Buckeye Chuck Day is Sunday! Marion County Naturalist James Anderson Talks About Groundhog Day and More!

Marion County Naturalist, James Anderson joined the show to talk about Buckeye Chuck Day, and Groundhogs in our area, plus James gives us a run down of what's happening in the Marion County Park District.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Joining me on the phone this morning from the Marion
County Park District is naturalist James Anderson. James, good morning,
How are you buddy?

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Wonderful? Are you Paul great?

Speaker 1 (00:08):
It's good to talk to you. You and I haven't
chatted for a little while, so we're going to kind
of get caught up on things that are going on
with the Marion County Park District and kind of get
everybody engaged in their parks a little better. And you know,
you and I started chatting a little bit when we
got on the phone today and the first thing you
said is you know what happened in November. Yes, the

(00:29):
Marion County Park District had a levee on the ballot
and it did not pass. So James, what does that
mean at this point going forward that that levee did
not pass? So yes.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
So a lot of people do not realize that the
Marion County Park District is ran entirely by volunteers, and
so people think we're part of the with the city
Parks Department, which we are not. So luckily, the County
Commissioners are very generous and give us some funding with

(01:01):
helping with maintenance and everything like that. But we're always,
you know, always on the verge of you know, losing
that of course, you know, if things get challenging and everything.
So because I know there are some other park districts
in Ohio that ran into that this year, and so yeah,
we're always looking for volunteers and you can obviously contribute

(01:23):
to any amount of time resources. Doesn't have to be
just maintenance. It can also be if you want to
help with our educational programs or even if you're just
out in our parks and just picking up trash, that
can also make a huge difference as well.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
I love that. And you're very present on social media.
You can find the Marion Tallgrass Trail, the Marion County
Park District things like that. You guys are constantly updating
things that are going on out at the trail and
everything that's going on, which I think is fantastic. With
that being said, that's the best way for folks to
probably reach out to you, right. All the information is there.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yes, absolutely, on our Marion County Park District and Marion
Tallgrass Show facebook page, also Instagram or on x and
also on threads. So yeah, if we try to hit
all the social media platforms.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Absolutely, so reach out, find out what's going on, get
involved in your parks and right now, obviously patients is
important with some of the snow and ice and things
like that. Good news is looks like we're gonna get
some pretty good melt this week, so the trail might
be might be back up and running at a high
percentage here real soon with the current weather that we're
looking at a little bit warmer, which is nice.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yes, yes, it was like last week when we did
our Sweetheart hike. Yeah, or excuse me, our polar hike.
It was very slushy right right, and then unfortunately a
couple of days later, when I was in those negative digits,
it became ice. So yeah, so just please please be patient,
just wait for mother nature to help clear it out.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Absolutely well, that's good stuff. Let's talk a little bit
about Buck Eye Chuck. Thank you so much for agreeing
to be on with Buck Eye Chuck with me on
Sunday morning over on AM fourteen ninety WMRM. We'll start
that show a little after seven o'clock at seven forty.
Buckeye Chuck will be making his historic announcement for the
next six weeks of winter here in Ohio. We're looking

(03:15):
forward to that. Folks can come out. We'll have a
food truck there. Of course, we'll have the Cleveland Museum
of Natural History bringing Buckeye Chucky. Our current Buckeye Chuck
is a resident up at the History Museum. His name
is Murray, and we're looking forward to meeting him and
maybe a few of his friends. And I just appreciate
you coming to help us out with the show on Sunday.

(03:35):
That'll be fun.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah, oh yeah, I always look forward for that program.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yeah, we have a good time. So let's talk groundhogs
because it is Groundhog Day. Groundhog Day coming up on Sunday.
That's the middle point of winter. So we're six weeks
in as of Sunday, we'll have six weeks left to go,
and of course our buddy will pop out of his
burrow and let us know what he thinks the weather
will be for the next six weeks of the actual
winter season. But right now, the groundhogs, James, they're asleep,

(04:02):
aren't they.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
They are. They're in their hibernational states and they're keeping
nice and warm. And I always tell people groundhogs are
probably the best mammal hibernator that we have out there
because when they're hibernating, their heart rate drops to about
four or five beats permitted. Their body temperature it goes
just about above freezing, about thirty five thirty seventy degrees fahrenheit.

(04:26):
So compared to bears, bears, yes, drop their heart rates
a little bit and their temperature drops a little bit,
but not as dramatically as groundhogs do. So that's why
if you get a little warm spell, that's why a
lot of people hear about bears coming out of hibernation
a lot earlier than groundhogs do. So groundhogs it takes
a little bit more effort because being underneath the ground,

(04:46):
they have to have the air temperature and the ground
temperature has to be above the thirties. And also too,
with more daylight availability, that kind of brings them out
of their emergence states.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
Right in here in Ohio, groundhogs are everywhere.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
Correct, Yeah, they sure are. So it's kind of funny
a long time ago they weren't. But here in Marion
County we probably would have him because we were mostly
a prairie open land region. But most of Ohio was forested,
so there weren't probably a lot of groundhogs back in
the day.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
So how far down in a burrow does a groundhog go?

Speaker 2 (05:20):
They can go between six to sometimes ten feet deep
there and their burrows can go almost about fifteen feet wide.
And it's kind of funny. Their burrows are kind of
like our homes. They do actually have different rooms which
are called chambers. So they do have a bedroom chamber.
If it's a girl, she has a nursing chamber. They
do have a bathroom chamber. So like I tell kids,

(05:44):
I say, yeah, groundhogs are kind of like people, you
know when they make houses that each room has their own,
their own function. So of course, if that groundhog gets
killed or moves away, he leaves a home for a
lot of different kinds of wildlife, from foxes to coyotes,
to snakes and other things. So a lot of animals
depend on the groundhogs for basically a new home.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
And the groundhog created that burrow himself with his sharp
front teeth. Is that how that works?

Speaker 2 (06:10):
That's right? With that their teeth and their and their
little claws. Yeah, they think that they can move about
roughly about five thousand pounds of dirt within their lifetime,
and they lived about six to about eight years out
in the wild. But yeah, about almost five thousand pounds
of dirt. That's a lot, right.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
So, why is the groundhog supposed to be a predictor
of the roadent supposed to be a predictor of weather?
Is it because if the weather stays cold and crummy,
they're going to stay in their burrow for a longer
period of time. Is that it?

Speaker 2 (06:39):
Or well, it's a little bit of that. What happened
was when the Germans came over here in the eighteen hundreds,
they they kind of brought that tradition with them, the
whole groundhog day thing, but they didn't have groundhogs in Germany.
They had honey badgers. So when they got into Pennsylvania
they said, well, you know, we want to continue our

(06:59):
trade editions, and so they kept trying to find the
new animal. Well, they found the American badger, and the
American badger is definitely a lot meaner than the European badger,
and so groundhogs were kind of the next thing. And also,
do there weren't any hedgehogs because hedgehogs are native to
Europe and so yeah, they kind of said, all right, well,
I guess the groundhog will be our new mascot for

(07:20):
this new tradition. So of course we know how that
all started in the Pixtonic Pennsylvania.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
Right, That's some great stuff. So we're gonna have Buckeye
Chuck out on Sunday. We hope you can attend. We
generally get started around seven o'clock. We'll be on the
radio a little after seven at seven forty. Buckeye Chuck
will make his historic prediction and make sure you bring
some non perishable food for the Saint Vincent to Paul
Food pantry. You could get an iHeart Buckeye Chuck T

(07:46):
shirt if you're early enough there. And we are at
the Fairgrounds in the Annex building, which is at the
back of the coliseum, so hopefully we'll see you there
on the north side of the coliseum. James, let's talk
a little bit about your schedule. I know you've got
some events coming up between now and through the month
of February. Talk a little bit about some of the
things you're going to be doing in the Marion County
Park District.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
Yeah, So, as you mentioned about Sunday, we'll be with
you and then on the fourth we'll have our Groundhog
Chronicles program at five o'clock PM at the tall Grass Trail,
so we're those learned about groundhogs and all the fun
facts about them. On February eleventh, at ten am, we're
doing a cardinal program at the tall Grass Trail. So
that's their breeding season, so they're very active, they're flying

(08:27):
around a lot more, so we'll learn a little bit
more of their ecology and also too. On the fifteenth,
we have our Sweetheart Hike, so day after Faltainine's Day,
so if you kind of find anything to do with
your sweethearts and you want cheap day, come out out
to the Marion tall Grass Trail. It's from one to
four and we will have some refreshments. Our park board
member Jeanine Williams makes a lot of delicious refreshments and

(08:51):
we'll have hot coco and hot cider if you like
a guided nature tour with me that starts at one
point thirty. Then on the eighteenth, at five o'clock PM,
we're going to talk about what do animals do during
the winter season again at the tall Grass Trail. The trailhead,
so we'll go out on a little hike and we'll
be talking about what mammals and birds and reptiles and

(09:11):
all all those different kinds of animals and how do
they adapt to the winter season. And then on the
twenty fifth, at ten o'clock am, we'll be doing a
winter duck walk at the tall Grass Trail because guess what,
duck migration season will be starting here in March, and
so we may see some different species of ducks out
on Foundation Lake. So one thing we do want to
mention about our programs that they can be canceled due

(09:33):
to weather or other circumstances, So please be on our
social media, the Park District or the tall Grass Trail
Facebook page to keep up to date. Please also keep
in mind programs do start five minutes after their starting times.
And of course all of our programs are free and
do not require a registration to attend.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
I love that And you can get plenty of information
by checking out the socials. Just do a search for
Marion County Park District, do a search for Marion Tallgrass Trail.
All of those details are there. James always puts his
calendar up there so you'll see it some different events
details right now. I know you posted the other day
about somebody building a fantastic snowman out of tall grass.

(10:10):
I think that's cool.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, pretty good snowman.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
I love it. I think that's great. James, thank you
so much for being on today. I look forward to
seeing you on Sunday morning. We're gonna have a lot
of fun with Buck Eye, Chuck my friend.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
All Right, see you Sunday.