expo at the Wright

Brothers Memorial on June 19. The BCWA film was played in alterna-tion with a Wright Brothers film at the theater. A ranger indicted that approximately 200 people entered the building. Those that attended were very engaged and our participation allowed a sharing of ideas with other conservation organizations. —Carol Amon

From volunteer Mike Mushala on June 6: “First sighting today of Balti-more Checkerspot Butterfly at Siebenthaler Fen”.

6 Spotted Turtle—Summer 2019

flooded the fen on private land to the North first and we got worried. Their impoundments were drown-ing numerous rare and endangered plants and habitat for many ani-mals. The ducks loved it, though.

We took out their main dams several times, hoping we could encourage them to move. They did. Now the boardwalk was underwater along much of its length and those big trees could not survive. Six months of flooding damage during the growing season spelled death. After two years, the trees had died.

The woodpeckers were happy. Red headed woodpeckers, once a rarity, could be seen often nesting in the old snags. The loss of the canopy from these trees, mostly cottonwoods, meant that sedge meadows, a hallmark of many fens, could develop and they did. Near the parking lot, where the land is a little higher, a few trees were lost and the added light changed the community. For the first time, Queen of the Prairie showed up there in small patches. Gray’s sedge became far more common.

Change is part of nature. It is often slow but as we were see-ing, it sometimes picks up speed. By the 2010’s the dead trees were pretty cool, picturesque. Lots of cavity nesting birds had bored into the trees to raise a family. In the long run, this weakened the limbs and some fell from great heights, impaling the soft soil of the fen. Lately, these old trees met Mother Nature head on, and lost. Fierce windstorms have been taking them down, sometimes falling on our precious boardwalk. Crews from

Science Corner:Wishful Thinking – Siebenthaler Fen Past, Present and Future

I first explored Siebenthaler Fen with my son when he was doing creek sampling for a science fair project in about 1985. The area where you can now park was all grass and the forest at the beginning of the trail was sometimes mowed. It had a nice patch of skunk cab-bage and most of the trees were absent or just existing as small saplings. North of that was a fore-boding wildland, wet and devoid of trees but lumpy and bumpy with mounds of sedges, difficult to navi-gate without falling flat. My kind of place!

In the 1990’s, the trees that were saplings grew a lot. There were big ones scattered here and there. As it turned out, those big-ger trees were on slightly drier ground created when drain tiles were installed back in the 1920’s. Once the property was formally protected and the boardwalk was installed, we found more drain tiles. In several cases, the tiles that had long been clogged, started working and the areas they drained began to grow upland plants which provided a roadmap showing us where to dig and remove tiles. Amazingly, the wetland plants returned in as little as six months. Those big trees along the tile lines were stressed but their shallow roots allowed them to survive.

Then the beavers arrived. We saw the first ones in about 1990 and were happy to see them. As they moved in, we made a special path so visitors could see their dams and catch a glimpse of them working. Little did we know they would make the dams higher. They

ODNR-Division of Wildlife and BCWA cut up the fallen giants, leaving them to decay nearby to complete the cycle of life of these majestic plants, making new soil and feeding insects. The beaver don’t do much with the dead trees because they like the juicy parts of living trees, but if one happened to fall across the creek they could use it as part of a new dam.

Windstorms have been the big-gest problems and I don’t venture out to Siebenthaler Fen during high winds. Going out to do repairs and as part of our usual weed trimming along the boardwalk shows the size of these old trees and makes one appreciate the power of wind.

Changes at Siebenthaler Fen and other reserves along the cor-ridor of Beaver Creek and Little Beaver Creek will continue. Sea-sonal changes are easier to observe but these long-term changes are just as important. As stewards of these special places we need to appreci-ate and work as best we can with Mother Nature’s twists and turns. We will need to be responsive to climate changes, some of which we are already seeing. Good sci-ence and ecological knowledge will guide us.

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See this newsletter online at www.beavercreekwetlands.org 7Continued on Page 8

A Brief History of the Beaver Creek – Part 12

Note: This series started with the summer 2016 edition of the Spotted Turtle Newsletter.• In Parts 1 & 2, the natural history of the valley of the Beaver Creek and the impact of humans on the

landscape were explored. • In Parts 3 & 4, the removal of the Harbine Mill Dam on the Beaver Creek and the petition to “improve”

the Beaver Creek were discussed.• In Parts 5 & 6, after having decided that the improvement to the Beaver Creek was needed, the Engi-

neer’s report was approved and a contract was awarded for the improvement. • In Parts 7, 8, 9, 10 & 11, the construction of the improvement of the Beaver Creek had continued on

the original contract and the alterations until an injunction was issued stopping work on the Sheppard Alteration.

On March 23, 1918, the Appeals Court “rendered a

judgment and decree” in the case of J. F. Harshman versus the Greene County Board of Commissioners. The Court lifted the injunction and decreed that the Commissioners “should be and are authorized to proceed with the improvement” as petitioned for by R. D. Sheppard. There were a few other things that the Court specified would have to be done, at the County’s expense, if the alteration proceeded. The Court stated that the Commission-ers had to provide “for an outlet of Gray’s run” that would now enter into the new channel. The decree also stated that the old channel of the Beaver Creek, across the land of the plaintiff, would be filled in, using material from the excava-tion of the new channel, “and in no event shall any of said mate-rial be taken from the land of the plaintiff.” The drainage tile, “which now empties into the old channel,” would be extended from the exist-ing tile across the filled in channel to empty into the new channel and that the Commissioners would “construct and maintain a concrete

wall across the abandoned channel of the Beaver Creek of sufficient length and height” to prevent water from “overflowing the south bank of Gray’s Run to keep it confined to the channel of Gray’s Run.” The Commissioners would also create crossings for livestock at both the north and south property lines of the plaintiff. The decree goes on to discuss other things such as assess-ments and contiguous landowner’s rights, but we can skip these and go to the Commissioners instructing the contractor to finish the Shep-pard Alteration.

On April 19, 1918 the con-tractor appeared before the Com-missioners and reported that the Sheppard Alteration was complete. The Board then proceeded to the site of the improvement with the County Engineer and inspected the improvement. After inspecting the project, the Board agreed that the contract had been met and voted to pay the contractor the balance due on the work completed.

Three days later, on April 22, the Commissioners made another trip to the alteration site to deter-mine what can be done to pro-

tect the new channel from large amounts of gravel resulting from freshets from Gray’s Run. It was decided that breakers would be placed in Gray’s Run to contain the gravel before the new channel that was decreed by the Court of Ap-peals would be created. It was then determined that there was a chance that freshets from Gray’s Run could break through the old chan-nel of the Beaver Creek and deposit gravel in the new channel and the Engineer was ordered “to proceed at once” to construct a temporary breaker opposite the outlet of Gray’s Run before beginning work on the breakers in the channel of Gray’s Run.

The county Engineer appar-ently took the order “to proceed at once” literally because two days later, on April 26, the attorney for Mr. Harshman appeared before the Commissioners with a complaint that the breaker as constructed was ”contrary to the orders of the Court of Appeals and proceedings would be made for Contempt of Court be-fore night.” The Commissioners at-tempted to explain that their action was temporary until breakers could

8 Spotted Turtle—Summer 2019

A Brief History of the Beaver Creek – Part 12Continued from Page 7

be constructed in the channel of Gray’s Run to contain the sand and gravel from freshets before work could begin on the Court mandated construction. The Commission-ers suggested that Mr. Harshman’s attorney accompany them, along with their attorney and the Engi-neer to the place where Gray’s Run enters the old channel and “inter-pret the meaning of the order of the Court.” They proceeded to the site and after much discussion, “it was in evidence” that the attorneys did not agree on the point where Gray’s Run should enter the new channel. After more discussion, and “some argument, the place was agreed upon, and stakes were driven for future guidance.”

The next day, April 27, “the Commissioners proceeded to the point where Gray’s Run enters the

Old Beaver Creek Channel, and after viewing the situation,” it was decided that a retaining wall need-ed to be built between Gray’ Run and Ankeney Mill Road. This was to keep Gray’s Run from breaking through the earthen dam where the old channel was filled before creat-ing a new opening for Gray’s Run into the new channel. This would be in addition to the wall across the south side of the Run in accordance with the Court orders.

Meanwhile, work was pro-gressing on the original contract for the improvement of the Beaver Creek channel. Exactly when the improvement was finished could not be found in the Commissioners’ minutes or the Engineer’s records but an article was discovered in the Xenia Evening Gazette for May 2, 1918. The article was headlined

News and NotesPearl’s Fen

Pearl’s Fen is a 15-acre gem of a wetland located at the edge of Oakes Quarry Park in Bath Town-ship. This high-quality wetland is not yet accessible to the public. To-day, it is owned by Greene County Parks & Trails, who purchased a residential property on Byron Road in 2017, where an entrance and parking area is planned. Pearl’s Fen is where the Beaver Creek origi-nates; it contains a high-volume spring, deep deposits of peat, and a diverse variety of vegetation in-cluding some state-listed species. This lovely photo of Pearl’s Fen was taken by Dave Nolin, a founder of

BCWA.

“Quiet Wedding is Solemnized at the Kyle Home” and detailed how a contractor that had worked on the Beaver Creek Improvement project was scheduled to go home to Michigan since the project was complete. This gentleman had met a girl while living in Alpha, Ohio and couldn’t leave for Michigan without taking his true love along.

The original contract for the improvement of the Beaver Creek was signed in March of 1915 with a completion date of October 1, 1915. It is now the beginning of May, 1918 and the improvement is completed. The Kendig alteration with the new bridges on Harshman-ville and Beaver Road in place is finished and the Sheppard altera-tion is done except for the changes mandated by the Appeals Court.

—Richard Swigartto be Continued

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See this newsletter online at www.beavercreekwetlands.org 9

Pearl’s Fen, cont’d.Just north of Pearl’s Fen off W

Yellow Springs-Fairfield Road is a tract of land slated for residential development. Out of concern for the health of the fen, local conser-vation groups proposed a public meeting to discuss the possible impacts of the development. A meeting was held on May 23, 2019 at the Bath Township offices. Dave Nolin, President of Beaver Creek Wetlands Association, spoke about the history and subsequent conser-vation of the fen; Dr. Jim Amon, technical advisor for BCWA spoke

News and Notesabout the natural features of the fen that make it rare and also vulner-able to nearby development. Bob Jurick of B-W Greenway Land Trust followed up with a discus-sion of land use and development impacts.

During the public meeting, a group of residents pointed out another possible threat to the health of Pearl’s Fen—agricultural runoff from farm fields across Byron Road near the Fen. Residents described seeing manure or other fertilizer being spread on these fields as a liquid, running over the ground

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toward the fen. Dr. Jim Amon has made a for-

mal comment for a public hearing by Ohio EPA on proposed biosolids ponds near the Fen. He expressed concern on the safety features, in case of a leak, as well as the po-tential runoff into the aquifer. The public comment/hearings period ended July 3.

Regarding the development near Pearl’s Fen, discussions are ongoing with the developer, BCWA, B-W Greenway, and the fen owner, Greene County Parks and Trails.

—Sue RytelA Rough Patch for Our Conservation Partners

Aullwood Audubon Center and Farm

Several representatives from BCWA attended a recent meet-ing at Aullwood Audubon Farm in support of saving the Paul Knoop Prairie, 140 acres of reconstructed prairie on prop-erty of the Dayton International Airport. The City of Dayton and the Airport rezoned the prairie and have a buyer interested in purchasing 109.99 acres for commercial and industrial devel-opment.

Our hope is that an alter-nate location could be found for this type of development. Paul Knoop Prairie is one of Ohio’s

oldest prairie reconstructions, and an outstanding wildlife habitat. Prairies, with their deep-rooted plant species, are particularly good carbon sinks, removing car-bon dioxide from the atmosphere and holding it in the soil. The Paul Knoop Prairie also contains the headwaters of Wiles Creek, a tributary of the Stillwater River. Wiles creek runs through the Aullwood Audubon property and flows into Marie Aull’s Garden.

You can express your concern by visiting https://aullwood.audu-bon.org/preserve-knoop-prairie and writing public officials in sup-port of the prairie.

Russ Nature Reserve

Russ Nature Reserve suf-fered massive damage from a tornado that was part of the out-break on May 27, 2019. It is lo-cated on Kemp Road just west of the Beaver Creek Wetlands, and is owned by Greene County Parks & Trails. Although the reserve is closed until further notice, the first public restora-tion event was held on Friday, June 21, 2019.

If you wish to help with future restoration work, watch the GCP&T Facebook page for new developments.

... and a Shout-Out to Two Conservation Partners ...Ohio Division of Wildlife and Greene County Parks & Trails are two of our partner agencies that support

BCWA’s land management activities by providing much-needed supplies and labor. It’s our privilege to work with these great folks, and we thank them from the bottom of our hearts!

10 Spotted Turtle—Summer 2019

Here is another interesting sequence of a Red-headed Woodpecker catching an insect in flight. I'd seen the same thing last year so when I saw the woodpecker climbing and diving I wanted to get pictures of the wood-pecker in flight. It was much closer this year so the insect is clearly visible. Here is a sequence of the action taken from multiple flights to catch an insect. From a technical sense this is about photographing birds in flight. From a nature sense it is incredible to watch the woodpecker catching insects in flight.

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Insects ... They’re What’s for Dinner

“It is such a nice day that I’ve left the entrance doors open to try to get some fresh air into this base-ment office. A Carolina Wren just stopped in for a visit! They are so funny – they know exactly where they are and where the exit is! Any other species would be trapped and need an escort out the door.

Eastern Phoebes are again nest-ing above the entrance door. I nor-mally hear them calling when they return in the spring, but this pair is quiet. There are now 6 eggs in the nest, but one is a cowbird (cow-birds are nesting parasites). Sigh … I’ll be picking up dead Phoebe nestlings from the sidewalk for this first brood, as the cowbird chick will push them out of the nest. There haven’t been cowbirds for a couple of years. It is just the first brood that has been impacted – the 2nd brood should just be Phoebes.”

—Debbie Karr, at the BCWA Office in the Coy House, April.

“This Bluebird escaped from Bluebird house next to the parking lot at Siebenthaler Fen. Beautiful bird early in the morning.”

—Mike Mushala, early May

“Today I spotted a young Mink at Siebenthaler Fen. It has been on my bucket list.”

—Mike Mushala, late June

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“In wildness is the preservation of the world.”

—Henry David Thoreau

Wetland “Wows” Abound!

See this newsletter online at www.beavercreekwetlands.org 11

Would you like to help reclaim our local wetlands corridor and restore its natural beauty and function? You can help with habitat restoration and management of our preserves, with education programs, and in many other ways.

Why volunteer? Because you can:• Learn a skill• Meet kindred spirits• Help your community• Improve your health and strength• Build self-confidence• Add to your resume• Have a great time• Make a difference

Contact our volunteer coordinator: admin@beavercreekwetlands.org or call 937-320-9042.

Short on free time? Become a member ... join us online at: http://www.beavercreekwetlands.org/supportus-membership.html

Now it is summer in the Wetlands. Can you spare a few hours to volunteer? BCWA can use your help!

“Who goes there?”

Founded in 1988, the Mission of the Beaver Creek Wetlands As-sociation is to protect the wet-land ecosystem in the Beaver Creek watershed throughpartnerships, communitynetworks, and public education.

Indigo Bunting at Siebenthaler Fen; May 4, 2019

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Newsletter Submissions, Questions or Comments:

We rely on members like you to make this newsletter the product of many diverse voices. If you have an idea for an article or a picture to include, please send them tonewsletter@beavercreekwetlands.org

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PERMIT NUMBER 76

The Spotted Turtle | Volume 33, No. 3 | Summer 2019

P.O. BOX 42ALPHA, OH 45301Address Service Requested

Spotted Turtle EditorsJim and Carol AmonSue RytelDeborah Karr

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OfficersDave Nolin, PresidentJim Amon, Vice PresidentSue Rytel, SecretaryTom McCrate, Treasurer

Trustees (five vacancies)Eric BeeRob EvansRob FortmanAnna KamnyevTom McCrateShannon MuellerDave NolinSue RytelJim SchneiderMike Zimmerman

Published by Oregon Printingwww.oregonprinting.com

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The Prothonotary Warbler got its name from the bright yellow robes worn by papal clerks, known as prothonotaries, in the Roman Catholic church. Siebenthaler Fen, April 30, 2019.