Since 1961, we’ve been protecting significant natural areas in Ontario within our nature reserve system. With 24 properties totalling 6,890 acres, the system preserves some of the province’s best remaining examples of imperilled and vulnerable habitats. This year, we’re focused on saving another spectacular piece of land that will become Ontario Nature’s first riverine nature reserve!
The story of this Sydenham River property is one of intrigue.
Your best access is not on foot, but by canoe. You encounter strange creatures with exotic names, including an elusive turtle with an odd leathery shell, a bizarre bivalve called a snuffbox, and a fish called a brindled madtom. You see trees here you won’t see anywhere else in Ontario. And, with 98% of Carolinian habitat like this gone forever, you feel like you’ve entered a lost world.
Snuffbox mussel; Credit: USFWS – CC by-2.0
Vast amounts of natural cover have already been lost in this biodiverse watershed. And there is very little protection for the riverbanks, woodlands, and meadows that remain.
Imagine you’re joining me on a visit to the property to see for yourself exactly what is at stake.
You slip your canoe into the calm, serene Sydenham River. This is the best way to visit—by paddling into the heart of the property. Your paddle slices through the Sydenham River, one of Ontario’s most biodiverse waterways. This ribbon of water is one of the last remaining connected green corridors in southwestern Ontario.
A cerulean warbler trills and buzzes from the top of the forest canopy. You gaze up at the stunning trees like the Kentucky coffee-tree, blue ash and tulip—all only found here, in southwestern Ontario’s Carolinian zone.
Kentucky coffee tree
During migration, the trees teem with songbirds like scarlet tanagers, indigo buntings, Blackburnian warblers and wood thrush. Half of Ontario’s bird species breed or pass through here. Intact woodland like this is extremely rare.
Scarlet tanager; Credit: Mitchell McConnell – CC by-ND 2.0
The Sydenham River is home to some of the richest diversity of endangered and at-risk freshwater mussels in the world, with strange and beguiling names like wavy rayed lampmussel and round pigtoe. Most of these are globally rare, found here and nowhere else in Canada. The river is also critical habitat for at-risk turtles including northern map turtles, Blanding’s turtles and the rarely seen spiny softshell.
Spiney softshell; Credit: Tim Lindenbaum – CC by 2.0
Help save this important property forever by helping us create the Sydenham River Nature Reserve.
Share this blog on Facebook and Twitter and encourage friends and family to take this virtual canoe ride on the future Sydenham River Nature Reserve with Ontario Nature!