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Pelee Island Trip

By |2023-06-11T00:13:18-04:00June 11th, 2023|Uncategorized|

By Howard Williams

Over the last 30 years, Dave Kraus has led 25 field trips to Pelee Island for Essex County Nature members.  We spent two days there and were capably bussed around the very bumpy roads by Linda Froese to nine stops and kilometres of slow road traverses, hunting for birds and wildflowers.  For Carole and I, it was our first visit to the island.  We managed to identify over 57 bird species, and over 20 plant species.  Warblers were perhaps the main draw for this trip, but wildflowers on the forest floor at Fish Point was also delight to behold.  The two photos are of White Trillium and Blue Phlox.

Bird species were much harder to photograph because many were hyperactively chasing bugs or were easily scared off by the crowd of 16 people that were anxious to get a good look at or photo of them.  This Brown Creeper was spotted with an afternoon snack in its beak.

On the Saturday evening we gate-crashed a Pelee Buzz group led by John Ambrose who helped with plant identification in the Stone Road Alvar.  Ryan Wolfe showed us the way in which snake habitat is being encouraged and tried to discover snakes for us, but they were hiding.  Ryan therefore delighted the audience by taking a number of captive snakes from cloth bags and let us handle and admire them, see this link to find out more about his graduate work: https://canadiangeographic.ca/articles/racing-for-survival-ontarios-blue-racer/.  The photo is our intrepid leader handling the Blue Racer like a professional snake charmer.  Not impressed by the charmed snake, Tracey Colenutt stared into the distance, wishing we had spent more time examining the relatively uncommon trees that we had just seen in the alvar, including Fragrant Sumac and Prickly Ash.  Tracey was a fine resource when it came to tree identification.

All in all, the trip went without hitch, was full of people asking questions and providing answers when their expertise was needed.  Many thanks to Dave for putting on this trip – unforgettable.

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Jane’s Walk Festival 2023

By |2023-06-11T00:05:28-04:00June 11th, 2023|Uncategorized|

By Carl Maiolani

Jane’s Walk is an annual festival of free, community-led walking conversations inspired by Jane Jacobs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Jacobs ). On or about the first weekend of May every year, Jane’s Walk festivals take place in hundreds of cities around the world. Jane’s Walks encourage people to share stories about their neighbourhoods, discover unseen aspects of their communities, and use walking as a way to connect with their neighbours. This year the Windsor-Essex Jane’s Walk Festival took place over two weekends. On the last weekend of April twelve walks took place in Essex County and on the first weekend of May sixteen walks took place in Windsor and Tecumseh. The Membership Committee of our club approached two current or former members of our club and asked them to lead walks. We sincerely thank them both for their contributions.

On Sunday April 30th, Grant Munroe led a walk in Kingsville entitled “How Mill Creek Shaped Kingsville”.  Grant was joined by over 50 people for the one hour walk through some streets of Kingsville near Mill Creek. He stopped four times along the walk route to share lots of history concerning the impact of the creek on the development of business and industry in the town. The participants learned about the manufacture of clay tiles, about who earned the nickname “one-hand Pete”, about the tannery where leather belts were made for use in machines, about the woolen mills, and about the natural gas boom in 1885 that led to the town providing free gas to existing and new businesses that came to town.

As more businesses were established, more wastewater entered the creek which led to spikes in cases of dysentery and cholera during the summertime. Some townspeople pushed back at the threat of these urban diseases by promoting nature-related responses. In 1907 Lakeside Park was established and to this day is a focal point for many outdoor gatherings and activities. At one point the town turned down a proposal from the H.J. Heinz Company which wanted to build a tomato processing plant. The plant was eventually built in Leamington. The early 1900’s continued to see an emphasis on a clean, healthy, and wholesome profile of the town as various polluting businesses closed down and the creek was cleaned up.

On Sunday May 7th, Mike Evans led over 30 people on a Windsor walk through Oakwood Park. That park is the eastern tip of what has come to be known as the Ojibway Prairie Complex. During the Covid-19 Pandemic of 2020-23, Mike spent a year observing the seasonal flow of nature in the park and documented what he saw with photos and video footage. He used his work to make a nature documentary that became a fan favourite of the 2022 Windsor International Film Festival. During the walk Mike included many personal stories drawn from his childhood experiences in the park. He also shared many of his special observations during his year in the park. The people on the walk learned that his natural curiosity as a child has continued to develop into what could be called a focused appreciation of nature as an adult. I’m sure many of Mike’s childhood friends and other residents from the nearby neighbourhood have had their lives impacted in a similar way. We look forward to a screening of his film at the June 14th meeting of the Club at the Ojibway Nature Centre.

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Earth Day 2023

By |2023-06-10T23:20:11-04:00June 10th, 2023|Uncategorized|

By Gina Pannunzio and Ian Naisbitt   

The first Earth Day was on 22 April, 1970. Since then it has become an annual event to celebrate Mother Earth and to support local community environmental actions. Some passionate organisations have expanded their celebrations to call it Earth Week or even April as Earth Month!

On Saturday, 21 April, 1990, the Little River Enhancement Group (Lil’ Reg) and partners organised our first Earth Day celebration by participating in a river cleanup in Little River Corridor Park (LRCPark) in East Windsor. Since then, we have celebrated 11 Earth Day cleanups in the park. Additionally, our partnership has celebrated Earth Day by planting trees and shrubs 11 times in LRCPark.

Our partnership included: Browning-Ferris Industries, Casino Windsor, City of Windsor, Detroit River Canadian Cleanup, Essex County Nature, Essex Region Conservation Authority and Unifor Local 200.

On Sunday, 23 April, 2023 from 10 a.m. to noon, the Essex Region Conservation Authority invited community volunteers and their “Green Teams” to help plant 1600 native trees in Little River Corridor Park. Specifically, it included the open, green space south of Wyandotte Street, between Florence Avenue and Martinique Avenue. This year’s site is again in the Little River Watershed, so we are delighted to add the 1600 trees planted to the total number of trees planted in LRCPark to 21774. This event was generously sponsored by Enwin Utilities Ltd..

Sunrise was at 6:38 a.m. today and the temperature was 2 Celsius. The weather forecast called for: “Some sun this morning with increasing clouds this afternoon. High of 11 C. Winds at 15 to 25 km/ h, which is a gentle to moderate breeze according to Mr. Beaufort. UV Index 4 out of 10.” Around 11 a.m. rain showers mixed with small ice pellets arrived!

Wildlife observed today included: Red-winged Blackbird, Canada Goose, American Robin, Mute Swan, Killdeer and a tern (black wing tips, orange bill and black cap) not sure which species. It is always gratifying to see wildlife using these natural ideas to survive and raise their young. An observation was made: a trio of a Mute Swan, Mallard Drake and Canada Goose were foraging within a metre of each other. It appears these birds are able to share the pond together peacefully.

Photo 1: White Flowering Trees. There were several of these blooming in the surrounding natural area and I was informed by two knowledgeable professionals that they were either Cherry, Pear or Apple trees. The Redbuds were just beginning to open.  

Photo 2: Family Planting Earth Day 2023. What a coincidence! Randomly, I chose this family group to follow and watch them plant a tree. I asked if I could take a photograph of them and they agreed. A few minutes later two young ladies approached me and asked, “Are you Mr. Naisbitt?” I knew right away they were former students. They introduced themselves and we had a pleasant conversation. It is always an enjoyable experience to have former students introduce themselves and have a wonderful heart-to-heart together. They remember helping to cleanup and plant trees with other Concord School students.

Reforesting the Little River Watershed has always been an essential target for our group. Along with the creation of wetlands, our members feel both of these objectives are critical for the improvement of the ecosystem health of the watershed. Our planting and cleanup events also help our community to delist the Detroit River as an Area of Concern (AOC) in the Great Lakes Basin. Specifically, these activities address two of the Beneficial Use Impairments (BUI) of the Detroit River AOC:

  • Degradation of fish and wildlife populations (BUI # 3).
  • The loss of fish and wildlife habitat (BUI # 14).

We acknowledge that the Little River Watershed is in the traditional and ancestral territory of The Three Fires Confederacy of First Nations, which includes the Ojibwa, the Odawa and the Potawatomi Peoples. We recognise that Indigenous Peoples had an original connection with their ancestral land. 

We are dedicated to learning about and helping First Nations to protect, preserve and restore their ancestral lands and waters. We value and respect the contributions and relationships of the Indigenous Peoples in their ancestral territory.

“We do not inherit this land from our ancestors, We borrow it from our children.” ~Haida Proverb

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