Season 2 (Spring) Episode 6 (Halls Creek)

On Today’s episode of Adventures with Gary The Wood Sprite: Season 2, (Spring) episode 6 (Halls Creek). It’s April 18, 2026. We started at Halls Creek Woods State Nature Preserve in Morrow, OH. From there we took the Halls Creek Woods trail. This was my very first time exploring in the rain! Yay!

I wasn’t sure if I was going to like it but wow the woods are so much different in the rain. The smells alone are worth every minute. The important thing to remember is to dress for the weather. Be prepared to get drenched. Wear rain boots with socks that stay put and don’t slide down. Wear a rain coat and a special spot to keep your wood sprite dry. (hah).

We heard a tufted titmouse and a red bellied wood pecker (lots of tasty yummies for the woodpeckers with the decaying trees.) I already knew what they were, but my lovely human guide had to use an app on her phone called Merlin. You should check it out. Its free and really helpful.

We also used an app called All Trails. It’s been so helpful so we don’t get lost.

By the way, you may be wondering: “But Gary, how do you, a wood sprite know about apps and links and cool movies from the eighties?” I share knowledge with my lovely human guide. What she knows about humans I somehow automatically know. It’s like osmosis. Maybe you should also befriend a fairy folk? Just sayin. But you have to “listen” to nature.

LOTS of neat nature finds: box elder tree, Spiderwort (the blue/purple flower), trash of course (I hate Combos, too dry, also who lost a black hat?), red maple seed, wild hyacinth, some kind of mushroom, cutleaf toothwort (the yellow pointy leaf), Christmas fern, sycamore tree, ramps, another jack-in-the-pulpit, Solomon seal, Philadelphia flea bane (looks like a flea comb), walnut shell, black cherry logs (look at the deep orange color!), white trillium (commonly turn pink as they age, typically after they have been pollinated)., touch-me-not aka jewel weed starts, large leaf water leaf, several examples of tree diseases (boil looking growth, parasitic fungi), Virginia stick seed, cleavers, dandelion (The white, fluffy dandelion seed head is botanically known as a pappus which acts as a parachute for the seed. The entire spherical seed head is commonly called a blowball or danelion clock), jumpseed (plant with the black arrow on it), a dead crayfish (sadly)

See the orange balls with the tiny holes?

Those are oak galls on a chinkapin oak. Oak galls are abnormal, tumor-like growths on oak trees caused by tiny, non-stinging gall wasps, which lay eggs that induce the tree to form protective, nutrient-rich homes for their larvae. Disgusting? No. Admirable!

We also found another eagle scout project. Very impressive. I salute you sir!

Have you ever got caught in the rain? Ever played in the rain? Stomped in puddles? What about this: have you ever been hiking and didn’t dress for the weather? Not fun.

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