Sightings at Clear Creek, Rhododendron Cove, Wahkeena, and Christmas Rocks

Between June 10th and 23rd, 2025, Joan and I visited four different parks and preserves with the goal of 1) checking them out, and 2) building up our hiking stamina!

 

On our first visit, Clear Creek Metro Park, we focused mainly on the Fern and Hemlock trails. (Click on any image to enlarge.)

A view of the Hemlock Trail, before it starts its big climb.

Various mushrooms and fungi ...

Click on any image to enlarge.

Best of all, a grey rat snake, holding still and hoping it looked like a stick.

Not far away, at the Rhododendron Cove State Nature Preserve, there were some early rhododendron blooms, but just a few on our June 12th visit. Here's a good one:

Further along, we saw two eastern American toads, of distinct sizes and coloration.

This one was quite young!

After descending from Rhododendron Cove, Joan and I drove to the nearby Wahkeena Nature Preserve (Fairfield County Parks). We enjoyed the one-mile loop walk, the ponds, and the exhibits in the visitor center; photographically, I caught this image of a blue dasher, one of the best photos I've taken recently.

While chatting with a staff member outside the visitor center, we caught a brief glimpse of what we believe was a river otter. Wahkeena isn't far from the Hocking River, so it's plausible. There was a green dragon outside the visitor center, a plant Joan had been hoping to see for years.

 

On the 16th, we returned to Clear Creek, but started at the far western side. The day was hot and humid, but at least the percentage chance of rain was low. The next photo is another American toad.

The same patch hosted a much smaller toad.

Here's a surprise an hour later on -- fire pinks!

A panoramic shot representative of one of the less steep parts of the Chestnut Ridge trail.

Five minutes later, a green adder's-mouth orchid! Too bad the focus was on the single leaf rather than the bloom ...

There are sometimes water trickles, rivulets, or minor creeks tucked into folds along the trail. Today we noticed one hosting many small "froglets,"

and a bigger sibling.

At the east end of the trail, Joan and I encountered a butterfly study group led by two Metro Park staff. Along that path there was a green-fringed orchid.

We continued to the intersection of the Fern and Hemlock trails and, with the heat and humidity sapping our strength, decided it was time to retrace our steps back ~3 miles to our starting point. About an hour into our return we noticed a blooming southern catalpa -- it's hard to miss --

native to the deep south of the United States, but now widely planted and naturalized well beyond its original range.

 

On June 20th, Joan and I visited Christmas Rocks State Nature Preserve. It was a hot and muggy day -- but according to the forecasts, the best day for at least a week!

To make this a more substantial hike, Joan and I did the loops in both directions, clockwise and counterclockwise. This had the salutary side-effect that plants and animals that weren't visible in one direction were detected on the other loop. And what did we see early on, but yet another American toad! Perhaps they enjoy the warm, humid air.

The view at the crest of the orange loop, called Jacob's Ladder, is minimized by greenery in summer,

but there are some landmarks to see with binoculars, and we watched a kettle of vultures begin to coalesce in the rising columns of air.

Next, a token on the side of the trail, which someone had obviously deliberately placed.

Then, another blue darter damselfly!

This midland painted turtle looks like it has algae on its shell, doesn't it? We found it well up the hillside.

Here's a view of a sandstone formation on the blue loop.

The "panorama" mode on my camera created some sun streaks.

And we encountered another damselfly, a female ebony jewelwing.

Then, our friend the rattlesnake plantain. Joan and I saw quite a few here.

Finally, although I don't have a photo, on our clockwise trek on the blue loop we encountered a kentucky warbler, who must have read a guidebook based on its behavior. Bug in mouth, it chittered at us from a bush adjacent to the trail, distracting us from the actual location of its nest.

 

It's been a great treat/workout exploring nearby Ohio Parks and Nature Preserves. Now if only the heat would let up.

Wahkeena and Shallenberger

Joan and I added a shorter hike after each of the two visits to Christmas Rocks documented here. It's time to talk about them.

April 26.

On leaving Christmas Rocks we drove to Shallenberger State Nature Preserve to seek its trillium hillside, specifically trillium grandiflorum, the large white.

Click on the image to enlarge.

What we first noticed on the trail, however, was a ligneous (wooden) arch.

Approaching the trillium slope.

One section of the field.

A closeup.

Face on.

Afterwards Joan and I continued around the loop, plucking garlic mustard. This invasive will choke everything else out, given a chance, and we spend hours every spring yanking out garlic mustard from the woods behind our house. It's addictive, like popcorn or peanuts -- just one more! Evidence abounded along the trail that we weren't the only ones plucking: mustards left to dry on logs, rocks, or notches in trees. We didn't try to get them all, but focused on what was within a few yards of the trail.

Other flowers than trillium bloom here, of course, including this bellwort.

Geranium with a side of spider!

Then it was time to go home.

 

May 13th.

On this day our second hike was around the Wahkeena Nature Preserve, bequeathed in 1957 to the Ohio History Connection. Wahkeena is managed locally by the Fairfield County Park District, and is just up the road from Rhododendron Cove.

Joan and I had been here once before, long ago; to me it was as if it was the first time. As we got out of the car Joan spotted a green heron in the Study Pond, fixed in place, waiting for a fish to swim by.

Here's a panoramic view of Lake Odonata and the park building.

After a chat with the gent at the park entrance we set off. The walks here are mostly gentle but include a few ups and downs.

A walled-off spring that contributes to the lake.

Going deeper into the woods.

A greek valerian has begun to open.

Further on, a shelter house. Group outing, anyone?

Steps are part of one uphill section.

This was a productive trail; here, a jack-in-the-pulpit.

Joan and I trod slowly on the next stretch, studying either side, for the host had said we might see a showy orchis there. He was right, although it was too far off the path for a close look. Fortunately, we both had binoculars and my camera has a zoom.

The angle could be better, but we saw it.

These trees are quite tall, stretching to reach the sunlight in advance of, or at least simultaneously with, their counterparts.

All trees come down, eventually.

Back at the Study Pond, the trail became a boardwalk which transformed into a floating path, individual deck sections linked together and held in place by posts. Each piece would sink a wee bit as I stepped on it, and rise after I left.

As we passed from the woods to the pond we heard and saw two Baltimore Orioles, spectacular birds doused in black and orange. Joan and I rarely see these, so we paused for a few minutes until they flew on.

And then it was time to go home, after another complementary hike following Christmas Rocks.