The Egret Article

By Howard Williams

On a beautiful cool, dew-laden sunny morning, nine members set out to walk the loop in this gem of a reserve.  Over 35 species of wildflowers and shrubs were seen and identified with a great deal of help from the reluctant leader: Carole Donaldson.  Bird observation played second fiddle to plants.

Highlights of the walk were: spotting a stand off between a Preying mantis and a small Garter snake, in a thick dogwood.  We weren’t sure who was wanting to avoid whom.  There are too many plant species seen to mention them all, we saw two species of false foxgloves, four different species of sunflowers, several goldenrods, American Groundnut, Butterfly Milkweed and Tall Ironweed

By Mark Nenadov

The Birth of a Project

Let’s time travel. We’re time-machining to 1992 and I’m writing for the Fall 1992 issue of The Egret.

I’m pitching the concept of iNaturalist and eBird. If I’m lucky, The Egret will print it right after a curious note on page two about the reintroduction of Wild Turkeys to Essex County. Imagine that! Wild Turkeys roaming Essex County–can’t wait to add them to my county list back home in 2022!

Everyone would wonder: who is this strange person? No one would  take me seriously. I wouldn’t get any investors. Just as a simple tiny moth depends on an ever complex web of life, a “simple” website or app depends on a rich ecology of technology and culture. Facebook or Instagram weren’t merely absent in 1992 because the tech wasn’t yet created, they were also absent because everything that surrounded them was different.

You can be a bona fide nature enthusiast without ever touching iNaturalist or eBird. But they both changed the “environment” so to speak and conversely have grown out of the current “environment”. Even if they disappeared off the map, they’ve sure left a mark on things.

Essex County Field Naturalists’ Club has desired to find a way to experiment with integrating iNaturalist as a tool and introduce its members to it. In April 2021, a “Essex County Field Naturalists’ Club Observations” project was created.  Basically, it is an “aggregation project”, it takes a lot of specifics (your individual iNaturalist observations) and ties them together in a broader context (all the iNaturalist observations of club members).

Let’s look at some project statistics and highlight a few observations!

Some Statistics (*Accurate as of August 25th)

So what happened with the iNaturalist project since April 2021?

34 of our members joined. Immediately as they joined, their observations were “sewn together” in a nice wad of observations. 26,538 in total!!

26,538 is roughly 28% of all the observations in our county and something like 0.2% of the global submissions.

This amounts to 3,534 species of plants and animals. Breaking it down further, 208 species of flies, 280 species of birds, 906 species of butterflies and moths, 743 species of plants, 90 species of spiders, etc. You get the drift.

How Is This Significant?

Ok, you will grant that there’s a big wad of data here. But what does it mean?

It’s really, really hard to gauge the significance of these observations. What’s “significant” is very subjective. To whom? For what purpose?

We can’t predict the future. We have no clue what future generations might find significant. Who’d have thought turkeys roaming free almost everywhere in our county would be what 2022 looks like? (Some of our more senior members maybe remember some of those pre-turkeys-running-free days)

When it comes to documenting biodiversity, there’s something to be said for letting others (whether a future scientist or even a future you) determine what’s significant. Collectl, collect, collect, and then let the filtering happen later.

Of course, a true note-taker can’t record everything and tries to have an eye for what is important. On the other hand, though, the best note-takers also have an eye for things that might not seem important now but may have some sliver of significance for the future. Maybe it’s those morsels that you could have easily passed over which become the focal point at some future date!

Ultimately, our collection of data is going to reflect our own fascination and interests. Maybe you are an entomology amateur who is really fascinated by dragonflies. Or a gardener that’s a bit paranoid about that bug and what it might do to your squash pants. Or you are a mushroom forager. Or you’re a bird nerd.  Or an angler who is into fish. Or a student who got hoodwinked into using that app. We do not collect neutrally. However you slice it, our little enthusiasms or quirks or compulsions or curiosities or perhaps desire to graduate has propelled us to submit photos that aggregate to something that is bigger as a whole.

This aggregation is what makes this project what it is. And you never know exactly what will come out of such aggregations. I’d say we should keep on submitting data and see what comes out of it. The kicker is–we will have a ton of fun while we do it and we will learn a bunch.

These observations are also a drop in the bucket compared to what is going on globally, and yet they also tell a distinct story about Essex County’s biodiversity. These 3,400+ species are really special. Just think of all their triumphs and struggles to survive in a hostile environment. (By the way, not far from two thousand of our observations were of species considered to be “threatened”)

Next we will look at some noteworthy observations. I’m not necessarily trying to collect the most rare observations or the most technically perfect photos. I just want to give a sample that is representative in many ways. And I hope no botanists will get on my case for under representation! I suppose the Mycologists (fungi enthusiasts)  and Coleopterists (beetle fanatics) will be even more upset!

Some Noteworthy Observations

By Jeremy Hatt

When I heard that the Ontario Field Ornithologists (OFO) was holding its first Pride Bird Walk in Toronto, I knew immediately that I had to hold a similar outing in Essex County. On June 18^th, in partnership w/ the Essex County Field Naturalists’ Club, OFO held its second Pride Bird Walk at Ojibway Park in Windsor.

I am very grateful that ECFNC and OFO are beginning to offer trips that celebrate the LGBTQ2S+ community and I look forward to more Pride events in the future. Outings like this are about building community and providing an opportunity for people who may not always feel safe or comfortable to attend such outings a space to do so.

I am also grateful to Jennifer Nantais who co-led the trip and added so much value to the day with her knowledge of nature and Ojibway.

It was important to us that the outing be open to the public and not just to members of OFO and ECFNC. We wanted anyone who learned about the outing to feel welcome to attend. To get the word out, I posted the event to a local Windsor LGBTQ2S+ group on Facebook and it resulted in several people registering. We ended up having 16 participants. Most in attendance were not part of either organization, and for a few, it was the first time they had ever gone birding. It was great to see so many new faces and get to share our stories and experiences. The energy of the group was tremendously positive.

We could not have asked for a more perfect day. After a week of sweltering heat, the temperatures landed in the mid-70’s for the day and a refreshing breeze kept the bugs low. It felt fantastic to wear a light jacket comfortably in June.

The outing started with one of our top highlights. While attendees arrived and introduced themselves, a Yellow-billed Cuckoo was perched right out in the open next to the parking lot. This was a lifer for many in the group and as one participant quipped, “It’s almost like you placed it there just for this walk.”

Our morning was spent exploring the trails of Ojibway Park. Not long into the outing we encountered another highlight of the day; a singing male Scarlet Tanager. This was another lifer for many people on the trip and we spent a lot of time taking photos and admiring its striking plumage and song.

Other expected woodland species included Red-bellied Woodpecker, Eastern Wood-Pewee, Great Crested Flycatcher, Red-eyed Vireo, White-breasted Nuthatch, Eastern Towhee, Baltimore Oriole, Indigo Bunting, and American Redstart. Ojibway Park is a site that many birders visit in Essex County to reliably see Tufted Titmouse and we were not disappointed. A few attendees were even fortunate enough to witness an adult titmouse feeding recently fledged young.

In the afternoon, a few keen participants continued with me to the Ojibway Prairie Provincial Nature Reserve. The habitat here is long grass prairie and provided an opportunity to see species we did not encounter in the forest including American Goldfinch, Field Sparrow, Orchard Oriole, and Common Yellowthroat. We also picked up several swallow species and Chimney Swift feeding over the prairie, and observed a pair of Rose-breasted Grosbeaks. In total, we ended up seeing 40 species on the outing.

The feedback for the Ojibway Pride Walk was very positive and participants expressed interest in future Pride events. I left the trip feeling energized and hopeful for more ECFNC events celebrating the LGBTQ2S+ community next year. Stay tuned and happy Pride!