Dan Toth assisted Summit County’s newest resident out of the back of the SUV, Marlo Perdicas presented her with a shiny blue bracelet, and then the two local ambassadors watched as she toddled off to explore her new home.
One down, 499 to go.
Summit County Metro Parks staff spent the better part of a drizzly afternoon tagging and releasing 500 bobwhite quails at Springfield Bog and Silver Creek metro parks — all part of a three-year experiment to restore something that disappeared from Summit County decades ago.
Thursday’s release was the last of nearly 2,000 bobwhites that have been transported from a Pennsylvania hatchery since 2014.
It’s the most significant attempt anywhere north of Columbus to revive a species that once thrived here.
The 160-acre prairie in Springfield Township and the expansive grasslands of Silver Creek in Norton are perfect settings for the quail, which require lots of seeds and insects to eat and thick shrubs to shelter under during Northeast Ohio’s harsh winters.
But why bother?
Perdicas, program manager and wildlife biologist, said successful ecosystems require diverse habitats and diverse wildlife, and the native quail were historically a part of the grand design until Summit County’s fields and farms gave way to housing and business developments.
The parks offer a chance to reverse that process. Take the Springfield Bog, a former soybean and corn farm purchased by the park in 2010 and planted with a prairie mix.
A hiking path now weaves through waving, waist-high fields of goldenrod, bee balm, coneflowers, sawtooth sunflowers, compass plants, switchgrass, indiangrass and blue stem grass. At the center of the park is the watering hole for which the park is named.
The flora can support a unique mix of fauna not typical of other parks. That includes the quail.
“We need everything from the little tiny creatures that live under the earth that are turning over the soil to our big predators that help us monitor populations of smaller animals,” Perdicas said. “Everything is interconnected.”
The small bobwhite — adults can fit comfortably in a pair of cupped hands — is named for its distinctive call. The male’s mating whistle sounds like “bob-WHITE!”
The birds are much quieter when they are nesting, wary of attracting the attention of predators. And in the fall, they form social groups of 10 or more to help each other forage and keep warm. When at rest, they cleverly form circles, face-out, to watch for predators.
The reintroduction of the quail to Summit County began in 2014, but it is believed few if any of those 300 or so early birds — evenly divided between Springfield Bog and Silver Creek — survived the winter.
Last winter’s warm temperatures helped the 2015 transplants settle in, however, and volunteers frequently have caught sight of those birds, which wear a silver band on their legs. Even more exciting, park staff said, is the spotting of many quails with no bands, indicating chicks that were born in the wild.
On Thursday, park staff laughed at the diverse reactions of the Class of 2016.
As they were plucked from boxes after their three-hour ride from Pennsylvania and adorned with tiny blue metal bands, some flew off without looking back, others dropped to the ground and sniffed around the wild grass, still others lingered on open palms as they surveyed their new world.
Mike Johnson, chief of resource management for Metro Parks, said Summit County is fortunate to have Springfield Bog, the largest prairie bog in northern Ohio.
“Bogs are really rare ecological habitats, and these fields give us the chance to restore things we lost,” Johnson said.
For visitors, the quails will be more visible in Springfield, Perdicas added.
“The habitat outside the park is [more developed and] less desirable for them, so they’ve stayed in the park,” she said. “At Silver Creek, the habitat outside the park looks similar to the habitat inside, so they venture off.” The park has received reports of silver-banded quails migrating up to eight miles away from their Norton digs.
Paula Schleis can be reached at 330-996-3741 or pschleis@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/paulaschleis.