PHOTO BY JOHN FRYMAN / THE VILLAGE REPORTER
PUMPKIN PAINTING … The North Montpelier Wildlife Habitat area hosted its annual fall open house on Saturday, Octob18. Among the open house activities was pumpkin painting as this young girl put the finishing touches on her pumpkin.
By: John Fryman
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
john@thevillagereporter.com
On a beautiful fall morning, the Montpelier North Wildlife Habitat hosted its annual fall open house on Saturday, October 18.
The habitat, which is located outside of Montpelier, is a 70-acre site featuring a variety of wildlife along with various species of trees and grasslands along with a lake that was built in the 1950’s. The site had served as a sand and gravel mining operation by The Shelly Company.
“We try to do a couple of open houses every year,” said Ashley DeVault, who serves as wildlife management contractor for the site. “This is our fall open house. We like to open it up to the public when we got staff here to show what we’ve done and have accomplished.”
The open house featured a variety of activities for everyone including a bow and arrow archery experience provided by the Ohio Department of Nature Resources. Pumpkin painting, a hayride, along with fishing poles provided by the ODNR for those who wanted to do some fishing.
DeVault said the importance of the open house is to show the progress already been made in the habitat.
“It went from being an active mining site as far back as the 1950’s,” said DeVault. “In the last 20 years, we’ve cleaned it up back into wildlife habitat. It’s still owned by the Shelly Company and is no longer actively mined.”
In 2008, the site began transforming and developing its wildlife habitat beginning with the addition of seasonal grasses providing an additional 10 acres of native warm season grasses to expand grassland habitat on the site.
“After we (Shelly Company) were done mining here, we wanted to retain the property, but we wanted to do something meaningful with it,” commented DeVault. “By cleaning it up and doing the native plantings, we provide wildlife habitat. We try to open it up where we done a couple of educational events with the schools here.”
That same year, the eastern shoreline of the lake was graded, and grasses were planted on the slopes to improve wildlife access and control erosion to the 50-acre lake.
The lake was further augmented to attract a number of native wildlife with the addition of basking logs, which are valuable to frogs, turtles and waterfowl.
In 2011, four wood duck boxes were installed, and plans implemented to begin a turtle monitoring program using the slopes as nesting grounds.
Five years ago in 2020, the wildlife habitat site received a gold certification from the Wildlife Habitat Council. The certificate recognized the continued efforts in contributing educational opportunities through hands-on training and on-site visits.
Some of the wildlife species already seen at Montpelier North Wildlife Habitat include Osprey, Great Blue Heron, Bald Eagle, Eastern Bluebirds, Wild Turkey, White-tailed Deer, pollinators including monarchs and native solitary bees.
DeVault pointed out the wildlife habitat area is only open to the public during their public events.
“I would like to see people come out enjoying nature and get away from their phones and computers and just getting out and enjoying the beautiful weather,” said DeVault.