I admit I have have a completely irrational bias against the state of Ohio. See I grew up in Missouri, a place that most anybody would consider the Midwest. So why do these easterners consider themselves of the Midwest too? I mean, in order for the term to have any meaning at all there has to be a distinction between folks in the coal belt and parts further west right? Ohio hasn’t been mid-west of anything since the Louisiana Purchase. This isn’t just a semantic exercise, it’s serious!
But, as it turns out, my clearly important totally sensible position aside, Ohio is a serious nature and nature blogger hotbed. Not only does the land between the shores of Lake Erie and the Appalachians host a wide variety of ecosystems and species, but it’s home to bonafide blogging celebrities, should such a thing be said to exist. That sort of endorsement alone should be a feather in the Buckeye State’s cap.
Resemblence to a real Buck's eye is suspect, photo from wikipedia
So without further ado, the best of Ohio’s nature bloggery.
–=====–
- When I mentioned blogging celebrities before, I generally meant Julie Zickefoose who writes a wonderful and rightly popular blog of the same name. And if one white-hot mega-blogger wasn’t enough, she’s married to Birdwatcher’s Digest editor and Bill of the Birds writer Bill Thompson III. It’s bird blog royalty, folks.
- The Ohio Division of Wildlife’s outreach includes the Ohio WILD School Sites Blog and the Ohio WIldlife Education blog wherein teachers and parents can include Wildlife Division endorsed programs into their curriculum. And who doesn’t support that, huh?
- Naturalist Jim McCormac’s Ohio Birds and Biodiversity blog is full of useful and fascinating information for the conscientious naturalist from Ohio and beyond.
- Just a little reminder about the brand new House of Herps carnival who’s deadline is coming up. Perhaps The Buckeye Herps Blog will have something to submit?
- The Ohio Nature Blog, hosted by Tom Arbour, is another fine site dedicated to the wonderful outdoors of Ohio. Enjoy his fine photographs too.
- Enjoy a virtual tour of Cleveland’s municipal parks with naturalist Bob Hinkle at his Notes from the Field.
- At Weedpicker’s Journal, join Cheryl as she seeks out any number of interesting feathered, flowered, or flying things.
- Given my issue with the term, I’ll cut the Midwest Native Plants, Gardens and Wildlife blog some slack, but only because of the photo quizzes. I do love photo quizzes.
- I wrote about the Blue Jay Barrens blog before in my backyard compilation. The work they’re doing on a piece of private land in southern Ohio is still fascinating and important to local species.
- Kenn Kauffman is about is big a celebrity as the birding world has, so it’s pretty cool that he and his wife Kim, who also has a little something to do with birds as the head of the warbleriffic Black Swamp Bird Observatory, give us a little insight into their live and the birds that are a big part of it at Birding with Kenn and Kim. And if you’d like to visit northern Ohio in any season, the Crane Creek Birding blog maintained by them both has lots of useful information on where to find the good birds.
–=====–
I hope you enjoy some of the great nature blogs in Ohio. It was very cathartic for me, I can feel myself softening towards the state already. It’ll be a cold day in hell before I call it the Midwest though, dagnabbit!
I’ll be taking next week off for the holidays. See you when I come back!
3 Comments
N8-
Thanks very much for the mention.
The Midwest Native Plants blog is technically housed in Indiana, but Janet Creamer is a native Ohioan, but she seems to mostly hang out in Ohio.
As for Ohio being in the Midwest? Why not? At least the corn belt plain regions of Ohio counts. The thing about Ohio is that we are a transition state. The northeast part of the state in topography and political slant is more rust belt mid-atlantic, south east and southern Ohio is tried and true Appalachia, southwest Ohio around the Cincinnati area is an old fashioned Ohio river town, and the central, western, and northwestern corn plains are fairly conservative farming communities, with really rich flat soil with interspersed prairie and great black swamp remnants. We’re a diverse state, and we’re hard to classify, so I feel your pain. We are so much more than Midwest! We’re the Midwest, Great Lakes, Mid Atlantic, Appalachia, and the South all thrown in together.
For more great Ohio Nature Blogs, check out this post.
This Post
Hi Tom!
My pleasure! I completely understand about the ultimate foolishness of trying to pigeon-hole an entire state, let alone an entire region! It’s mostly a bit of ribbing I give my friends from the Ohio, Indiana, upper Midwest region. There’s definitely a Big 10 Midwest and a Big XII Midwest, for those who follow sports.
My wife, who hails from Indiana, tends to roll her eyes when I bring it up.
Nate,
Thanks for twice mentioning of my Blue Jay Barrens blog. I have to admit to being one of those people who forgets there’s more to the Nature Blog Network than the toplist. I only found your post about Ohio blogs because of an errant click of the mouse. I’ll try to adopt a more balanced approach to NBN usage.
I lived in Missouri from 4th through 9th grades. I remember getting into trouble in 7th grade because I wouldn’t accept that any part of the west could exist east of the Mississippi River. I pointed out that St. Louis was the Gateway to the west and you wouldn’t put your gateway in the middle. My teacher was not interested in a debate.