(Photo taken by me.)
Only at one area of the Englewood Metro Park can there be a specific view such as this. The large expanse of water is known as the Englewood Recreational reservoir. This area is a designated sanctuary for the local wild fowl, which includes a variety of birds both in the air and in the water. During the early morning hours, there might be fishermen sitting on the banks seeing what is available in the water. Other people may be walking different paved and unpaved paths, or even playing disc golf. The space has become a recreational area for people and for the preservation of nature.
The Englewood Metro Park is only one of many other Metro Parks in the Dayton area. It was back in the year of 1963 when citizens realized how much urban areas were starting to expand, and how little the areas of nature were to remain. This is when the local Metro Parks started to develop, and acres of these forested and open spaces of land were purchased for the purpose of preservation. In these parks, many different creatures are able to live life with less interaction with urban settings and the dangers that come with it. One might see squirrels skittering around, or a variety of birds such as cardinals, robins, and even turkey vultures at certain times (“History”).
It once went untouched by human, no asphalt roads or parking lots by the water. No wooden shelters to hold family reunions or birthday parties. There would have been no grills or picnic benches. Before, the sycamore trees and shrubs would have dominated more area with no human implemented structures blocking them. However, a lot still remains intact, even after the forested area became a recreational center for people. It has become accessible and pleasant for outings and allows the appreciation of nature.
October 31st, 2020
It is a chilly October morning in Southwest Ohio. Autumn has swept over the landscape by now, and any trace of summer has left. As I drive along the narrow asphalt road into the depth of the Englewood Metro Park, I see other people on the designated sides of the roads, jogging, walking, and biking. They are bunded in sweatshirts and sweatpants to combat the dropping temperatures. It is only before noon, and there is already a lot of activity in the park, from both people, and everything else. I see a squirrel jetting across the road in a panic, and I make sure to hit my brakes. It pauses, seemingly in thought, before starting off again into the underbrush.
There are people standing in the grass, beside a split in the road, playing disc golf beneath a canopy of sycamore trees. The crisp autumn air does not seem to affect them, only clad in sweatshirts and shorts. Even with the open blue sky above and beyond me, I think momentarily it may be raining when the sycamore’s large leaves fall gently from the sky and to the ground below in clusters. The browning leaves undoubtedly crunch beneath my tires as I move towards my final destination in the park.
There is a small, designated area for parking, and this is my final destination. A few signs sit in front of the spots; no idling (turn off your car), and no swimming. The no swimming sign is obvious from this view, as I park and lean back in my seat my eyes scan over the large expanse of water in front of me. It is large in the eyes of anything my size or larger, however, it is only a reservoir, not labeled a lake. The water’s stretch into the horizon does not seem endless like a lake might appear, it is backed up against a tree line. The canopy displayed autumn’s favorite color palette, orange, red, brown, and yellow.
The day does not bring a windy forecast, so the water moves slowly towards what I perceive to be my right. It is a sunny day with blue skies and this allows the water to reflect the sunlight and appear blue to one’s eyes, rather than the more muddy and clouded brown that it truly is. It carries along with it the leaves from the surrounding trees, nothing else can be seen below the water, however, it is known that a whole other microhabitat lies beneath. This particular body of water is known to hold different varieties of fish. There are largemouth bass and crappies known to swim the waters and attract late night and early morning fishers, whether human or not. I watch the banks of the reservoir, thinking about the raccoons that may sit there at times and fish or try to catch crayfish for their meal. During this time of the day, nature’s bandit is not out and about, but one can assume they are tucked away in various places in the large expanse of preserved forest. Occasionally, one may be vacating one of the large trashcans around the picnic areas, searching for food among the garbage.
Also in front of the parking space, there is a large rock, with a metal plaque attached. It reads, ‘Benedict J. Blincoe, Wild Fowl Sanctuary, Dayton Audubon Society, September 1967.’ If one were to look into to this, you would find that Mr. Blincoe contributed to publication for the Ohio Biological Survey, “The Birds of Dayton and the Central Miami Valley, Ohio”. Here, birds both in the air and water had been catalogued and given a space to inhabit with minimal human interaction and interruption (Blencoe-Grentz).
In front of my car, the land slopes downward to the water, and that small strip of land is covered with various plants that are tall enough to reach my waist if I were to wade through them to get down to the water. While some of them are not as vibrant and lively during this season, they are clear enough for me to observe their identities. I see white heath aster. There really are not any flowers here, but these small white ones that were growing in clusters. In the middle were bright yellow dots. They seemed to be one of the only happily flowering plants to stand out, not a lot of these more physically appealing plants seemed to enjoy the cold weather.
Besides the heath asters were milkweeds, easily identifiable by the fruit of the plant, which had cracked open to reveal silky fibers, that were certainly soft to the touch. There were only a few of the milkweed plants among the majority of asters. Other green, or not so green during this time, plants were scattered around this strip of land, hugging the banks of the reservoir. The trees perched above the level of the water seemed to tower and hide the expanse of water from the view of anything outside of the park.
Most of the trees were either losing their leaves, or had already become entirely bare, and seemingly lifeless. One tree sitting near the reservoir seemed to have withered away. Its larger branches seemed to have been shortened by breakage of their ends. Woody vines snaked up and around the tree’s trunk, and some up into the base of the bigger branches. I wondered if it has been occupied by leaves in the summer, or if it had been perished for longer than just the beginning of autumn. Upon further examination, getting out of my car and walking closer, I could see an elaborate mass of spiderwebs that had been woven around and through the woody vines on the tree. The silky material of the webs was visible from the sunlight reflecting off of them.
I refrain from taking a small, cleared path down to the water, as it was incredibly wet and muddy. After a week of nonstop rain, the grounds were going to be unforgiving to park-goer’s shoes, and I imagined the paws and fur of the residential critters getting caked in it too.
Eventually I get back in my car and leave this specific spot of the park – there is a lot of ground that can be covered here. Different areas with shelters, restrooms, children’s playgrounds, and even an area for equestrians with an open range of grass to ride horses. I eventually find another small parking lot, outside of a sheltered area where once there may have been some sort of celebration, but these areas were now mostly roped off and prohibited due to the pandemic. Even from afar, at these places it is obvious not all rules have been followed, and the human’s negative impacts on the park can be observed. There is a glint from the small wrappers littering the grounds near the picnic benches and trashcans. Windy days were bound to push litter into less open spaces and entangle them into the deeper woods, where trash may stay trapped in the underbrush for years.
The park has many unpaved trails, meant for hiking and exploring. I decide to take one, despite the fact that my footwear was not the most appropriate. These trails lead to deeper woods, where the signs of wildlife are more apparent, and the amount of people is less. The trails were muddy, which was to be expected. The mud came in handy, however, to see traces of the other living things within the woods. Around ten minutes in, I observed hoof prints dotting across the path. A deer, I presumed. If I were lucky, and quiet enough, it would not be uncommon to see the maker of those prints face to face. Here, they must be safer, as there was no hunting allowed, and no roads that would carry cars that could take their life. There was plenty of vegetation out here for them to thrive on as well.
There were other shoe-prints out in the trail, meaning I was not the first to take the trail recently, and reminding me that although these woods seemed relatively untouched by humans, it was far from the truth. The impact was just less apparent. These trails were quiet in aspect to human noise, all I could hear were birds, and the rustling of leaves from either the wind or some other resident of the woods. Every once in a while, the rusting of the underbrush was loud and sudden, and I would stop, frozen to my spot on the path, feeling slight fear. I would look over to the origin of the noise and see the movement of the shrubs, but whatever was moving through was completely hidden and eventually whatever it was would be far off enough that I would have no chance of identifying them.
We were approaching winter, but I had taken these trails before, and witness what they looked like in late spring and early summer. It was a bit more lively at those times, with flies buzzing around loudly, seemingly right by your ear. Bees would be happily moving about, helping to pollinate the flowering plants. At some parts of the trail, it would open up more, into more of a field of tall grasses to be surrounding you, rather than tall, towering trees. Here, I would catch glimpses of butterflies, yellow and white mostly – smaller ones. Now, I saw very little sign of the existence of insects. There might be the occasional stinkbug out, however, many seemed to be trying to get inside of houses at this point. At one point I saw the trademark and orange-with-black-spots of a ladybug gliding by. Other than this, the insect kingdom seemed relatively quiet today.
As I found myself pushing into the more open area of this trail, I looked at the tall grasses around me. Aside the trail, leading into these grasses were small prints, not easily identifiable, however, the sudden movement darting out of the grass gave me an idea. The small creature was brown, with a it’s small little cotton ball-like tail bouncing behind it. A cottontail rabbit. It moved in a rush, seeming threatened by my presence. It’s true threat out here were animals such as coyotes. Coyotes preyed upon a lot of animals within the woods, and even in people’s own backyards. I wondered if there may be paw prints on the trail that resembled a domestic dog’s, out on a walk, but instead had been left by one of the wood’s top predators. Perhaps at night, when the park was closed, there were howls echoing throughout the park, and prey scattering panickily through the shrubs and across the muddy paths.
Before all this had formed – before people had come through with hedge trimmers, shovels, and whatever else they needed to clear pathways through the woods, there would have been a different atmosphere. Now, animals might find themselves being restricted to being in the more open zones, inhabited by man-made structure. One would imagine that all of this had been covered in trees and the understory and would have formed more cohesive of a plot of land. With man-made boundaries and settings, this must cause differing behaviors and ecological entanglements in the park – before it was a park.
The area had been bought in the 60’s to be preserved, and kept from urban sprawl of the Dayton area at the time. While to a park-goer, it may seem as a perfectly untouched area, a way to keep more value in pure nature, there still had to have been negative effects of the untouched woods to be converted into a recreational park. Still, it has been saved in many aspect. After my trip on the hiking trail, I find myself hopping back into my car, and finding my way towards the exit. More squirrels find themselves too close to my car. There must be far too many casualties of these bushy-tailed rodents by park goer’s vehicles.
The advantages to the park do strike me as I am at the exit, about to pull out onto a major road. Looking into the city of Englewood, everything is taken over by large slabs of asphalt, concrete, and buildings. There are cars everywhere, busy, on this Saturday afternoon. These vehicles, mine included, contribute to the already polluted air. From the major road, you can look out to the right, and propped up high on this road, you can see the beautiful expanse of Englewood’s Metro park, and how it does seem endless. The crowns of the trees reach to the end of what is visible here. A lot of it does remain relatively untouched, at least by the common civilian. Something about being surrounded by the colors of nature, green, brown, and those oranges and reds now, instead of the drab gray of the buildings in the urban area (what it could have become if not preserved), feels right. It feels wholesome.
Works Cited:
Blincoe-Grentz, Sarah. “Ben and Edith Blincoe.” BFA NL - May 2009 Page 9, 19 Aug. 2009, www.blencowefamilies.com/nl/242/242-09.htm.
“History.” Five Rivers MetroParks, 18 Oct. 2019, www.metroparks.org/about/history/.
Only at one area of the Englewood Metro Park can there be a specific view such as this. The large expanse of water is known as the Englewood Recreational reservoir. This area is a designated sanctuary for the local wild fowl, which includes a variety of birds both in the air and in the water. During the early morning hours, there might be fishermen sitting on the banks seeing what is available in the water. Other people may be walking different paved and unpaved paths, or even playing disc golf. The space has become a recreational area for people and for the preservation of nature.
The Englewood Metro Park is only one of many other Metro Parks in the Dayton area. It was back in the year of 1963 when citizens realized how much urban areas were starting to expand, and how little the areas of nature were to remain. This is when the local Metro Parks started to develop, and acres of these forested and open spaces of land were purchased for the purpose of preservation. In these parks, many different creatures are able to live life with less interaction with urban settings and the dangers that come with it. One might see squirrels skittering around, or a variety of birds such as cardinals, robins, and even turkey vultures at certain times (“History”).
It once went untouched by human, no asphalt roads or parking lots by the water. No wooden shelters to hold family reunions or birthday parties. There would have been no grills or picnic benches. Before, the sycamore trees and shrubs would have dominated more area with no human implemented structures blocking them. However, a lot still remains intact, even after the forested area became a recreational center for people. It has become accessible and pleasant for outings and allows the appreciation of nature.
October 31st, 2020
It is a chilly October morning in Southwest Ohio. Autumn has swept over the landscape by now, and any trace of summer has left. As I drive along the narrow asphalt road into the depth of the Englewood Metro Park, I see other people on the designated sides of the roads, jogging, walking, and biking. They are bunded in sweatshirts and sweatpants to combat the dropping temperatures. It is only before noon, and there is already a lot of activity in the park, from both people, and everything else. I see a squirrel jetting across the road in a panic, and I make sure to hit my brakes. It pauses, seemingly in thought, before starting off again into the underbrush.
There are people standing in the grass, beside a split in the road, playing disc golf beneath a canopy of sycamore trees. The crisp autumn air does not seem to affect them, only clad in sweatshirts and shorts. Even with the open blue sky above and beyond me, I think momentarily it may be raining when the sycamore’s large leaves fall gently from the sky and to the ground below in clusters. The browning leaves undoubtedly crunch beneath my tires as I move towards my final destination in the park.
There is a small, designated area for parking, and this is my final destination. A few signs sit in front of the spots; no idling (turn off your car), and no swimming. The no swimming sign is obvious from this view, as I park and lean back in my seat my eyes scan over the large expanse of water in front of me. It is large in the eyes of anything my size or larger, however, it is only a reservoir, not labeled a lake. The water’s stretch into the horizon does not seem endless like a lake might appear, it is backed up against a tree line. The canopy displayed autumn’s favorite color palette, orange, red, brown, and yellow.
The day does not bring a windy forecast, so the water moves slowly towards what I perceive to be my right. It is a sunny day with blue skies and this allows the water to reflect the sunlight and appear blue to one’s eyes, rather than the more muddy and clouded brown that it truly is. It carries along with it the leaves from the surrounding trees, nothing else can be seen below the water, however, it is known that a whole other microhabitat lies beneath. This particular body of water is known to hold different varieties of fish. There are largemouth bass and crappies known to swim the waters and attract late night and early morning fishers, whether human or not. I watch the banks of the reservoir, thinking about the raccoons that may sit there at times and fish or try to catch crayfish for their meal. During this time of the day, nature’s bandit is not out and about, but one can assume they are tucked away in various places in the large expanse of preserved forest. Occasionally, one may be vacating one of the large trashcans around the picnic areas, searching for food among the garbage.
Also in front of the parking space, there is a large rock, with a metal plaque attached. It reads, ‘Benedict J. Blincoe, Wild Fowl Sanctuary, Dayton Audubon Society, September 1967.’ If one were to look into to this, you would find that Mr. Blincoe contributed to publication for the Ohio Biological Survey, “The Birds of Dayton and the Central Miami Valley, Ohio”. Here, birds both in the air and water had been catalogued and given a space to inhabit with minimal human interaction and interruption (Blencoe-Grentz).
In front of my car, the land slopes downward to the water, and that small strip of land is covered with various plants that are tall enough to reach my waist if I were to wade through them to get down to the water. While some of them are not as vibrant and lively during this season, they are clear enough for me to observe their identities. I see white heath aster. There really are not any flowers here, but these small white ones that were growing in clusters. In the middle were bright yellow dots. They seemed to be one of the only happily flowering plants to stand out, not a lot of these more physically appealing plants seemed to enjoy the cold weather.
Besides the heath asters were milkweeds, easily identifiable by the fruit of the plant, which had cracked open to reveal silky fibers, that were certainly soft to the touch. There were only a few of the milkweed plants among the majority of asters. Other green, or not so green during this time, plants were scattered around this strip of land, hugging the banks of the reservoir. The trees perched above the level of the water seemed to tower and hide the expanse of water from the view of anything outside of the park.
Most of the trees were either losing their leaves, or had already become entirely bare, and seemingly lifeless. One tree sitting near the reservoir seemed to have withered away. Its larger branches seemed to have been shortened by breakage of their ends. Woody vines snaked up and around the tree’s trunk, and some up into the base of the bigger branches. I wondered if it has been occupied by leaves in the summer, or if it had been perished for longer than just the beginning of autumn. Upon further examination, getting out of my car and walking closer, I could see an elaborate mass of spiderwebs that had been woven around and through the woody vines on the tree. The silky material of the webs was visible from the sunlight reflecting off of them.
I refrain from taking a small, cleared path down to the water, as it was incredibly wet and muddy. After a week of nonstop rain, the grounds were going to be unforgiving to park-goer’s shoes, and I imagined the paws and fur of the residential critters getting caked in it too.
Eventually I get back in my car and leave this specific spot of the park – there is a lot of ground that can be covered here. Different areas with shelters, restrooms, children’s playgrounds, and even an area for equestrians with an open range of grass to ride horses. I eventually find another small parking lot, outside of a sheltered area where once there may have been some sort of celebration, but these areas were now mostly roped off and prohibited due to the pandemic. Even from afar, at these places it is obvious not all rules have been followed, and the human’s negative impacts on the park can be observed. There is a glint from the small wrappers littering the grounds near the picnic benches and trashcans. Windy days were bound to push litter into less open spaces and entangle them into the deeper woods, where trash may stay trapped in the underbrush for years.
The park has many unpaved trails, meant for hiking and exploring. I decide to take one, despite the fact that my footwear was not the most appropriate. These trails lead to deeper woods, where the signs of wildlife are more apparent, and the amount of people is less. The trails were muddy, which was to be expected. The mud came in handy, however, to see traces of the other living things within the woods. Around ten minutes in, I observed hoof prints dotting across the path. A deer, I presumed. If I were lucky, and quiet enough, it would not be uncommon to see the maker of those prints face to face. Here, they must be safer, as there was no hunting allowed, and no roads that would carry cars that could take their life. There was plenty of vegetation out here for them to thrive on as well.
There were other shoe-prints out in the trail, meaning I was not the first to take the trail recently, and reminding me that although these woods seemed relatively untouched by humans, it was far from the truth. The impact was just less apparent. These trails were quiet in aspect to human noise, all I could hear were birds, and the rustling of leaves from either the wind or some other resident of the woods. Every once in a while, the rusting of the underbrush was loud and sudden, and I would stop, frozen to my spot on the path, feeling slight fear. I would look over to the origin of the noise and see the movement of the shrubs, but whatever was moving through was completely hidden and eventually whatever it was would be far off enough that I would have no chance of identifying them.
We were approaching winter, but I had taken these trails before, and witness what they looked like in late spring and early summer. It was a bit more lively at those times, with flies buzzing around loudly, seemingly right by your ear. Bees would be happily moving about, helping to pollinate the flowering plants. At some parts of the trail, it would open up more, into more of a field of tall grasses to be surrounding you, rather than tall, towering trees. Here, I would catch glimpses of butterflies, yellow and white mostly – smaller ones. Now, I saw very little sign of the existence of insects. There might be the occasional stinkbug out, however, many seemed to be trying to get inside of houses at this point. At one point I saw the trademark and orange-with-black-spots of a ladybug gliding by. Other than this, the insect kingdom seemed relatively quiet today.
As I found myself pushing into the more open area of this trail, I looked at the tall grasses around me. Aside the trail, leading into these grasses were small prints, not easily identifiable, however, the sudden movement darting out of the grass gave me an idea. The small creature was brown, with a it’s small little cotton ball-like tail bouncing behind it. A cottontail rabbit. It moved in a rush, seeming threatened by my presence. It’s true threat out here were animals such as coyotes. Coyotes preyed upon a lot of animals within the woods, and even in people’s own backyards. I wondered if there may be paw prints on the trail that resembled a domestic dog’s, out on a walk, but instead had been left by one of the wood’s top predators. Perhaps at night, when the park was closed, there were howls echoing throughout the park, and prey scattering panickily through the shrubs and across the muddy paths.
Before all this had formed – before people had come through with hedge trimmers, shovels, and whatever else they needed to clear pathways through the woods, there would have been a different atmosphere. Now, animals might find themselves being restricted to being in the more open zones, inhabited by man-made structure. One would imagine that all of this had been covered in trees and the understory and would have formed more cohesive of a plot of land. With man-made boundaries and settings, this must cause differing behaviors and ecological entanglements in the park – before it was a park.
The area had been bought in the 60’s to be preserved, and kept from urban sprawl of the Dayton area at the time. While to a park-goer, it may seem as a perfectly untouched area, a way to keep more value in pure nature, there still had to have been negative effects of the untouched woods to be converted into a recreational park. Still, it has been saved in many aspect. After my trip on the hiking trail, I find myself hopping back into my car, and finding my way towards the exit. More squirrels find themselves too close to my car. There must be far too many casualties of these bushy-tailed rodents by park goer’s vehicles.
The advantages to the park do strike me as I am at the exit, about to pull out onto a major road. Looking into the city of Englewood, everything is taken over by large slabs of asphalt, concrete, and buildings. There are cars everywhere, busy, on this Saturday afternoon. These vehicles, mine included, contribute to the already polluted air. From the major road, you can look out to the right, and propped up high on this road, you can see the beautiful expanse of Englewood’s Metro park, and how it does seem endless. The crowns of the trees reach to the end of what is visible here. A lot of it does remain relatively untouched, at least by the common civilian. Something about being surrounded by the colors of nature, green, brown, and those oranges and reds now, instead of the drab gray of the buildings in the urban area (what it could have become if not preserved), feels right. It feels wholesome.
Works Cited:
Blincoe-Grentz, Sarah. “Ben and Edith Blincoe.” BFA NL - May 2009 Page 9, 19 Aug. 2009, www.blencowefamilies.com/nl/242/242-09.htm.
“History.” Five Rivers MetroParks, 18 Oct. 2019, www.metroparks.org/about/history/.