Aurora+Audubon+Sanctuary

Also, see Portage County North Birding Drive
 * =Birding in Ohio=

Portage County
=Aurora Audubon Sanctuary= 896 East Pioneer Trail Aurora, Ohio 44202 Aurora Audubon Sanctuary webpage Aurora Audubon Sanctuary Greater Cleveland Audubon Society webpage Aurora Audubon Sanctuary map

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Aurora Audubon Sanctuary
Coordinates: 41.3085029, -81.312089 eBird links: Hotspot map View details Recent visits My eBird links: Location life list Submit data

About Aurora Audubon Sanctuary
The Aurora Preserve, owned by the Audubon Society of Greater Cleveland, is the oldest bird sanctuary in Ohio, acquired in 1941 by the Greater Cleveland Audubon Society's predecessor, The Cleveland Bird Club.

Aurora Sanctuary is located north of Pioneer Trail Road, near Page Road in Aurora. It was purchased in 1941 by The Cleveland Bird Club. It is the oldest bird sanctuary in Ohio. The former owner of the property, the Smythe family, intended to develop it in the 1920’s, but the depression forced the abandonment of the plan, and The Cleveland Bird Club bought the property from the Cleveland Trust Co.

Biological Assets: The bulk of the 165-acre preserve is in a mature beech-maple forest, although two field areas are preserved from an earlier time when the property was partially farmed. Approximately half of the property has been left in an entirely natural state, without trails or other man-made alterations of any kind. A trail system on the western portion of the property is about two miles in length and lends access to a large variety of habitat types. The sanctuary is a State Nature Preserve dedicated in 1999, that is open to the public.

There are four ponds on the property. The largest, James Fulton Pond, is currently 10-15 acres in size. An observation blind overlooking Fulton pond was constructed in 2003. An original smaller pond was expanded in the early 1950’s by the addition of a cement dam, and it grew further in the 1960’s and ‘70’s as beaver returned to the area and raised the dam. Beaver have also created a small pond adjoining Fulton Pond on its east side, and the area of this pond is noted for its population of both Closed Bottle Gentian and Smaller Fringed Gentian, the latter of which is State listed as an endangered wildflower. A smaller pond at the northwest corner of the preserve, the Hamann Pond, is about 3 acres in size and was built by Society members in the early 1950’s. A fourth small pond is entirely natural, the result of glacial activity.

Due to the many habitat types in this sanctuary, it clearly has great potential as an educational resource. Management problems in the Aurora Sanctuary include protecting its integrity from growing development pressures on neighboring land and dealing with one invasive plant, in particular, European Buckthorn.

A central feature of the Aurora Sanctuary is a deep glacial gorge which carries a stream called Hickory Creek that drains the wetlands associated with our Blanche Katherine Novak Sanctuary to the north and merges with the Aurora Branch of the Chagrin River at the western edge of the property (see maps). Hickory Creek is noted for its purity, accounted for by the fact that it has historically been isolated from farming or development activities.

The Aurora Sanctuary is also noted for historical artifacts that have recently caused the Aurora Landmark Commission to seek to landmark the property. They include an 1820’s wagon road that forms the sanctuary’s western boundary, bridge artifacts from the same period, and a substantial ditch originally intended as the right-of-way of a never completed railroad dating from the 1850’s known as “The Clinton Airline”. From Aurora Audubon Sanctuary webpage



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|| L934596 US US-OH US-OH-133 41.3085029 -81.312089 Aurora Audubon Sanctuary