Blue Heron Trail

Wetlands, such as those along the Blue Heron Trail, are among the most productive ecosystems in the world. Wetlands are especially important to nesting waterfowl. While walking down the board walks you can observe artificial nesting structures (wood duck boxes) placed to enhance waterfowl nesting during April and early May.

Sapsucker Holes
Sapsuckers drill neat rows of holes, remove the nutritious inner bark and later eat the sap that has run out and the insects trapped in it.

White Elm
The White Elm, was once widespread throughout the Great Lakes - St. Lawrence forest region. By 1959, Dutch Elm Disease (a fungal disease spread by the Elm Bark Beetle) had made the White Elm a rare sight all across Southern Ontario and Quebec.

Wild Grape / Virginia Creeper
The similar looking fruits of these familiar vines are ripe by late summer. Those of the five-leafed Virginia Creeper are poisonous while wild grapes are edible.

Wild Parsnip
Careful! The combination of wet or sweaty skin, contact with the leaves and exposure to sunlight may result in a rash similar to poison ivy.

Life On The Edge
This part of the trail marks an area where two habitats meet and is called an "edge". Edges provide animals with the best of both worlds and, therefore, usually support a greater number of species.

Goldenrod
In late summer to early fall, whole fields can glow with flowering Goldenrod This is often not appreciated by allergy sufferers, but they shouldn't blame the insect-pollinated Goldenrod. Also blooming is the culprit, wind-pollinated Ragweed.

Black Ash
Baskets can be woven from Black Ash wood. The wood is prepared by pounding a wet block until is separates into slats along the annual growth rings.

Arrowheads
These wetland plants have variable arrow-shaped leaves (some are broad, others are narrow) and white flowers with three roundish petals. Edible potato-like tubers form at the ends of underground runners.

Purple Loosestrife
An alien (non-natve) species that has become a problem. With about 100 seeds per capsule and 900 capsules per healthy plant, it's no wonder that it is spreading and crowding out valuable native plants.

Wild Sarsaparilla / Bunchberry
Sarsaparilla roots were brewed by settlers into root beer and medicinal tea. Bunchberry fruits can be eaten raw or cooked like pudding.

White Birch
Note the white, paper-like bark with small lines called lenticels. These lines are areas where the bark tends to break. Therefore, when building canoes, Indians would choose the birch bark with the least lenticels

Bur Oak / Red Oak
Acorns from the large trees on either side of the trail provide food (mast) for mice, squirrels, chipmunks and deer. Bur Oak leaves have rounded lobes while the Red Oak leaves have bristle-tipped lobes.

Silver Maple
Silver Maple grows best on rich, moist soil such as in this temporary pond. The toothed leaves have five lobes with deep notches between the lobes. The species is used for street planting and as an ornamental.

Tree Blowdown
The loss of a single, huge tree or a small group of trees from wind, rot or lightning creates a hole in the canopy. The sunlight that now reaches the forest floor allows saplings to spring up and eventually fill the gap.

Ostrich Fern
This large fern grows in vase-shaped clumps. The tall, green sterile leaves and the much shorter, brown fertile leaves are both plume-shaped. The fertile fronds can be seen throughout the winter. Ostrich Fern fiddle-heads can be added to salads or boiled.

Beaver Felled Trees
Trees this size can come down overnight! October sees the beaver at its busiest - harvesting the winter food supply. A beaver's winter diet consists entirely of bark; about 20 ounces a day for an adult beaver. The preferred species are aspens and poplars.

White Spruce / Balsam Fir
Two coniferous (evergreen) trees that look much the same. Closer inspection reveals the square leaves (needles) of the White Spruce growing on all sides of the twig and the flat Balsam Fir needles only on either side of the twig.

Wood Duck Nesting Box
Wood Ducks nest in tree cavities. As there is a lot of competition for these sites, the Sanctuary has supplied the ducks with artificial nests.

Cattail Marsh
Cattails often grow in large colonies in wetland areas. These cattail masses provide ideal nesting habitat for many marsh birds, including the Virginia Rail, Sora Rail, Common Snipe, Marsh Wren and Red-winged Blackbird.

White Cedar Grove
The cedar groves in the Sanctuary provide winter food and shelter for the more than 100 White-tailed Deer that winter here. Snow blanketing the trees creates a layer of insulation and blocks out cold winds.

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Red-Wing Trail

The Red-Wing Trail is a good example of mixed forest species. In the lowland area, you will see alder, willow and cedar. In the upland areas, you will see hickory, oak, beech and hard maple. Small mammals, deer and reptiles are often observed on this trail.

Dotted Hawthorn
One of over 100 species of Hawthorn found in North America, this member of the Rose family has many stout thorns and tangy, edible fruit.

Animal Run
The route regularly taken by an animal as it travels between resting areas and feeding areas.

Nannyberry
A member of the Honeysuckle family, Nannyberry has long, slender beige buds; opposite leaf arrangement; clusters of small, creamy white flowers and edible, bluish-black berries.

Canada Goose Cones
Canada Geese prefer to build nests on small islands or marsh banks. If they cannot find a suitable site, geese will use artificial nests.

Cattail
One need never starve where cattails grow! At different times during the year, all parts of the plant (except the leaves) are edible.

Ash
Recognized by compound leaves that are opposite in arrangement. A wetland is called a swamp when trees or shrubs are the dominant vegetation type.

White Cedar
The inner bark of the Eastern White Cedar or Aborvitae, the tree of life, was used by Jacques Cartier to treat scurvy among his crew.

Speckled Alder Thicket
Usually found along a wetland edge. Speckled Alder shrubs add fertility to the soil by transforming gaseous nitrogen into compounds useful to plants.

Wetland Habitat
Wetlands are homes for many animals. Look in and on the water for insects and insect larvae, for fish (minnows and carp), for frogs and turtles, for birds (more than 100 species use wetlands) and for mammals (muskrat, beaver, mink and raccoon).

White Spruce
The roots of the White Spruce are so pliable that Native Americans would use them for lacing the birch bark on canoes.

White Pine
Ontario's arboreal emblem. The White Pine is the only pine in Eastern Canada with five needles in a bundle.

Tamarack
The only evergreen that is not evergreen! In autumn the Tamarack's needles turn yellow and are shed from the tree.

Grey Birch
Grey Birch bark does not peel easily and has black patches. The leaves are triangular in shape with long, drawn-out tips.

Black Cherry
The fruit of the Black Cherry is slightly bitter, but edible. The almost black cherries are a favourite of birds such as the Cedar Waxwing and Northern Cardinal.

Bracken
Our most common fern as it grows in large colonies almost anywhere. Bracken is a tall, strong and coarse fern with leaves divided into three nearly equal parts. Fiddleheads can be eaten raw or cooked (cooking recommended).

Take Cover
This thick jumble of understorey plants offers ideal habitat and protection for many woodland creatures. Chipmunks, squirrels, shrews and rabbits find shelter here. Ground feeding birds such as Robins, Catbirds, Brown Thrashers and Winter Wrens scratch around here for insects and seeds.

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Cedar Trail

The Cedar Trail will lead you through some important deer habitat. The cedar that you see here not only provides good shelter for the deer during winter but it is also an important food source. A good example of succession is evident along this trail where a field is slowly returning to a forest.

White Birch
White, paper-like bark peels easily. Birch sap can be processed like maple sap to make a molasses-like syrup.

Juneberry
Note the smooth bark marked with vertical lines. Many Indian tribes mixed the berries with dried meat and fat to make pemmican.

Rotting Log
This is home to decomposers - organisms (such as mushrooms and fungi and many insects) who break down and return dead tissues to the environment.

Sugar Shanty
This trail leads 10 the remains of an old sugar cabin. Some maple syrup facts:

• it takes 30 to 40 litres of sap to produce one litre of syrup;
• it takes 30 to 70 years for a tree to reach a tapable size of 25 cm in diameter; and
• sap flows when there are frosty nights of -3°C or lower and warm, sunny days of + 2°C or higher .

Ironwood
Ironwood can be identified by its bark which breaks into narrow, vertical strips that are easily rubbed off. Usually a small tree, there is an exception near the end of the Red-wing Trail on the left hand side. Try to spot it!

Owl Pellets
Owls have been observed in these big pines. Look under the trees for signs of a successful hunt --- pellets. Owl pellets are sausage- shaped clumps of the indigestible parts (fir, feathers, bones, beaks, claws, tails, etc.) that the owl "coughs up".

Beaver Felled Trees
Building a dam and flooding an area makes for easier transport of the gnawed limbs to the colony. However, a beaver will go to great lengths (including crossing highways) to fell a tree, cut off a branch and drag it to the water .

Basswood
Note the large, heart-shaped leaves. The soft, light wood is valued by hand-carvers.

Turtle Nests
Early June finds snapping turtles laying their approximately 20 to 30 eggs in holes they dig along the bike path. It also finds raccoons and skunks digging up the nests and devouring the eggs!

Poison Ivy
A vine or shrub with glossy green (summer) or bright red (fall) leaflets in threes. Contact with any part of the plant may result in a severe rash.

Queen Anne's Lace (white) / Chicory (blue)
From fall to early spring the roots are edible. Queen Anne's Lace can be cooked like garden carrots and Chicory can be roasted and ground to make coffee.

Milkweed
Poisonous to most animals, milkweed is the sole diet of Monarch caterpillars. As a result, they (and the butterflies they become) are toxic to potential predators.

Royal Fern
A large, wetland fern with spore cases in dense clusters at the top of fertile fronds (stalks).

Woodpecker Holes
The Pileated Woodpecker drills large, rectangular or oval holes and extracts insects with its barbed tongue. These cavities in turn provide shelter and nesting habitat for other species.

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Maple Trail

The Maple Trail will lead you to an old sugar bush, where you will find the ruins of a sugar shanty. You will also see a variety of trees such as nanny berry, oak, hickory and cherry trees that provide food for songbirds, game birds, small mammals and deer. An off shoot of this trail leads to a covered viewing blind where you can observe migrating ducks, geese and shore birds.

Staghorn Sumac
The ripe fruit is a cluster of small berries covered with acidic red hairs. Fruit clusters make a drink similar to pink lemonade.

Bur Oak
The most wide ranging oak tree. Acorns can be boiled, roasted and eaten as nuts or sweetened and eaten as candy.

Trembling Aspen
The beaver's first choice at the tree buffet! Note the smooth, greenish-grey bark and, on a windy day, the "noisy" leaves.

Sugar Maple
Sugar Maple, a tree of upland habitats, is the principle maple tree tapped to produce maple products. The leaves are usually five-lobed and the leaf margins (edges) lack teeth.

Porcupine Den
If it happens to be home, don't worry ---the porcupine does not shoot any of its approximately 30,000 quills.

Black Cherry
Note the dark, scaly bark with horizontal dash-like markings (lenticels). The wood is valuable for furniture.

Yellow Birch
The yellowish or bronze bark forms thin papery shreds. A broken twig has a strong wintergreen taste.

Eastern Hemlock
Usually a tree of upland habitats. The flat needles are dark green above, whitish below and have short stems.

Northern Maidenhair
Maidenhair ferns are most adapted to life in dry places. The stalks are black, fine and shiny ---a maiden's hair. Spores develop on the back of the leaflets.

Blue Beech
A small tree with very hard wood that settlers would use to make wedges for splitting other logs. The smooth, slate-grey bark resembles tensed muscles.

Christmas Fern
An upland fern with leathery, evergreen fronds. Smaller spore-bearing leaflets are near the tip of the fertile fronds (stalks).

American Beech
Note how the trunk, with its pale grey bark, resembles a cement pole or an elephant's leg! Early settlers often used dried Beech leaves as filling material for mattresses.

Climax Forest
A forest that has reached the final stage of succession. It will no longer undergo natural changes as trees that die will be replaced by others of the same species.

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These information pieces were funded by TD Canada Trust and their customers.