An anniversary at Turkey Run
- Bruce Glick: Gone Birding
- August 18, 2018
- 1537
Hiking at Turkey Run State Park in Indiana.
Over the last year, whenever the subject of our 50th wedding anniversary came up, we said we didn’t want a big celebration. We got married on Aug. 3, 1968, and this year we decided to spend two nights and three days at Turkey Run State Park and its close neighbor, Shades State Park.
Both parks are in West-Central Indiana, less than three hours from our home in Goshen. We left on Aug. 1 and returned on the third, just in time to spend the evening with our daughter Kristi, who was about ready to leave for Idaho, where she teaches at Idaho State University.
Turkey Run was the second state park to be established in Indiana. This happened during the state’s centennial in 1916 when the state park system was established. Shades didn’t become a state park until 1947, but much of the land had been protected for years. Both parks are located along Sugar Creek and consist of rugged, steep ravines and canyons. Trails can give one a good workout as there are many steps and ladders as well as stretches of trails that follow streams through the narrow canyons.
Because this is August, I knew there wouldn’t be a lot of birds singing, and it’s too early for fall warblers and other migrants. Still, there were pockets of birds along the trails. At one point we heard and saw a beautiful pileated woodpecker. Soon a second and then a third pileated flew in. The three birds flew around, calling and chasing. I never get tired of seeing pileateds. All the other expected woodpeckers were present at some point in the parks.
The most common birds we heard were Acadian flycatchers and eastern wood-peewees. There seemed to be one territory after another along the hiking trails. Several great crested flycatchers and an eastern phoebe added to the flycatcher list. There also were a few warbling and red-eyed vireos, scarlet tanagers, and wood thrushes. We also encountered pockets of chickadees, titmice, nuthatches and some of the wild turkeys that are quite common.
Blue jays, cardinals, robins, indigo buntings, goldfinches and eastern towhees were more common near the parking lots and the big lodge at Turkey Run. Several black vultures joined the more numerous turkey vultures and red-tailed hawks overhead.
Sugar Creek is the good-sized stream/river that cut the gorges through the 5,000 acres of the two parks. At one time there was a thriving mill. Families along the river would gather products until the spring thaw when the river was high enough for rafts or barges to make it to the nearest towns.
Today there are still several buildings and at least three covered bridges that tourists can visit. One of the covered bridges is still in use, and we enjoyed driving across it as we left the park. Canoe and kayak trips are popular along the stretch of the river that passes through the two parks.
I hope to return during fall or spring migration to see a greater variety of birds and to hike some of the trails we didn’t have time to do on this trip. Now we are back in Goshen, starting on year 51 and hoping to be able to do some more traveling in the coming months and years.
Good birding!
Email Bruce Glick at birderbruce@yahoo.com or call 330-317-7798.