Dig Big Darby Creek June 11

COLUMBUS, Ohio — June’s breakfast program by the Environmental Professionals Network features central Ohio’s Big Darby Creek, a National Scenic River. Included are chances to walk along it, wade in it and see a nearby bison herd.

“Still harboring an inferiority complex that central Ohio’s outdoor places don’t stack up nationally?” the event’s flier asks. “Attend this breakfast and exorcise that notion forever.”

The program, called “A Summer Delight,” is 7:30-10:30 a.m. June 11 at the Battelle Darby Creek Metro Park Nature Center, 1775 Darby Creek Drive, in Galloway west of Columbus.

Registration costs $10 ($15 if paid by credit card), includes breakfast, and is open to both members and nonmembers of the network. Find details and a link to online registration at go.osu.edu/June2015EPN. The registration deadline is June 9.

The network, which offers instructive events like this one and web-based and in-person interaction, is a service of the School of Environment and Natural Resources at The Ohio State University. Membership, which is free, is open to anyone who works in or studies an environmental field.

Fish feed in an indoor living stream at the Battelle Darby Creek Metro Park Nature Center. (Video: Columbus and Franklin County Metro Parks.)

The school is in the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences.

Opened in 2012, the Battelle Darby Creek Nature Center houses, among other things, a 53-foot indoor living stream.

As part of the program, Larry Peck, assistant director of the Columbus and Franklin County Metro Parksand a lecturer with SENR, will discuss the park system’s future plans. The Battelle Darby Creek park is part of the system.

Bison move to new pasture at the Battelle Darby Creek Metro Park. (Video: Columbus and Franklin County Metro Parks.)

Also speaking at the event will be park naturalist Mac Albin, “who probably knows more about Darby Creek’s natural and social history than any other person,” said David Hanselmann, also a SENR lecturer and the network’s coordinator.

After the speakers, participants can pick between a guided natural history walk along — and optionally in — Big Darby Creek or a naturalist-led walk to see the park’s bison herd.

For more information, contact Hanselmann at hanselmann.3@osu.edu or 614-247-1908.

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Photo caption: Central Ohio’s Big Darby Creek, shown here, is the focus and setting of the next breakfast program by the Environmental Professionals Network. (Analogue Kid licensed under CCA 2.5 via Wikimedia.)