The Oak Openings of Northwest Ohio by Metroparks Toledo

By Louis W.

Campbell Photos byArt Weber

THE OAK OPENINGS OF NORTHWEST OHIO

Other landmark publications by Lou Campbell include “Birds of Toledo Area” published in 1968 by the Toledo Blade, and “The Marshes of Southwestern Lake Erie,” published by the Ohio University Press in 1994.

This booklet was written by legendary local naturalist and Toledo Times columnist Louis W. Campbell. Lou was enormously influential throughout his long life (1899 1998) in fostering community understanding for and the preservation of key natural areas in northwest Ohio, especially the Oak Openings Region and the marshes of Lake Erie’s Western Basin.

Many came to know Lou through his extensive knowledge of birds and fastidious record keeping on local species, both residents and miHisgrants.extensive knowledge of the Oak Openings Region came through his career as engineer for the Community Traction Company, a job that required him to survey the region’s countryside for potential future routes for the company’s interurban transportation. That work gifted him with unparalleled understanding of our region’s extraordinary natural features and the rare species of flora and fauna to be found here.

This booklet was first published by Metroparks Toledo in 1946 then the Toledo Metropolitan Park Board and is presented in this newest edition with the body text as written by Lou and in the booklet’s original typeface. The photographs by Art Weber have been added and the booklet’s original layout revised to accommodate them.

Several original quotes from Lou Campbell have also been inserted.

Introduction

Puccoon and lupine blooming at Ostrich Barrens in Oak Openings Preserve Metropark

THE OAK OPENINGS OF NORTHWEST OHIO Photography byArt Weber Copyright Metroparks Toledo 2022

Lou Campbell (1899 1998) at Secor Metropark early 1990s Inset: Lou and Helen Campbell (photo courtesy The Blade) 2

Large swampy areas covered with small aspens, brush, and tall grasses make their appearance. In place of the woodlots of hickory, elm and maple, open patches of oak crown the tops of the dunes. Too often, amid fields overgrown with rank weeds, sprawls a deserted 'house, the tombstone of some poor farmer's buried hopes. Do you wonder then that a traveler should hasten through this seemingly ill fated and hostile land?

THE OAK OF

OPENINGS

But, had he tarried awhile, had he probed the secrets of this land, he might have returned again and again. For this is the country so intriguing to Ohio naturalists, a land where the plants of the dry hilltops flourish within a stone's throw of the denizens of the bogs, a land of wet prairies with vegetation growing knee deep in water part of the year, a land of sandy fields once covered with oak trees but now overgrown with bracken and flowers, a land which shelters the remnants of beautiful and once extensive swamp forests, a home of rare birds and rarer plants. This is the Oak Openings!

A few miles west of Toledo, Ohio, lies a sandy area known as the Oak Openings. A traveler passing through it unconsciously presses on a bit faster to quicken his pace, so barren and devoid of interest is the landscape.Amoment

NORTHWEST OHIO Oak Openings Preserve Metropark, Girdham Road Sand Dunes 3

previously the road had extended between row of beautiful elm and maple trees. The growing crops were healthy, the orchards laden with fruit. Neat farm houses almost dwarfed by towering barns were set off by well kept lawns usually presided over by a few giant hemlocks or spruces. Then, as if by magic, the scene changes. Black loam gives way to yellow sand, occasionally heaped into dunes. Corn is stunted; wheat fields look like old, shedding fur coats. Ramshackle dwellings reflect the haggard, skimpy crops. Barns and sheds lean at crazy angles; the yard s become mud holes, playgrounds for geese. Such are the "farm lands."

Skunk Cabbage Slough (above) Girdham Road Sand Dunes, Oak Openings Preserve 4

Originallyout.much of the Openings was without drainage, and shallow lakes abounded; but now extensive drainage ditches carry off most of the water by the beginning of summer. The two main drainage systems of Lucas County, Ottawa River and Swan Creek, do not enter the portion where the sand is deepest, but circle aroundWaterit.does not run off sand, forming channels as it does in clay, but seeps in; and thus the streams are forced to skirt edges until the sandy covering of the clay sub soil is thin enough to permit them to cut through. Between these two streams is confined the most undisturbed section of the Openings.

* How is this area of sand to be accounted for, this island of unproductive soil in a countryside famous for its farmlands? It must claim a very ancient origin for it was made before the streams had pushed themselves back from Lake Erie. What whimsical fancy of Mother Nature lies hidden in these piles of sand?

The origin of the name given to this area is of much interest, as it apparently originated with the first settlers. Picture the country around Toledo as the pioneers found it, mucky, poorly drained, covered for the most part with dense swamp forests interlaced with vines of poison ivy and wild grape. After early travelers by land had cut their way through these forests with axes, word was brought in that a short distance to the west were hills of sand upon which only oak trees grew and that so sparse were the trees "a wagon could be driven in any direction" through the patches of forest without the need of hewing a path. In some places prairies covered with shrubs and tall grass spread out between the dunes. Such open woods and natural prairies were practically unknown elsewhere in Northern Ohio. Consequently the name "Oak Openings" fell naturally upon this district and so it is known today.

*The name Oak Openings as applied to the northwestern Ohio sand area apparently first appears in print in 1873 in the Ohio Geological Survey, Volume 1, Part 1, Page 570: "This gave the country the name of ‘Oak Openings.'"

The Ohio portion of this territory with its descriptive colloquial name, lies about two thirds in Lucas County with the remainder in Fulton and Henry Counties. Comprising about 130 square miles, it is bounded roughly by the communities of Sylvania, Swanton, Brailey, Liberty Center, Colton, Whitehouse, and Holland. In a word, it consists of a fairly level plain of yellow sand, with here and there a dune piled up by the winds. The sand is deepest, twenty five feet or more, just west of Holland. From this point to the southwest it gradually thins

“I spent all my free time looking for birds. I didn’t feel the need to travel because nobody knew what went on right here. People didn’t know about the marshes and the Oak Openings, especially the Oak Openings.” Lou Campbell channel flowing across Michigan where Grand Rapids now stands, and with Lake Maumee by an outlet across the thumb of Michigan at Port Huron. Since the Grand River valley was lower, the Fort Wayne channel eventually ceased to flow. With the retreat of the ice on the thumb of Michigan, Lake Saginaw and Lake Maumee became confluent; and geologists have named the resulting lake "Arkona." Then the glacier re advanced and Arkona was split in two. The former Lake Maumee became Lake Whittlesey, and the other body of water was named "Second Lake Saginaw."Duringthese changes the Grand River outlet was retained; but it was abandoned when the ice again retreated and uncovered a lower outlet near Syracuse, New York. The water level fell rapidly, and the smaller body of water that resulted was called "Lake Wayne." Once more the glacier moved forward, blocking the Syracuse channels. The water rose again and formed Lake Warren. This lake extended from Syracuse to a point just west of Toledo and north to the southern wall of the glacier, taking in Saginaw Bay. About 115 feet higher than the present level of Lake Erie, Lake Warren drained through the Grand River channel into Lake Chicago and thence to the Mississippi River.

The next development was the formation of a small lake in Saginaw Bay known as "Lake Saginaw." This lake was connected with Lake Chicago by the Grand River

FORMATION OF THE SAND

Kaskawulsh Glacier, Kluane National Park, Yukon Territory, Canada 5

To understand the formation of the Oak Openings we must go hack some 55,000 years. The great Wisconsin glacier had slid down from Labrador across Ohio. Slowly it had moved, so slowly that northern trees and plants were able to flee before it. Seeds blew southward, took root, and grew into stalwart trees before they were destroyed.Itsforce, nevertheless, was irresistible. Huge fragments of stone, hundreds of tons in weight, were snatched from rocky cliffs and ground into pebbles. In places the earth was scraped clean, and the surface of the bedrock was scarred and furrowed. Great basins were hollowed out; river valleys were blocked with debris. But finally the monster was halted at the Ohio River by some change in climate. Daily the sun's rays grew warmer until the ice melted faster than it advanced. The great retreat had begun. True, at times it moved forward again for a period, but the final trend was always northward. The ice beast was being driven back to its lair. As the ice retreated, the thinner portions on the table lands melted first, leaving in the valleys great lobes extending far south of the main body like fingers in a glove. All along the entire line of retreat the rushing waters, released from the melting ice, flowed southward into the Ohio and Mississippi river systems, sometimes enlarging valleys already formed, sometimes carving a way through solid rock. When, however, the ice lobe lying in the Maumee Valley had reached a point where the natural flow was no longer southward, a lake began to form just northeast of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Its southern barrier was a mass of earth and stones dropped by the melting glacier; while to the north rose up a great wall of ice 3,000 feet in height. This lake, known as "Lake Maumee," was a great grandfather of Lake Erie, although it was 220 feet higher and drained through the Maumee and Wabash river valleys into theAtMississippi.thatstage the Maumee River was flowing in a direction opposite to its present flow. Contemporaneously, the forerunner of Lake Michigan, "Lake Chicago," appeared, and it also drained into the Mississippi by way of the Illinois River.

Another and local source of sand was the disintegration under the constant attack of pow-

Northwestern Ohio* alone an area of 150 square miles, and this area now constitutes the Oak Openings. The number of years required to build such a monument almost staggers the imagination.

Just how long these lakes existed is difficult to say. The level of the lakes was governed by the movements of the glacier which walled it in to the north. But the glacier's slow rate of retreat can be estimated to some extent from the fact that the evergreen trees following up had been driven to the north of this vicinity by the more luxuriant deciduous trees before the formation of the Lake Warren sandProofbeaches.ofthis lies in the fact that today not a single evergreen which has not been planted can be found in the Openings. Yet the evergreens could never have been driven out if once they had gained a foothold. Deciduous trees require much better soil than that of the Openings to enable them to grow together close enough to crowd out their sun loving relatives.Finally, the ice took up its last great retreat. As soon as the Syracuse channels were uncovered, water levels fell rapidly. The glacier, melting as it retreated, formed a series of lakes which eventually resulted in the present Great Lakes System. Today, nothing hut piles of yellow sand remain to tell of those once vast glacial lakes, Arkona, Wayne and Warren.

ORIGIN OF THE SAND

The wall of ice which hemmed in these lakes to the north remained in place while the great moraine now forming the Irish Hills and the lake region of Michigan and Indiana was being built up.Lake

Just as today, the sand on the shore of Lake Michigan shows a definite southern movement forming the Indiana dunes, so the sand shifted along the shores of three of those great glacial lakes, Arkona, Wayne and Warren. The larger, solid portions and the boulders were left in place where they were dropped by the glacier. The shales and limestones were ground into clay. But the fine quartz sand was sifted out and gradually worked southward until it was trapped in the shallow bay at the west end of Lake Erie. The route by which it came is easily traced along the road to Detroit.

In viewing these glacial lakes mentally, we must always bear in mind the great length of time during which these changes took place.

Maumee and Lake Arkona existed long enough to accumulate many feet of black muck in their beds which later became the Black Swamp. In fact, each of the bodies of water was in existence for the period of time needed to develop very decided shorelines, because it is from these beaches that the lakes have been traced back through time.

*This booklet deals only with the sand dunes just west of Toledo in Lucas, Fulton and Henry counSunset on Lake Michigan Dunes built by lake action, Hiawatha National Forest, Michigan 6

For years, this sand was the plaything of the winds which carried it about, piling up dunes today only to destroy them tomorrow. Then the prairie grasses and the upland shrubs gradually crept in and held the sand somewhat in place. Between the dunes, water collected in shallow ponds, and aquatic plants appeared. These lived and died, and their remains formed a black mold. To this was added vegetable matter that was washed down from the tops of the dunes. In time each pond became the center of an area of more fertile, though sandy, soil. On the tops of the dunes, plant life advanced until black and white oaks flourished. Trees and plants needing soil richer than these could not gain a foothold. Some of the shallow ponds dried up enough to support luxuriant swamp forests of a low type, and others became prairies. Why? No oneTheknows.entire area, however, became a sanctuary for plants which require either a wet or a dry sandy soil. Once they were within this belt, they were safe from the pursuit of the more powerful flora of the richer soils. Today this belt is still a sanctuary. Throughout the rest of the state many of the sand loving plants have been exterminated by stronger relatives until they are found now only in the few isolated bogs or in the rocky highlands of central Ohio. In the Oak Openings they still find Professorsafety.E.L. Moseley of Bowling Green, one of the pioneer naturalists of Northwestern Ohio, was the first to call attention of botanists to this remarkable area. His first observations were made in 1897, but not until 1928 was his pamphlet issued, entitled “The Flora of the Oak Openings.” From it we glean two startling facts:

(

Sedge meadow in wet sand prairie, Irwin Prairie SNP 7

1) More than fifty species of plants have more individuals in the Openings than in all the remainder of the State.

(2) Sixty one species of plants in the Openings are not found in more than two or three of Ohio's eighty eight counties. Yet the area of the Openings constitutes only three tenths of one percent of the entire area of the state; or in other words, Ohio is 300 times greater than the part under discussion.

FLOWERS OF DUNELAND

In the northern temperate zone, searching for flowers and plants during the colder months seems to be somewhat quixotic. Yet one shrub blooms after November winds have stripped most of the trees of their foliage. True the blossoms are not showy, the petals look like a tangle of golden threads, but they are flowers nevertheless. And what is just as remarkable, these flowers appear immediately after the ripened seeds from last year's blooms have been ejected from their husks. This plant is the witch hazel from which was made the medicine that our grandmothers held in such esteem.

“

I was impressed with the wooded area between Central and Sylvania avenues west of the Ottawa River. The ravines there and the great number of trees and bird habitats were impressive. But I could not visualize a park there as it was surrounded by high class residential sections. Very soon after my trips Mr. Stranahan announced he had taken over the section.

” 8

At the close of winter we find the purple hoods of skunk cabbage and the spotted alder with its tumbling cascades of red catkins mingling with last year's blackened cones. Even in January we can see much of interest. Beneath the snow lies the wintergreen with its shining dark green leaves which resist the cold even though a few leaves here and there have turned purple. A closer search may also disclose a few crimson berries. Wintergreen makes a beautiful winter bouquet unless you prefer, like many another, to eat the berries and revel in their delicate flavor.Mosses of many kinds are found in the lowlands, and if we are fortunate we may discover one of the club mosses. These are not true mosses, but resemble very small evergreens. Quite rare throughout the State, club mosses are the sole representatives of a very ancient and noble family. During the coal age, estimated at 250 million years ago, their ancestors reached giant proportions and formed a large percent of the flora of that era.

Witch Hazel blooming in December, Oak Openings Preserve Metropark

Many of these unusual species are grasses and sedges over which only a dyed-in-the-wool botanist could become enthusiastic, but among them also are a host of flowers including strange and beautiful orchids. Let us see what rarities each season has to offer.

Clockwise from left: Skunk cabbage fully emerged along Gale Run in Oak Openings Preserve; skunk cabbage generating its own heat to thaw soil and melt snow cover, enabling it to emerge and bloom early; groundcedar, a club moss, on the forest floor in Wildwood Preserve.

Bird’s foot Violet, Oak Openings Preserve 10

Spring comes and with it of course come the violets, white, yellow, and blue. In the Openings are found ten varieties of which the delicate white lance leaf and the beautiful golden centered bird foot violet are the most uncommon. Like the lance leaf, the latter also has received its name because of the shape of its leaves. Strangely enough, the bird foot is found otherwise only in two or three southern counties of Ohio. Some of our more common violets appear in strange shapes. In swamp forests, perfectly formed blossoms dwarfed to the size of the rubber on a lead pencil have been found. The entire plant could have grown comfortably in a thimble. In spring also the boggy woods and thickets are brightened with great banks of trilliums. Paradoxically, they are snowy in youth and grow pink with age.

Treading on their heels is the lavender lupine covering portions of the sandy soil with acres of fragrance. It is interesting to know how this rather delicate flower received such a ferocious name, because lupine is from the Latin lupus, meaning wolf. It seems that naturalists in older days noticed that wherever this Bower grew the soil was poor and so they reversed cause and effect and decided that the plant robbed the soil of all its nutrition. As the wolf was a notorious robber, they named the Bower lupine, meaning wolf like.

With the lupine often appears the mountain phlox of exquisite rose which is not found elsewhere in Ohio. Imagine mountain phlox in the flattest country on earth! This contrast is brought out even more forcibly when the downy prairie phlox and the mountain phlox are found blooming side by side. Contrasting with the lavender of lupine and the rose of phloxes is the puccoon of

FLOWERS OF SPRING

Top: Puccoon and lupine, Oak Openings Preserve Campbell Prairie. Bottom: Large flowered trillium, wet woods at Secor Metropark. 11

purest yellow, or perhaps the crimson of Indian paint brush. Near her departure, however, comes Spring's best gift, the first of the orchids. Since the heavily perfumed lady's tresses lingers until fall, members of this interesting family may he found all summer long. No less than twenty varieties have been discovered in the Oak Openings. Some of them are plainly colored and interesting only because of their family connections.Others are as beautiful as the tropical orchids of commerce, but in miniature. There is the fragile rose pogonia Pogonia ophioglossoides, meaning, ofall things, "bearded snake mouth." Its companion is the slender, dainty calopogon, named by some literal minded botanist "grass pink." Later appear the tall spikes of the purple fringed orchis (orchid), the yellow fringed orchis (orchid) and all of the less showy members of that clan.

This page: Yellow lady’s slipper. Facing page, clockwise from upper left: calopogon, Eastern prairie fringed orchid, showy lady’s slipper, nodding ladies’ tresses, and purple fringed orchid.

The quaint yellow moccasin flower is frequently met with. In fact there is one spot, the location of which is a carefully guarded secret, where a thousand plants may be found in an area of less than five acres; a place where single clumps of plants bear more than fifty blossoms. But the orchid which brings a perfect day to the nature lover is the showy lady's slipper, the most beautiful not only of our native orchids but of all wild flowers. The stalk is knee high and clothed with dark green foliage. The slipper itself, shaped like a Dutch wooden shoe, is variegated with crimson and white stripes, but from a distance it appears shell pink. This woodland gem is the largest of our orchids, often reaching the size of a small iris. Even prosaic scientists felt its lure and have named it Cypripedium reginae, the Queen's Slipper.

It is one of the tragedies of our day that most of these beautiful orchids are doomed. Already half of the varieties which have been discovered in the Oak Openings, including the very rare prairie and white fringed orchis (orchid) and the startling white lady's slipper, are probably extirpated. Drainage, frequent burnings and clearing the land for farming take the largest toll. Many blossoms are picked by persons who are ignorant of their rarity, or are destroyed in an attempt to transplant them to private gardens. Moved into alien soil, orchids wither and die.

“Bordering Central beyond McCord was a large wet prairie on the north side (that a friend said) held over 100 white lady’s slippers. We (Lou and Harold Mayfield) visited it a few days later and found nothing but holes where the plants had been dug out.”

Lou Campbell from early personal notes

One of the very curious plants of summer is the rattlesnake master, a member of the carrot family which has become militaristic and armored itself. Its leaves are straight, stiff and pointed with saw like edges somewhat like the yucca. The fruit consists of several hard balls covered with sharp spines clustered about a club- like stem like a small mace. It appears a formidable weapon, but just why it’s called rattlesnake master seems to be lost in the past.

SUMMER’S LAVISH

Cardinal lobelia, a bright splash of crimson against the dark willows, is most often found in, of all places, the roadside ditches. A very prominent group which will not remain unnoticed are the wild sunflowers. There is the coreopsis, slender and graceful, the giant sunflower, sometimes nearly fifteen feet in height, and the more delicate woodlandMostsunflower.unusual is the few leaved sunflower with its few basal leaves and wand like stalk, a prairie plant which possibly came in from the west. Another prairie plant is the wild indigo which contradicts its name by bearing yellow flowers.

Summer is ushered in by the rare wood lily and the abundant Canada lily. An aristocrat, the wood lily holds itself aloof, hut Canada lilies sometimes cover acres. Some of our more widely distributed plants of summer reach a greater development in the Oak Openings. The common milkweed, swamp milkweed and Joe Pye weed furnish great masses of lavender and purple. The dunes and roadsides are sprinkled with the white dots of flowering splurge. There too, the flaming butterfly weed is at its best. The name butterfly weed is only half right. Weed it certainly is not, but it does attract scores of butterflies. Sometimes entire plants are covered by these beautiful insects. When they are disturbed and suddenly flutter into the air one would almost think that the blossoms themselves had taken flight.

This page, left to right. Tall coreopsis, Western sunflower and blazing star, rattlesnake master. Facing page, clockwise from upper left, wood lily, spatulate leaved sundew, cardinal flower, and ferns.

HAND

Outstanding among summer's plants are two of the many ferns of the Oak Openings: the bracken and the cinnamon fern. The bracken covers square miles of open woods. It grows to the height of four feet or more and is so sturdy that birds have been known to build nests in its branches. The cinnamon fern grows best in the alder bogs where it sometimes brushes the shoulders of the hiker, giving an illusion of the tropics.

Summer also brings the wild red raspberries, the huckleberries, the blueberries, and, if one braves the tangles of briars, the purple pyramids of the blackberries. In the days of the Indians, cranberries were abundant. But all these are as nothing compared to the wild strawberries. True, the berries are small; but their skins are fairly bursting with tangy sweetness. What they lack in size they make up in number. In spots the ground is so covered that one cannot walk without crushing the crimson fruit; and the air is soon filled with perfume. But a curse is carried with them. Anyone who tastes their wild flavor may find it hard to enjoy the comparatively flat and insipid berry of commerce.Aswe search for berries we may find in the ditch nearby several curious little plants not more than three inches across. Their small leaves lie flat upon the wet sand, and spikes of white flowers rise here and there from the center of some of theThisplants.isthe rare sundew, of which the Openings boasts two species. The sundew was unable to obtain sufficient food from the wet sand in which it grew, so Mother Nature equipped its leaves with mobile and sticky hairs with which it is able to capture small insects for food. A tiny fly alighting on the bristles is stuck fast. Slowly the hairs fold over it, rendering escape impossible; and the luckless insect is absorbed by the plant. This is one of the very few cases in which plant life is able to prey on animal life.

Poets have often proclaimed the beauty of the wild aster, herald of autumn. What would they have said of the Oak Openings? There autumn has three groups of heralds in purple and gold.

First comes blazing star preparing the way. Where forest fires have laid waste the land and nearly every living thing has been destroyed, a blaze of purple appears. Its showy wands brighten up each roadside and seemingly grow thickest where man has heaped his piles of rubbish and tin cans. Mother Nature appears to be trying to atone for the faults of her spoiled child, man. Next in pleasing contrast come the goldenrods. Thirteen species can be found in the Oak Openings. Goldenrods range from the beautiful showy goldenrod to the dwarf but equally colorful gray goldenrod. Gold is a stirring color and there it is laid on with generous hand. Last is the army of asters in all shades from white to deep purple. Sixteen species can be found. Some, like the rush asters, are small; others, like the New England and smooth asters, would add color to any garden. One of the most beautiful and rare throughout Ohio is the azure aster, a combination of fragile sky-blue petals and golden center most pleasing to the eye. Thus heralded, autumn arrives. The leaves of willow and aspen fade; dwarf sumac and blackberry tangles blaze with scarlet. The slender sassafras trees don pastel costumes of salmon and pink. Deep crimson marks the tupelos and maples. Oaks darken to copper and bronze. Bizarre colors proclaim that the year is passing. But wait! Nature gives us one last gift before the onslaughts of winter the best beloved of all wild flowers. Poets have sung its praises, artists have despaired of its coloring the fringed gentian. No description of this blossom is necessary. Its sky blue chalice of lace edged petals is only too well known. Its very popularity has been its downfall and today it is known as America's rarest flower. Yet in parts of the sand country the fringed gentian is common. Here is a slender stem that scarcely seems able to hear the weight of its single blossom; there a larger plant bears more than fifty silken blossoms.Trulynature has been kind to the Oak Openings. at Girdham Road sand dunes, Oak Openings Preserve Metropark

Sassafras

AUTUMN BRINGS A BLAZE OF COLOR

This page clockwise from lower left: A carpet of rough blazing star blooms on the Girdham Road sand dunes in Oak Openings Preserve; early goldenrod; azure or sky blue aster; sand cherry, a shrubby plant that grows in greater numbers in Oak Openings than anywhere else in Ohio; fringed gentian; dwarf or winged sumac; and, center, New England aster.

The lark sparrow, the rarest nesting bird in Ohio, is an iconic species of the Oak Openings. This bird is newly fledged from a successful nest in a sand barrens in Oak Openings Preserve Metropark.

Years ago this section was well known to hunters of game birds. Quail, ruffed grouse, and prairie chickens were abundant in the interior, wild turkeys along the borders. Through the wet Whip

BIRDS OF THE OAK OPENINGS

The presence, however, of such species as the least flycatcher, the veery, the golden winged, chestnut sided and mourning warblers, the lark sparrow and perhaps the whip poor will, none of which is found outside the immediate vicinity of the Oak Openings, presents a problem. These birds return year after year to this particular location in spite of the fact that landscape similar in all respects, except for the sandy soil, can be found in many places around Toledo. Do not get the impression that these rare species do not nest elsewhere. All of them have been found also in other sections of the State; but nowhere are they found all together and in such numbers as in the sand country. Therein lies its great charm to the student of birds.

Poor Will 19

Generally speaking, the sandy soil explains the presence of most of the rare plants of the Openings, but the unusual birds to he found there are not so easily accounted for. Since migrating birds are likely to he found almost anywhere, in comparing the bird life of one portion of the State with that of another, only nesting birds are considered. And it is in nesting birds that this area abounds, although with few exceptions they winter in the South. Unlike the flora, no species of bird is excluded from the sand country. In fact out of a total of 132 varieties which breed in Northwestern Ohio, 105, or 80%, have been found in the Openings. The other 20% consists almost entirely of water birds. Warblers are particularly numerous. Fifteen kinds, including two regular hybrids, have been found nesting along a small section of Gale Run in the Oak Openings Park.

Above, American bittern. scarlet tanager male (above right), and yellow breasted chat.

Birds of the Prairie Areas

it goes. Doubt it or not, it is a love song. An American bittern is serenading his mate. To her his song is just as sweet as the chorus of yellow warblers which rings out on all sides. What might seem to be the most confirmed toper of birdland then appears the alder flycatcher. All day long he calls in his gruff voice, "Whiskey! Whiskey!", sometimes varying it with "Wish beer; more beer!"Nearby in the somewhat drier portion a plain Henslow's sparrow, the smallest of all our sparrows, sits atop a weed and renders his absurd little song. "Per chick, per a check!" he calls with persistence and fervor. To the seeker of rare birds, this "song" is far more interesting than that of the more gifted but common field sparrow which trills from the top of the neighboring dune. To our delight the field sparrow is joined by a companion who is not only rare, but a songster of first rank, the handsome lark sparrow. From a tangle of briars comes a chorus of boos, whistles, and cat calls. It is a yellow breasted chat, the "voice from the gallery" of birddom. Is he expressing his opinion of the singers or of us?

Come with me, however, and let us visit a typical section of the Openings in June to see what birds may be found even in our day. Our first stop is at one of the wet prairies covered with tall marsh grasses and dotted with clumps of dogwood, aspen, and willow. Anyone who has ever sought out birds in the summer time when vegetation is at its height knows that we shall have to depend as much upon our ears as upon our eyes, so we listen attentively. The first bird we hear is the abundant yellowthroat calling, "Look at me! Look at me!" Then he hides and peers out at us from a shrub, a regular Jimmy Valentine in his black mask. Next we locate the author of a rather metallic staccato song delivered on the same key. It is a short billed marsh wren, the poorest singer of his race. As Dr. Lynds Jones has written, he lost his voice from getting his feet wet too often. But when our bird climbs to the top of a button bush and scolds we can easily note the family resemblance. Then we hear a queer noise which might come from the throat of a bull frog large as a man, or from an asthmatic gasoline engine. "Gunk ga gunk"

As we near a miniature bog in the midst of the woods, a small form flits by in silence and alights in an alder. One glance and we stifle the excited exclamation that almost bursts forth. Our bird is none other than a mourning warbler, a dark headed golden beauty which at this season should be rearing his young in Michigan wilds. He peers under a leaf, moves quickly, then brings to view a largeInsteadworm.of swallowing this morsel, however, he beats it into submission against a twig and flies off a short distance with it. Those actions reveal his secret. Somewhere in that tangle of shrubs and tall nettles are his nest and babies. Eager eyes follow the father, as from bush to bush he flutters, ever wary of lurking enemies, and then mark the spot where he disappears in the undergrowth. Scarcely a moment passes before he reappears with empty beak. We can wait no longer. Hastening to the spot we discover after a short search the bulky nest built near the grow1d in a clump of nettles. We peer through the protecting barricade of stinging weeds at three fledglings huddled together, then, depart quickly into the surrounding cover lest we attract enemies which relish a dinner of fledglings. That much we owe to the mourning warbler which chose the Oak Openings as the site for the first known nest of his species in Ohio.Ourattention is soon distracted by a small olive bird which darts out and snaps up flies almost under our noses. This bold little fellow is a flycatcher, one of a family which is the despair of ornithologists. Even the experts hesitate to name some of them at first glance. Which one is this? As though afraid that we might guess wrongly the bird emphatically calls out its name "chebec! chebec!" In the sand country, chebec, better known as the least flycatcher, reaches the southern limit of its nesting range. A redstart in salmon and black imitates chebec's Bycatching with much fan like spreading of its tail. This tiny bird is not only beautiful, but an expert showman, and displays his colors to greatest advantage. But just as charming is the black and white warbler which creeps slowly up a tree trunk a water color contrasted with a steel etching.High in the tops of the trees an unseen songster is trilling. Up the scale run the notes until the highest are lost to our ears. We strain our eyes, and our necks creak at the task of inspecting the topmost branches of a mighty oak. At last we find it-a small bird with a sky-blue back and a band of blue on a white breast, a cerulean warbler.

Our next stop is at one of the few remaining stands of unspoiled forest. As we draw near we can hear the loud, much phrased song of the yellow throated vireo. At the edge of the woods we are challenged by the sentry of the birds, the towhee. "Chewink?" he calls and the call is repeated all along the forest border, "Chewink? Friend or foe?" Friends we are and the calls soon fade away, although a catbird still jeers at us from his safe place in a thicket. We are brought up sharply by a drawling, lazy "zee zee zee." A golden winged warbler flies into view. A close up through field glasses shows a pretty little creature with cap and wing bars of gold, his black throat and ear patches in sharp contrast to his bluish gray back and white breast.

Rare Hybrid Warblers

A close relative from the south, the lemon colored blue winged warbler with his blue gray wings and black line through the eye, also nests in the Oak Openings, hut in fewer numbers. Sometimes he cannot find a blue wing for a mate and chooses a golden wing. This union results in a hybrid, the Brewster's warbler, which shows its kinship to the blue-wing by its unmarked throat and black eye- line and to the golden wing by its blue gray coloring with yellow cap and wing bars. Brewster's warblers are infertile with each other, but are fertile when mated back to the present stock.This produces golden wings and blue wings of mixed parentage and when individuals of this type mate, one of the young is the very rare Lawrence's warbler, also a hybrid. Lawrence's warbler resembles a blue wing, but has the black markings of a golden- wing. These two hybrids may sing either golden wing or blue wing songs or a mixture of each, although Brewster's tends to sing golden wing and Lawrence's, blue wing songs. The Oak Openings is the only area west of the Alleghany Mountains where this interbreeding occurs with regularity.

A flash of crimson and black streaks through the trees. A scarlet tanager bursts into view. Lesser and even rarer birds are crowded from the picture by this most beautiful of Nature's children. His husky, robin like carol rings out. An answering song, much like the tanager's yet distinguishable to the trained ear, is heard. Dressed in a suit of black and white with a rose colored vest, a rose breasted grosbeak arrives. And the northern grosbeak sings a duet with the tropical tanager.

The Changeling A few steps ahead in the forest a small yellow bird bursts out from a clump of huckleberry bushes, chipping excitedly. Another in yellow apparently wearing a hood of black, the visor of which is open showing his yellow face, joins the first. What luck! A pair of hooded warblers! Their evident distress can mean but one thing, a nest. Search is begun, and soon we are gazing at a dainty structure built in the crotch of a huckleberry bush, of fine grasses and inner bark hound together with cobwebs. Within are four eggs. Three are small and white with tiny Becks of brown. The fourth is similar but larger. Had this last egg hatched what a surprise Mr. and Mrs. Warbler would have received. A changeling, huge, ungainly, and of enormous appetite in comparison to the smaller birds, would have made its appearance. The egg is mercifully taken from the tiny nest and destroyed; and possible starvation is averted from the smaller, weaker fledglings yet unborn. That fourth egg was laid by that parasitic, lazy villain, the cowbird! Meanwhile the excited calls of the parent birds have attracted a host of feathered critics. A black billed cuckoo gazes on in calm disapproval, oven birds scold, a red eyed vireo whines his opinion of us, even the gentle chickadee looks on with suspicion. But with these is another small bird one of the most characteristic birds of the Openings, for whom we have been on the lookout, the brilliant chestnut sided warbler. His back is green, his breast snow white with patches of chestnut on each side; and upon his Above and clockwise: Red eyed vireo, male common yellowthroat, male American redstart, veery, female black and white warbler, chestnut sided warbler, female hooded warbler, sandhill cranes in Oak Openings Preserve Metropark, yellow warbler. 22

head is a skull cap of yellow. Conscious of our scrutinizing, he departs. Then, hearing his loud song ringing cheerfully from a nearby clearing, we understand why the chestnut sided ranks with the best songsters of the warbler family. And now dusk begins to steal away all shape and color. Our trip is at an end. Soon from the distance will come the eerie hoot of the barred owl and the whip poor will will set up his monotonous cry with all its nerve wracking insistence. One by one, members of the bird orchestra drop out until only two, the clear flute of the wood thrush and the full organ tones of the veery, remain. Together they sing their evening hymn. Motionless and in silence we listen until the last note dies away. As we travel homeward, we make no effort to repress our feeling of quiet joy, that at least a portion of this remarkable area has been preserved for future naturalists. The campaign for the establishment of parks in the sand country has been long and often filled with disappointment. It is the only spot in Northwestern Ohio which would attract and has attracted naturalists from other parts of America.Yetits very barrenness has made the task of preservation most difficult. The average person could see the wisdom of preserving the sites of ancient mounds and forts, the spectacular gorges and caves of central Ohio, or beauty spots along our own Maumee River, but the Oak Openings had none of these things and therefore needed strong friends to fight for it. And thank God, they were not wanting.