By Charla Wurm-Adams
cwurm@wbcowqel.com
Saturday was all about the birds and the bees at Lowe-Volk Park, and of course the pancakes, for more than 250 people.
Friends of the Crawford Park District had its annual Pancakes in the Park fundraiser which is held in conjunction with International Migratory Bird Day which always brings Professor Bob Placier to the park for bird banding.
Placier talked about a few of the birds caught banded and released for his study.
“Like the cat bird I got today is back here to nest again but that bird a few weeks ago was anywhere from the southern U.S. down to possibly Central America or one of the islands in the Caribbean and now it’s come right here back to Lowe Volk Park,” Placier said. “We had a couple Great Cheek Thrushes today that were in Central America probably a month ago or less and they are on their way all the way to Hudson’s Bay or farther than that even.”
Some uninvited but welcome guests also stopped by. Bees began to swarm at the park which is significant because there is a new queen bee starting a new colony and a honeycomb outside Lowe-Volk’s Bee Display.
“Our hive that we have in the Nature Center has decided they’re going to swarm,” Naturalist Josh Dyer said. “Basically they decided to split the hive.”
The proceeds from the pancake fundraiser this year are going to be used in a new display coming to the Nature Center.
“Today we are having our annual Pancake Day Breakfast and it’s been a really great event and the proceeds from today’s pancake breakfast are going to go towards an interactive tree that we are going to have inside the Nature Center,” Dyer said. “This is going to be a kid-friendly treehouse kind of inside. Kids can climb up inside of this tree, we are going to have an eagle’s nest in it, kind of a log that kids can crawl through and interact with inside of the log basically. So, we are looking forward to having that and getting that going.”
Former Crawford County commissioner and Galion City Council member Mo Ressallat was the head chef behind the grill.
“It was pretty good crowd here. We had a lot of people who liked the pancakes,” Ressallat said. “They come to visit the beautiful we have in Lowe-Volk and I am glad they are here not just for a pancake, just for looking at a friend, many, many friends, and to see a nice park we have in Crawford County, Leesville.”