Prairies in the Ford of Brant

With the week off I decided to head down to Brantford yesterday to check on a few prairie sites where I've helped with brush clearing and prescribed burns over the past 5 or 6 years.  First stop was the Brantford Rail Trail (S.C. Johnson Trail).  I enjoy walking and biking this trail in the summer and fall; you get nice views of the river and there are numerous little prairie glades along the way (I tend to hop off my bike alot and so if you've got some place to be don't wait for me!).

The photo below is taken from the tee blocks of hole #3 with Brant Conservation Area off in the distance.

The well-drained slopes support some good stands of Side-oats Grama (Bouteloua curtipendula), a rare prairie grass, ranked provincially as S2 (5-20 occurrences in the province).  50-60 Common Goldeneye provided the soundtrack for the afternoon; despite being right in among a residential area the tracks in the snow suggested the trail hadn't seen alot of use in the last few days.

It's no blanket of spring ephemerals, but the tree in the foreground is Dwarf Chinquapin Oak (Quercus prinoides), another S2-ranked species.  As the name implies, this species doesn't grow to towering heights like our other 9 native oak species (with the exception of a 10th, Bear Oak (Quercus ilicifolia), which is also takes on a stout form and was first documented in the mid-1990's in Lennox and Addington County).

A few prairie forbs are still identifiable including Flowering Spurge (Euphorbia corollata).

Round-headed Buch-clover (Lespedeza capitata).

The photo below shows the last seeds hanging onto a stem of Side-oats Grama.  I'm sure the Caddy-driving, turtle neck-wearing group in the Golf and County Club was wondering what the guy was doing down in the weeds with his camera.  I can't knock the Golf and Country Club, they've been very supportive of prairie management activities for some years.

I took a drive down to Mohawk Park, I spotted 31 Great Black-back Gulls and almost 300 Ring-billed but not a whole lot else going on on the bird front.

Despite some regrowth of European Buckthorn and Autumn Olive, this savannah slope at the park is loaded up with a crisp layer of oak leaves which should make for a hot fire when the time comes.  I spotted a few stems of Smooth Aster and Woodland Sunflower here and there, it's a nice little spot.

Thanks for following my blog in 2015 and all the best for 2016!