Hallaway

I have only been to Maplewood State Park once before. The time of the year was autumn and we thought we could snag a campsite. Wrong. Despite the rainy weather we waited 30 minutes in a line of cars full of people determined to enjoy the fall colors. There was no empty parking spaces so we could not stop to hike. We drove the 5 mile wildlife loop and left. Today I got to enjoy the park. This is our view from the top of Hallaway Hill. On our hike we saw yellow warblers, golden winged warblers (a first for me), turkey vultures, a bald eagle, American Robins, and chestnut sided warblers. We also saw a dog tick perched on a leaf of grass below a park bench waiting for a human to come close. Dog ticks wear either a necklace (female) or suspenders (male). Both male and female ticks bite. I knew females had to bite to reproduce but I guess I just never thought about what the male ticks would feast on. Maplewood State Park is on the edge of the prairie biome and the big woods biome so it is possible to hear a Eastern Meadowlark and an Indigo bunting at the same time. We took the wildlife loop. At the end of our trip we visited the sugar shack. This park, with assistance from the "Friends of Maplewood State Park" group, collect maple sap and process it into syrup for the local school kids to participate. Each kid gets a bowl of ice cream with maple syrup on top. Any left over maple syrup is packaged by local professional syrup processors and sold in small bottles in the fall at the leaf day celebrations.