July 10, 2010 - Solitude

I have always enjoyed being alone in the woods. I grew up on Gildersleeve Mountain. Back then it was 800 acres of forest and orchard, with a quarry plopped smack dab in the middle of it all. The quarry shut down in 1968 because it encroached on state land. I cannot forget how the ground shook and the house rattled every time they would blast. At some point the blasting caused state land to crumble, and that was the end of that.

Much of the forest on Gildersleeve Mountain, was, and still is old growth. Meaning it has good numbers of trees over 200 years old. In the 1960’s it was a state forest. At 370 acres the state forest was the smallest in Ohio, but significant because it was old growth.

By the time I was 5 or 6 the rule was: just be home by dinner time. Not hard, as my stomach lead me home. So I roamed the woods, sometimes with my neighbor and friend Keith, but often alone. I am embarrassed, yet proud, to now see the big beech along the side of what was a trail and is now a road with HAANS crudely scrawled 3 feet from the base of the trunk. I got my first pocket knife on a trip to to New Haven Connecticut to visit my sister and the first thing I did when I got home was carve up a tree! I was just a young boy, so that sin is long forgiven.

As I grew up my time by myself in the woods diminished. In part because we become more social as we get older and because Chapin State Forest became Chapin Forest Lake County Metropolitan Park. Fire lanes became paved roads, paths became trails and eventually it seems like the Park district is determined to pave over the whole 370 acres to make it more accessible.

So while once, the encounters with people on Gildersleeve Mountain were rare, they are now hard to avoid from dawn to dusk. While there are places off the trails where you will not see anyone, the signs of human presence. The noise, the litter, have become very hard to avoid in that once small but still wild place.

More than one circumstance conspired to deprive me of my solitude, to a point where I could not remember being by myself in the woods anymore. I was always with someone else, or guiding a a hike, or encountering other people. I was never truly alone.

Saturday, I found myself in an odd situation. My friend Frank was on vacation and my friend Tom had to work. They have helped me with survey work for the past 3 years. So every walk through the remote woods has been with either Tom or Frank or both. This day provided an opportunity. I could either succumb to the fear of solitude I have not had for so long, or find the joy of it. I chose the latter.

My walk was a wonder. I chose a part of the Holden Arboretum that is 1200 acres of unbroken woods. Although I got a bit of a late start, the birds welcome me with an extended chorus. It is hard to believe they are singing this late in the morning in numbers I cannot fathom. It is as if I have arrived at dawn. The Wood Thrush, the Juncos, the Winter Wren, Hooded, Black-throated Green and Black-throated Blue Warblers.

I realized it is impossible to be truly alone in the woods. There are few places on Earth so teaming with life as a healthy the forest. There is life everywhere, and it is concentrated and diverse. From the bacteria in the soil to the insects, plants, trees, and birds, there is not a square centimeter in the forest that is lifeless. You will find life wherever you look. It is astonishing. So in the forest you never lack for company. If your intent and attitude are right you merge with the forest, become a part of it. It is not a foreign, or hostile place. It is home. In this state of mind you find both solitude and companionship.

June 30, 2010 A Special Guest

As it says on the side bar, I am fortunate to live in a beautiful place. However, I am often concerned my fellow Clevelanders have no clue about the beauty that surrounds them. So it is gratifying to have someone who is unfamiliar with our area recognize the unique beauty we have in our own backyard.

We have been attempting to confirm that Black-throated Blue Warblers are nesting in a remote part of the Holden Arboretum. For 3 years we have been finding multiple individuals of this species on the same site. This is the final year of the Ohio Breeding Bird Atlas 2 project and it would be great if we could confirm nesting before the project ends. So during June we have spent hours in this area watching these birds and monitoring their behavior. In early June it was males singing on territory. By mid June we spotted females moving in tandem with males. This is consistent with the male guarding the female during nest building. Then in the past week, the males singing intermittently and then diving back into the possible nesting areas. This behavior is consistent with incubation of eggs.

Everything we observe has been reported to Paul Rodewald, Director of the OBBA2 project. He has a few graduate students who work on the project and there was a hope one of them could come to the site and have a look.

Coordination and logistics are difficult. This is not like going to a metropark or even the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. You can’t just drive in, park, walk a bit down a trail and be there. As I have described earlier, this is more of and expedition requiring planning and a knowledge of the area.

On Monday and Tuesday a flurry of emails and phone tag. Dave Slager of the OBBA2 project is going to be in the area and he has experience finding Black-Throated Blue Warbler nests on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. He knows this species, its’ habitat, and behavior. We work out meeting late Wednesday afternoon.

My friend Frank Buck and I, meet Dave at the Holden Visitor Center and then we drive the 15 minutes down into the valley of the East Branch of the Chagrin and then along the river to the parking area where we will begin our hike to the deep woods site.

Dave is amazed to be in “Cleveland” and in such a pristine forest. He wonders how these large tracts of land were preserved. We explain some of the history of land conservancy in the region which lead to the Emerald Necklace, Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Holden Arboretum natural areas, and county metroparks systems. There is nothing like this in his home state of Michigan, nor in other parts of Ohio.

We spend roughly 3 hours on the Black-throated Blue site. We observe males foraging and singing intermittently. Again behavior consistent with incubation. The site is physically challenging. A hogback with steep slopes and 260 feet of elevation change. Dave feels there is a lot of appropriate habitat and that we just need to spend more time on site and get lucky.. He tells us the Black-throated Blues are a year bird for him. Serious birders keep a year list , a list of all the birds they see in a calendar year. This is the first time in 2010 Dave has seen this species.

We decide to take a loop along the south rim of Stebbins Gulch so Dave can see that spectacular feature. He is impressed by the Black-throated Green Warblers, Winter Wrens, and Dark-eyed Juncos. When we look the 200 feet down into the narrow gulch he is astonished. He had seen the feature on the maps, but maps do not convey the grandeur of a place.

Our walk is slower than usual. Dave is constantly falling behind listening to the birds. Species Frank and I take for granted. Dave wonders if he heard a Broad-winged Hawk? We explain the most common raptors in these woods are Sharp-shinned Hawks and Barred Owls. .We also describe the decline of Red-Shouldered Hawks.

As the evening wanes and we walk back along the seldom used trails, we hear a strange call high in the trees. Frank and I sometimes hear calls we don’t recognize. Sometimes you just don’t know. But Dave has an advantage. He has the complete Stokes’ Bird Songs, of North America, all 3 CDs, on his iPod. He plays Sharp-shinned Hawk. Yes! Sharp-shinned Hawk is what we just heard. Dave is thrilled, and so are we.

Farther along and near the end of our hike, we look over the valley of the East Branch at the southern end of Little Mountain. There is beauty here and the young graduate student sees it. He tries to take a picture. Digital photography allows us to see the picture does not come out. There is too much contrast for the camera to capture both the bright sky and the darkness of the forest. The picture is less important than the memory he will have of this beautiful place.