Essex County Field Naturalists Club Meeting 13 March, 2024 at Point Pelee National Park 

An excellent presentation was given by Jill Chausse at the Visitors Centre to all attendees regarding the Southern Flying Squirrel (SFS) Monitoring program. Southern Flying squirrels are one of two species found in North America.  They are smaller than the Northern Flying Squirrels and have a white under belly and are more greyish in colour. 

The southern flying squirrels are native to the region, but due to loss of habitat in the 1940’s they were no longer present.  Ninety-nine of them were successfully reintroduced to Point Pelee in 1993-94. 

These squirrels are nocturnal and their habitat is mature deciduous trees. They are terrestrial mammals with the scientific name Glaucomys volans. They use a patagium to glide in the trees, a furry membrane that connects at their wrists down to their ankles. They are omnivores with continuous growing teeth. They like to nest in woodpecker holes and tree cavities. Like other squirrels they like to collect nuts.  

In the park the squirrel population is regularly monitored. Every two years staff gather field data on each specimen captured. A typical adult weighs only 60 grams, and they have large dark eyes and flattened tails.

More information about the efforts to stabilize the population can be located on the Point Pelee National Park website under Science and Conservation/Research and Monitoring.

On Saturday, April 13th, The Essex Region Conservation Authority (ERCA), Detroit River Canadian Cleanup (DRCC) and the City of Windsor partnered together to sponsor the River Cleanup at Teedie Park in east Windsor. Essex County Nature/ Lil’ Reg were welcomed to participate in the cleanup.

The public was invited to pick up “Winter Blown” litter along the area adjacent to the river. The cleanup began at 10 a.m. and continued until noon. We have had abundant amounts of rainfall currently so the level of water in the river was high and muddy water was streaming down river!

 At the end of the day, volunteers collected 193 kilograms of litter. Some of the items included: a basketball, flip-flops, calculator, construction wood, lots of plastic items, spray cans and of course another shopping cart!

According to the City of Windsor, Black Oak Heritage Park “supports one of the finest stands of black oak in Southwestern Ontario.” What a great place to do some “citizen sciencing”! This gem, part of the Ojibway Prairie Complex, was the site of many ECFN hikes in 2023 and early 2024.

And here we will look at what information citizen scientists have collected during this period (January 2023-March 2024).

“Data makes the world go ‘round,” a Gray Catbird once said to me. Or maybe not, but sometimes it’s hard to know how to start an article talking about observation data.

It’s not that the information is inherently boring, it’s just that aggregation tends to flatten things out a bit. And you can’t just trot out the numbers right away.. 

That said, buried in the aggregations is fascinating data just waiting to be unleashed. I don’t know whether this article is going to do it justice. In fact, it likely won’t. What do all these little pins on the map mean? Well that’s the work before us! I like to think that the birds appreciate citizen science data collection and the catbirds are cheering us on.

Top Right: Gray Catbird. Photographed by Howard Williams. June 18, 2023. Creative commons licence. Bottom Right: Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus). Photographed by Julie Hall, August 14, 2023. Creative commons licence.

On May 22^nd the Phrag fighters were removing old growth at Caldwell First Nations.  This is the third year we have worked with the community to provide resources and education about the phragmites on the Caldwell First Nations property. 

If you are interested in working together to help control the phragmites in Essex county, please contact Aileen : petrozzi2@gmail.com

We will be going to Bryersword Optimist Club on June 8^th and Point Pelee on June 22^nd.

Annual Dinner will be November 16^th at St. Mary’s Hall , Maidstone , Ontario.

Speaker: Adam Shoults  https://adamshoalts.com/

Topic; A Canoe Journey: Lake Erie to the Arctic

Adam Shoalts is Westaway Explorer-in-Residence at the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and Outward Bound’s ambassador. His expeditions range from mapping rivers to archaeological projects, but Shoalts is best known for his long solo journeys, including crossing alone nearly 4,000 km of Canada’s Arctic. Named one of the “greatest living explorers” by CBC and even declared “Canada’s Indiana Jones” by the  Toronto Star, Shoalts’s latest adventure was a 3,400 km solo journey from Lake Erie to the Arctic, the subject of his new national bestselling book  Where the Falcon Flies. His other books include Alone Against the North, A History of Canada in 10 Maps, and Beyond the Trees: A Journey Alone Across Canada's Arctic, and  The Whisper on the Night Wind,  all of them national bestsellers. He has a PhD from McMaster University in history, and in his free time, enjoys long walks in the woods.