MOUNT VERNON — Barely five miles northwest of Mount Vernon, Granny Creek is slowly cutting into the gravelly plateau left behind by the retreating Wisconsinan glacier of 10,000 years ago. The erosion leaves a series of dramatic cliffs overhanging the creek by a good 30 feet. It’s not the sort of landscape one expects in western Knox County, providing as it does a glimpse across the Kokosing River valley almost all the way back to Mount Vernon.
The site is one of the more recent places to have come under the umbrella of the Owl Creek Conservancy, a not-for-profit organization established in 2001 to administer regional areas of land with conservation easements. According to OCC chairman Richard Stallard, the organization cares for 557 acres of land in 10 easements. Of that land, 222 acres are outside Knox County. The land along Granny Creek is a recent addition to the conservancy, and making its debut in the OCC’s seventh annual “Explore the Nature of Knox County” series. The preservation of the site for posterity was made possible by grants from the Ohio Public Works Commission and Fish and Wildlife funds routed through the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
Stallard explained that the Granny Creek site is in three parts. The first part, consisting of 29 acres, is the corridor of land immediately adjacent to the creek itself in Wayne Township. This section includes an acre of creek corridor donated to the OCC by Alan and Traci Cassell. Atop the plateau beside the creek are nine acres of agricultural land and an 18-acre woodland. Now with preservation easements, these areas will remain dedicated to those uses in the future.
A hike to explore the site was held Sunday, and was attended by a small but attentive group of interested locals. It began with retired ODNR naturalist Howard Gratz leading the group up a tractor path which led from a parking area on Liberty Road up onto the plateau. The first thing Gratz noticed was the debris of some scattered wild turkey feathers which had not been on the path the previous week. Fortunately for other wild turkeys, the breed has made great strides in repopulating the countryside since its reintroduction.
A smaller critter caught the sharp eye of tour attendee James Gibson. A small wood frog hopped across a rut, but not before Gibson briefly detained him and handed the small amphibian to Gratz. The frog gave the group an example of his duck-like, quacking call before he was released back into the brush aside the path. On up the path, Gratz pointed out the calls of some familiar bird voices. The eastern towhee’s call sounds vaguely like the phrase “drink-your-tea, drink-your-tea,” while the cheerful warble of the Carolina wren sounds something like the phrase “tea kettle, tea kettle.” The field peripheries were overgrown with multiflora rose, a favorite of bright red cardinals.
The first wildflower to be identified on the hike was the common blue violet, well in evidence along the field and forest edges. Gibson picked up and crushed some mint to release its scent. Gratz also pointed out the presence in the field of garlic mustard, which gives off a strong onion-like odor when crushed. It is an invasive plant that some nature preserves try to actively stop by pulling it every year.
On top of the plateau, there was an impressive view from the cliffs of earth and gravel, which dropped sharply to Granny Creek below. The land of the area, and all of northwest Knox County, is glacial till, soil full of small stones polished smooth by prehistoric glacial activity. According to Stallard, the gravel aquifer of this land allows it to soak up water during wet times and release it during dry spells, keeping the Kokosing River running even during droughts.
The very top of the plateau contained some large low spots where water collected, leaving a marshy path between corn fields and heading back to the woods, where a number of wildflowers were beginning to appear. After Gratz cut a path through the multiflora rose briars on the edge of the woods, Stallard pointed out why the annoying invasive plant shouldn’t be worried about too much.
“Look around,” Stallard said, gesturing to the open undergrowth of the forest floor. “In 40 years, the trees win.”
Indeed, very few multiflora brambles survive inside the woods. What instead dominates the forest floor are millions of tiny white spring beauty wildflowers tinged pale purple or pink. Farther into the woods, the spring beauties gave way to the mottled leaves of the plant known in different traditions as trout lilies, fawn lilies or adder’s tongue. The flowers were just beginning to bloom vivid yellow flowers with long stamens. Other plants popping up on the forest floor included cut-leaved toothwort, mayapples, Dutchman’s breeches, squirrel corn, jewelweed, downy yellow violet, and beechdrop (a parasite that grows on the roots of beech trees, which are plentiful at the site).
In addition to the beeches were lots of maples, some sycamores and a few shag-bark hickories, including one huge old one that caught the fancy of Jerry Simpson.
“He looks like something right out of ‘Hansel and Gretel,’” Simpson said, pointing out the gnarled protrusions which looked almost like a face.
Around a vernal pool deep in the woods, Gratz pointed out the sound of a chorus frog, one of many amphibians which make use of such pools in the spring. The mud around the pool also showed the tracks of deer and wild turkeys. The full skeleton of a doe and the skull of a raccoon were also found nearby. Gratz pointed out a number of small buckeye trees, already erupting into full leaf. He also pointed out how the forest easement only continued to a certain point, while the woods themselves went on. He said many studies are being done now to determine the size of continuous, uninterrupted woods necessary for some declining species, such as the cerulean warbler and the scarlet tanager, to thrive.
The OCC’s next outing will be on Sunday, May 4, on the dogwood trails of Ramser Arboretum, at Jelloway. For more information, visit the OCC Web site at www.owlcreekconservancy.org or call 392-6952.
