Well today started a lot faster since we had no parking issues at startup, planned to end at Collins Trailhead parking lot. Today started out on the road and finished up on a ‘rails to trails’ segment. We started right out with a VIGOROUS discussion about the challenges women face going pee on the trail or, more problematic, open road- which relegated me to a semi-interested bystander in the conversation. The talk centered on, how do I put this delicately, ‘engineering’ solutions and accessories to overcome these challenges that can be found on hiking websites, so we went over topics like zippered women’s pants that go from the front to the back…who knew? I don’t want to get into any more details here…do your own research. MOVING ON, the town of Wakeman was a nice little surprise of a town and seemed to have the bare essentials of a likable place- pizza joint, coffee shop, craft brewery establishment in a converted barn-like structure. Just before Wakeman there was also a very cool sculpture garden of iron works. After the town along a country road we saw some maple trees tapped to collect sap for maple syrup- seems its that time of year because we saw the same thing last week! More signs of spring are beginning to appear, like green grass sprouting up in the fields, snowdrop flowers in the woods, and the welcome sound of peepers from nearby marshes! On that note, as we were walking along a back road we were startled by a group (more than a dozen) of large grey birds which we now believe might have been migrating sand hill cranes. They were large, and they flew up from a low marshy spot, so we suspect they may have been feasting on all the peepers? That was definitely the highlight of the hike- too bad they were a good 100 yards off into the woods. Our day finished on the trail, which was a welcome relief to the bottoms of my feet.
So our new blog burner question is “were those really migrating sandhill cranes”? They certainly were grey, the size of herons and flew like them too (although they had to navigate up through the trees). Do herons and/or cranes travel in groups? Did not see any nests, so not a rookery.
Sherlock Answers: During migration, this species forms large flocks, which concentrate in vast numbers at certain areas during the journey, known as staging grounds. Small numbers of breeding sandhill cranes have been present in Ohio since 1985 and the number of nesting cranes has steadily increased over the last few years. They can be seen migrating through the state each fall to spend winter down south and then each spring to start nesting preparations.
