Go West

nn4301 Earl Plato
Western Ontario - the Plains of the West. What are you talking about Plato?
Elaine and I on our days in Southwestern Ontario this past summer had to visit Ojibway Prairie. Do you know where it is? It’s a pocket of prairie grass within the boundaries of the city of Windsor. No kidding. Continue on our good old Highway 3 from Leamington. Turn left on Highway 6 and you’re there. Wait!
Have you driven to Windsor lately? This is casino and bridge country. It was almost ten a.m. when we arrived but the traffic was unreal. We couldn’t find any signs for Ojibway Prairie. My map wasn’t detailed enough.. Finally as a reluctant male who doesn’t want to admit he’s lost I pulled into a gas station. Elaine insisted. Good move. The station owner’s brother was about to head home. “I live on Ojibway Park Way. I’ll take you there.” We followed him as he twisted and turned down side streets. This is out in the ‘boonies’. He turned into a driveway and we were there - Ojibway Prairie! We thanked him. The Centre had just opened up. Entrance was free in this city park. It was a learning centre for the local schools. There were displays on the walls. In the one corner there was a live Fox snake over a metre long. Above it pinned to a board was a shed Fox snake skin even longer! This is a beautifully marked snake and a beneficial one too. I had seen this reptile before in Virginia and that one was even longer - close to five feet! The Ranger at the Center there told us that it is called the “hardwood rattler” because it will coil, rattle its tail sideways in leaf litter and take a strike when startled. Elaine said, “It looks like a rattler.” This big snake with solid brown spots down its body would make you react. The late Fort Erie naturalist, Bert Miller, cautioned us to back off from any snake that coils and strikes out, even a Garter. We read that much to its detriment the Fox snake is completely innocuous and beneficial.
We left the Ojibway Prairie Centre with a trail map. We would take the inner trail. No one around as we took the gravel based trail. The grasses and plants looked differently. Blue grass? We came to a fork when a helmeted bicyclist approached from behind, We asked the way back to the Centre. In his clipped English accent he pointed left. “I ride all the trails here,” he said and then proceeded on his way. We needed more time here but it was hot - very hot. I took a few more shots of the Tick flowers at the Centre and we headed out for Rondeau Park and the Hog-nosed snake.
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Abino Bay on a Thursday early August morning Bob Chambers and I pulled into the public boat launch area. We were looking for shore birds. There were killdeers flitting around.
Mallards and Canadas were down the way. Bob spotted a white goose among them.
A car pulled up and two ladies and two girls emerged with a pail. We watched as they waded into the shallow water. The one mother turned the pail up side down. Somethings fell out. Bob said, “ Hello”. They asked what birds we were looking at. We said that we were looking for shore birds. They told us that the girls had collected some frogs yesterday and were now returning them to their home. That’s good. Frogs need to be returned to their natural setting. These two ladies from New York State asked about Marcy Woods. No kidding. They had read the good article in the Buffalo News. We expressed our concern for the Marcy Woods property. Small world, eh?