By Leatherwood Creek

A PERSONAL AND NATURAL HISTORY ALONG A SMALL CREEK IN THE OHIO HILL COUNTRY

The specific area along Leatherwood Creek that I focus on is quite small but is one with which I am intimately familiar. It is an area within a radius of about only one mile from where I was born and raised and that I returned to visit during a period of over seventy years. I discovered later, the habitat along Leatherwood Creek supported many diverse forms of life, once typical of the Ohio hill country

It has been said that before one can appreciate, cherish, and protect a place, one first has to be aware of it. Although substantial scientific information was available in journals, little had been written for the general reader about the natural history of this region. Those who have lived in this locale and those living there now probably were and still are unaware of the natural history and diversity of their surroundings. I therefore hope to inform people about some of the myriad plants and animals living in just one small area of only one of the many valleys in rural southeastern Ohio.

Another reason for writing this book was to give readers a sense of what it was like for a boy to grow up in a Midwestern American rural landscape in the 1940s and 1950s. I attempt to convey the wonder, mystery, and beauty of nature as seen through my eyes – the eyes of a curious boy. For example, in my youth, in a small nearby stream, I, with my sister Barb, caught “yellowhammer” and “green-spotted” frogs that I later discovered were pickerel and leopard frogs. In another small stream, my sister and I, with friends, observed “water dogs” that I later learned were the aquatic larvae of rare streamside salamanders. We sometimes caught “orange lizards” crossing the road near our house after a spring thunderstorm. These brilliant-orange creatures were salamanders, the red eft phase of spotted newts that once lived and bred in temporary ponds nearby. While lying under an elm tree in a cattle pasture, I watched “chicken hawks” circling high overhead. Later, I discovered most were red-tailed hawks and seldom fed on chickens. In the spring, I heard the mysterious calls of the “pumper bird” in the cattail marsh only a few hundred feet from our house. These were the calls of the American bittern, now a rare marsh bird which no longer nests in the area. In addition, I avoided all banded water snakes because I believed they were “copperhead” snakes and, therefore, venomous.

Because our society is gradually losing contact with and appreciation for the natural world around them, I believe it is important that today’s children experience nature at an early age. I hope to convey that a child does not have to experience some distant wilderness to appreciate nature as an adult, but it is necessary that they be given unstructured time to enjoy their natural surroundings. Children need to be given opportunities to explore the natural world around them, first in small steps in their own backyard, if they are fortunate to have one, or in a nearby park or even a vacant lot, and then later further afield.

By Leatherwood Creek

A PERSONAL AND NATURAL HISTORY ALONG A SMALL CREEK IN THE OHIO HILL COUNTRY

We will never have complete knowledge of nature. When I realized each bird had a unique name, preferred to live in certain places, and ate particular kinds of food, I wanted to learn even more about them. My parents encouraged my desire to learn by allowing me to purchase bird cards with my meager allowance. They were bird cards found in Arm and Hammer baking soda boxes that were popular in those days. I eventually purchased a chart depicting many of those same birds and still have that old 1938-published bird chart on my wall today. The chart not only brings back wonderful memories of my youth; it is also an attractive display of historical bird art. I had an exciting and wonderful time exploring nature outdoors as a child, because my parents’ house was bounded by upland and lowland forests, abandoned fields, a cattle pasture, small streams, a nearby creek, oxbow ponds (the “sloughs”) and most of all a cattail marsh next to our house.

An additional purpose for writing this book was to describe the ecological changes that have occurred in this area. Although some changes were natural and occurred before humans had an impact on the area, others were historic, and human caused.