The Egret Article

By Jeremy Hatt (Land Acknowledgment by Julie Read)

At the beginning of every Birding With Pride at Point Pelee, it’s important that we start the event with a Land Acknowledgment. This year, Julie Read, hike leader and volunteer at Birding With Pride, wrote a Land Acknowledgment that I would like to share. It includes a brief history of Caldwell First Nation in Essex County and ways to support and build relationships.

“I am deeply thankful to be gathering on this land, the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe Three Fires Confederacy: the Ojibwa, the Odawa, and the Potawatomi. This is the ancestral home of Caldwell First Nation, who have lived on the lands of Point Pelee and the surrounding area since time immemorial. This land is also part of the house of Walpole Island First Nation. In addition, this land has been walked on and cared for by the Attiwonderonk, Mississauga, and Myaamia/Miami peoples.

I want to acknowledge that when Treaty 2 of the Upper Canada Treaties (known as the McKee Purchase) was signed in 1790, Caldwell First Nation lived on this land and refused to sign the treaty and give up their right to their ancestral home. During the War of 1812, the Caldwell people fought as allies of the British and were promised land in return, specifically Point Pelee and Pelee Island, in exchange for their service. Despite serving in the war, shortly after Point Pelee National Park was formed in 1922, members of Caldwell First Nation were forcibly removed from their homes and traditional lands here and spent decades without a recognized land base. This atrocity had a devastating impact, including the severing of family connections, and loss of language and traditions. Because Caldwell First Nation had not signed Treaty 2, band members didn’t have a reserve of their own until November 2020, when a 200-acre parcel was officially designated as Reserve land.

A wonderful way to support Caldwell First Nation is to build relationships, learn about their culture and traditions and directly support them, and one way you can do this is by attending their annual Powwow. Their 2nd annual Powwow will be this summer, August 7-10th and you can find all the details online. Everyone is welcome, but as a non-Indigenous person of course I would be mindful that I’m entering the event as a guest, and so I would practice respect, kindness, and gratitude.

I am committed to truth and reconciliation and have learned that one way I can contribute to this as a non-Indigenous settler is to support language revitalization and amplify Indigenous Knowledge. I’m very thankful that I’ve had the opportunity to start learning Anishinaabemowin with the wonderful teacher Sarah Wood. If you’re interested, you can take Anishinaabemowin classes online through the Outdoor Learning School and Store. Indigenous folks can register for these courses for free. I am also so thankful for the opportunity to learn Anishinaabe Bird Names and Bird Knowledge, thanks to the amazing Joe, Andres and Junaid of Creator’s Garden Birds. They have amazing resources that I have here with me today and that you can purchase online, and they also offer online and in person workshops.

I am full of gratitude for the opportunity to be a guest on this beautiful land today, for the opportunity to gather together with all of you and enjoy the many birds that both rest and nest here. Chii miigwetch.”
– Julie Read

Further information on the Caldwell First Nation Powwow at Point Pelee National Park will be updated on their website: https://caldwellpowwow.ca/. The Powwow will be held August 7, 8, and 9 just west of Caldwell Gas & Variety on Mersea Rd 1. Stay tuned to the website for more details.

More information on Creator’s Garden Birds can be found at https://www.creatorsgardenmarket.ca/general. Creator’s Garden Birds is made up of Joe Pitawanakwat (Founder and Director), Andrés Jiménez Monge, and Junaid Shahzad Khan who are “dedicated to regathering and the education of bird names and significant Indigenous bird knowledges, these knowledges that help us live the life The Great Lakes region has to offer, Mino Bimaadiziwin, A good life.” The trio offers talks and workshops on Indigenous Bird names and knowledge and they are great presenters. I had the pleasure of seeing their talk on Indigenous Bird Names at the 2024 Ontario Field Ornithologists Convention held in Leamington. I highly recommend attending one o f their presentations.

Creator’s Garden Birds also has two published booklets loaded with information and beautiful artwork: “Anishinaabe Bird Names of Winter Birds Throughout Anishinaabe Aki” and “Anishinaabe Bird Names of Birds Throughout Anishinaabe-aki”. Both booklets are available on the Creator’s Garden website, or they can be purchased at the Nature Nook Gift Store in the Visitor Centre at Point Pelee National Park. These booklets are “an introduction to the Anishinaabe way of observing birds – a practice rooted in deep attention, reflection, and a multigenerational relationship with the land.”

By: Jeremy Hatt

The Butterfly Committee has a few exciting announcements to share as we approach spring. The first is that the Committee now has a logo thanks to the artistry of Janice Boussey.

The Committee is represented by the Pearl Crescent, a common butterfly of Essex County that can be found from April to October but is most abundant in late July to early August and mid-September. This variable pollinator of meadows and roadsides symbolizes the complexity and interconnectedness of nature; a great emblem for the Committee.

The Committee has also been in contact with the Toronto Entomological Association (TEA) to explore more ways to get involved in the Ontario Butterfly Atlas as well as participation in additional butterfly counts in the region. Point Pelee National Park is restarting its annual butterfly count this year and ECFNC will be closely involved in helping organize the event and providing volunteers to count. The count will be held on Saturday, August 8 – stay tuned for more details closer to the date.

Partnerships with Pelee Buzz on Pelee Island are also in the works including a moth night that will be held in coordination with TEA on Saturday, June 6 at 9pm and continue on the morning of Sunday, June 10. The moth night will be led by Alan Macnaughton, Vice President of TEA. More details on how ECFNC members can participate will be forthcoming.

“Location: 285 West Shore Road, Pelee Island. This is a joint outing with Pelee Buzz. A variety of sheets and lights will be set up to see the moths come in. We will want to identify and record the moths as they arrive, perhaps by uploading observations to the www.iNaturalist.ca website — it can identify observations to species with at least 90% accuracy. Bring either phones or regular cameras. On the following morning (Sunday, June 7), there will also be a viewing and releasing of moths that arrived during the night.”

Keep your eyes out on Pelee Buzz at https://peleebuzz.ca/ for other upcoming events taking place on Pelee Island in 2026.

Also, a reminder that the Butterfly Committee has created Projects on iNaturalist and eButterfly for collecting data from all butterflies reported in Essex County. They are a great resource for learning about our local butterflies, their flight times, and abundance.

iNaturalist: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/butterflies-of-essex-county

eButterfly: https://www.e-butterfly.org/ebapp/en/projects/view/91

Finally, we are still looking for additional members to help, so if you are interested in joining the Butterfly Committee, please contact me at .

By Alexander Campbell

The 2025 field season for the Turtle Conservation Committee (TCC) was a very successful one!
From the end of March till mid November, members of the TCC were very busy helping to conserve everyone’s favourite reptile. From wading through dense vegetated wetlands, to responding to late calls about nesting and injured turtles, here is a breakdown of all the fantastic work that the dedicated members accomplished in 2025.

2025 Stats:
345 newly documented turtle observations
500+ volunteer working hours
530+ deceased reptiles & amphibians documented on roads
73 calls & texts were responded to from the emergency & Turtle nesting hotline
79 turtles & 3 snakes were successfully assisted across roads or brought to a wildlife rehab
34 nest protectors were deployed on turtle nests: 4 Blanding’s Turtles, 11 Common Snapping Turtles, 2 Northern Map Turtles, 16 Midland Painted Turtles and 1 Eastern Musk Turtle.

We are currently gearing up for the 2026 season, which means this is the perfect time to get involved! There are many ways you can help by joining the TCC, from surveys to transporting injured turtles to rehabilitation centres, there is something for everyone in this committee. We currently in need of volunteers to assist with the current projects the committee has running:

• Media, Outreach & Community Engagement
• Surveys: Occupancy, Visual Encounter, Mark-recapture, Road Mortality, Opportunistic
• Grant Writing & Fundraising
• Nest box construction
• Turtle Nest Protection

Do you have a skill that was not listed but think would benefit the committee or have interest in joining this turtley-awesome committee? Please email us at

As a reminder, with this warm weather turtles will begin to start crossing roads and within a couple months will begin to nest and they need your help!

If you come across an injured or deceased turtle please let us know! You can call or text our injured & nesting turtle hotline to report observations. Our members are trained on how to respond to injured & deceased turtles and align transportation for them to receive immediate emergency care and examination. Why deceased turtles you may ask? The majority of times a turtle may seem dead, they often still have brain function and absolute death can only be determined by professionals. Females during nesting season may also be carrying eggs, after a female turtle passes, her eggs can still be salvaged and incubated by permitted individuals.

Additionally, you can call the hotline to report nesting turtles and members will be able to assist with the protection of the nest and record much needed data on nesting selection of turtles in Essex County.