Friends of the Sawmill Wetlands

Sawmill Wetlands Story Trail Welcomes Its Second Story: Queen of the Hillside — Bea’s Tale.

FLOW is excited to announce the next chapter of the Sawmill Wetlands Story Trail. On June 6, we will have the grand opening, at 10 to 12. Noon. You can follow Bea, an Eastern Common Bumblebee, through “Queen of the Hillside: Bea’s Tale”, a new kid‑friendly story that highlights the importance of pollinators in our urban ecosystems.

Bea’s tale invites families to explore the hillside from a bee’s‑eye view. Along the trail, readers learn how bumblebees forage for pollen, support their colonies, and help native plants thrive throughout the growing season. The story also introduces children to the many wildflowers that share the hillside with Bea.

The Story Trail is part of FLOW’s ongoing effort to connect the community with the natural spaces we protect and restore. It was funded through a conservation grant from Columbus Audubon. Sawmill Wetlands is one of the last remaining high‑quality urban wetlands in central Ohio, and the trail offers a fun, accessible way for families to learn about its ecology.

Queen of the Hillside will remain on display throughout the summer. Later this year, the trail will transition to its third story, Shimmer, featuring a tree swallow and the remarkable journey of migration.

The trail is open daily from dawn to dusk at 2650 Sawmill Place Boulevard, and admission is free. We invite you to visit, read Bea’s story, and experience the pollinators, plants, and wildlife that make this wetland such a special place.

Earth Day 2026 at Sawmill

There was something for everyone- from the boardwalk story trail about Skippy the Flying Squirrel (created by our super volunteer Tim Bischoff) to Mort Schmidt’s tree walk, to native shrubs give away, to opportunities to talk to experts on honeysuckle eradication and restoration. David Williams was there discussing edible native plants. The Granby School shared information on milk jug planting and shared their seedlings with visitors. Thank you to members of the Worthington Hills Garden Club who were everywhere - setting up, hanging signs, monitoring parking, answering all kinds of plant questions and greeting all with big smiles!

Before you cut that tree down, know what lives in it.

A single mature oak tree supports:

→ 500+ species of caterpillars (primary food for nesting songbirds)
→ 100+ species of other insects
→ Squirrels, chipmunks, raccoons (in cavities and branches)
→ Screech owls, woodpeckers, nuthatches (in holes)
→ Hawks, crows, jays (nesting in canopy)
→ Bats (under loose bark)
→ Fungi, lichens, mosses (on bark)
→ It produces thousands of acorns feeding 30+ species

A 75-year-old tree took 75 YEARS to become that.

You can't replace it. A new sapling won't support that level of life for decades.

BEFORE cutting any tree:

→ Check for active nests (it's illegal to destroy nests with eggs or young — Migratory Bird Treaty Act)
→ Have an arborist assess if the tree is truly hazardous or just inconvenient
→ Consider pruning instead of removal
→ If removal is necessary: schedule it September-January (outside nesting season)
→ Keep the stump (it becomes habitat for insects, fungi, and salamanders)
→ Plant 2-3 native replacement trees

A mature tree provides an estimated $50,000+ in ecosystem services:
→ Air filtration
→ Carbon storage
→ Stormwater management
→ Cooling shade (reduces AC bills 20-25%)
→ Property value increase

Your tree isn't a problem to solve.

It's a 50-year-old apartment building housing hundreds of tenants.

All of them pay rent in ecosystem services. 🌳

New Story Trail Opens at Sawmill Wetlands!

A new Sawmill Wetlands Story Trail is opening this spring, created through a partnership between the Friends of the Lower Olentangy Watershed (FLOW) and the Ohio Division of Wildlife, with funding support from Columbus Audubon’s conservation grant program. This family friendly trail features a series of illustrated panels that introduce visitors to the wildlife and seasonal rhythms of one of Columbus’s last remaining urban forested wetlands.
The first story, Gliders of the Night, follows Skippy, a southern flying squirrel who guides families along the boardwalk and shares how she navigates the wetlands throughout the year. Skippy’s adventure is the first in a planned four part series, with future stories highlighting additional species that call Sawmill Wetlands home.

The Story Trail offers an easy, engaging way for young children and adults to explore native plants, birds, and the quiet beauty of a protected wetland right in northwest Columbus.
An opening celebration will take place during the April 25th Earth Day event from 10 a.m. to noon at the Sawmill Wetlands entrance. If you can’t attend, the story panels will remain in place throughout April and May for self guided visits.
In June, the second story—Queen of the Hillside: Bea’s Tale, featuring an Eastern Common Bumblebee—will be released as the next chapter in the series.
The trail is open daily from dawn to dusk at 2650 Sawmill Place Boulevard, and admission is free. Visitors of all ages are invited to stop by, enjoy the stories, and celebrate the wildlife that makes central Ohio’s natural areas so special.

In 1970 I was almost gone. Not a gradual fade. A collapse.

I'm an Eastern Bluebird. Pesticides thinned my eggshells. Dead trees with nesting cavities were removed from the landscape. Invasive House Sparrows and European Starlings took the cavities that remained. My population dropped to a fraction of what it had been within a few decades.

Then people started building boxes.

The idea was simple. If natural cavities are disappearing, build artificial ones. A wooden box with an entrance hole just under two inches — large enough for a bluebird, too small for a starling. Mount it on a post along a rural road. Space them a few hundred feet apart. Check them weekly through nesting season.

Thousands of volunteers across the country started doing exactly that. Bluebird trails — lines of nest boxes maintained by retirees, birders, scout troops, and farmers — spread across nearly every state. The boxes replaced what the landscape had lost.

The population recovered. From near collapse to millions of breeding pairs over the course of a few decades. One of the most successful grassroots conservation efforts in North American history. No legislation drove it. No agency funded it. People with drills and scrap lumber decided my species was worth saving.

I'm the only thrush in North America that nests exclusively in cavities. I can't excavate my own — my beak isn't built for it. I depend entirely on holes made by woodpeckers, natural decay, or someone who mounted a box on a fence post.

Right now I'm sitting on a nest box along a rural road. My mate is inside on five eggs. I bring her insects throughout the day until the chicks hatch. Sometimes last year's offspring stay in the territory and help feed the new brood — bringing food to nestlings that aren't their own siblings.

🐦 If you want to be part of the trail:

- A bluebird box with a one-and-a-half-inch entrance hole is the standard — large enough for bluebirds, too small for starlings. Plans are free from most state bluebird societies
- Mount on a post or fence in open habitat — fields, large yards, rural roadsides. Bluebirds hunt from the box and need clear ground below for spotting insects
- Face the entrance away from prevailing wind, ideally east or southeast
- Check weekly during nesting season and remove House Sparrow nests if they appear — sparrows are invasive and not protected
- Clean the box after each brood fledges and the pair may nest again in the same box the same season — bluebirds raise two to three broods per year
- If you have space for two or more boxes spaced a few hundred feet apart, you're running a bluebird trail. Thousands of people across the country do exactly this

I exist because someone picked up a drill. That's the whole story 🌿

This is so wonderful!!!!

Imagine planting something beautiful in your own yard — something that attracts butterflies, feeds bees, brings songbirds back to a neighborhood that had gone quiet — and then getting a letter threatening you with fines if you don't rip it out.
That's not a hypothetical. It happens constantly, in neighborhoods across America, to people who had no idea that doing something genuinely good for the environment could get them in legal trouble with their homeowners association.
HOA rules were written in an era that had one specific picture of what a respectable yard looked like: short grass, clean edges, nothing too tall or wild or different. Those rules were never written with ecology in mind. They were written with aesthetics in mind — a mid-century American idea of order and respectability that happened to produce one of the most ecologically barren landscapes imaginable.
Turfgrass lawns cover tens of millions of acres in the United States. They support almost no native insects. They provide no food for pollinators. They shelter nothing through winter. Scientifically speaking, a well-maintained suburban lawn is as close to a biological desert as you can get while still technically having plants.
Native gardens are the opposite. They bloom at different times across the whole season instead of just weeks. They feed bees, beetles, and butterflies that the ecosystem desperately needs. They provide the caterpillars that songbirds — specifically, parent birds feeding their nestlings — depend on to raise the next generation. A single native plant species can support dozens of insect species. A single native oak can support hundreds.
Pennsylvania's HB 1878 would legally protect homeowners who choose that. HOAs could no longer unreasonably block native plant gardens. The right to grow something that actually matters ecologically — on your own property, in your own yard — would be protected by state law.
More than a dozen states have already moved in this direction. Pennsylvania is joining a quiet revolution that is reshaping what an American yard is allowed to be.
If you believe people should have the right to do good on their own land without being punished for it, this bill matters. Share it with someone who's ever gotten one of those HOA letters.