Eighteen Canada South Land Trust members and friends joined together for a picnic supper at Holiday Beach Conservation Area (HBCA) on June 5, 2004. The salad menu included Arctic Salad Slices, Bermuda Bean Salad, Broccoli Buffet Salad, Chinese Salad, Curried Chicken Salad with Fruit, Greek Salad, Melon & Bean Salad and Red Potato Salad with Sour Cream Dressing. Desserts were Baked Cheesecake & Strawberry Topping and Key Lime Pie.
Following the picnic, HBMO Principal Bander Phil Roberts invited everyone to join him on a walk to observe restored habitat for the endangered Prothonotary Warbler, starting at the back door of the HBCA Education Building. Bird song was reverberating through the nearby swamp woodland, the very welcome song of a male Prothonotary Warbler that had just returned to this very special habitat on Wednesday evening, June 2, 2004.
Phil indicated that he was greatly relieved to hear this Prothonotary Warbler as the Prothonotary Warbler monitors had been awaiting this bird and others to return to their nesting site at HBCA. The prerequisites for a successful Prothonotary Warbler nesting site include wetland areas that are overgrown, thus the site is dark and well shaded with water on the floor of the site,and surrounding the nest site which may be a cavity produced by an excavating woodpecker or a suitable introduced nesting box. Mosses must be present as mosses are the preferred nesting material of the Prothonotary Warbler.
Some participants were shocked to observe that the area where the annual fall Festival of Hawks has been held over the last few years had been excavated to be replaced by a water filled slough with irregular "fingers" reaching out into the slough. The "fingers" will be planted with trees allowing this area to develop into Prothonotary Warbler habitat over time. The gravel from this excavation has been used for the improvement other existing roadways within the conservation area.
Phil lead us over a newly constructed board walk which was constructed through the combined efforts of Phil's father, Bev Wannick and Phil in one afternoon during early May. Phil remarked that Jewelweed had appeared on much of the construction site surfaces, assisted by the rains of May. Phil remarked that April 2004 was the 4th driest April on record which was of concern to the Prothonotary Warbler monitors. We walked along a newly constructed pathway and then stood on the present boardwalk, watching for the male Prothonotary Warbler which perched on a limb over the pond, dropped down and flew off to the left.
We proceeded to the site of the short one-way shaded roadway that formerly cut through the swamp woodland. Literally Prothonotary Warbler habitat has been created overnight by the removal of the road way and the underlying gravel. If water can be maintained in the wetland into June, then Prothonotaries will raise a second brood. Phil commented that this Prothonotary Warbler project is about hydrology. Now the height of water including the Trout Pond is uniform throughout.
The cost of this 2004 project is $60,000.00 which includes the excavation of sloughs and roads, improvement to roads, trail and boardwalk construction, tree planting and nest box materials.
Walking north along the woodland trail, we reached the upper slough which was excavated in March 2003. This former road way site yielded gravel up to 40 inches in depth which was then used to create and improve nearby walking trails and roadways. Signs of the recent excavation here are disappearing as vegetation covers the berms and slough edges. As tree planters worked to place large stock in 2003, they were actually disturbing seedlings of Silver Maple colonizing the exposed soil. Phil commented that this habitat is "linear" in comparison to the recently created habitat with its "fingers" which is intended to cause confusion to predators that might otherwise proceed from one nesting box to another.
Last year a single male Prothonotary sang for several weeks here but was not joined by a mate. Bird species observed about the slough on June 5, 2004 were Tree Swallows and a thrush species on a fallen log.
Warbler monitors are watching the arrival of Prothonotary Warblers at Holiday Beach and other provincial sites with considerable interest. Over the years only adult Prothonotary Warblers have returned to Holiday Beach CA. Why have the coloured coded banded young not returned to the site? Prothonotary Warblers were first identified as a nesting species at Holiday Beach by Town of Amherstburg birder Rene Kielbasa during 1996 near Carp Crossing. It is thought the same pair returned through 2001. A population of Prothonotary Warblers exists in Ohio and the feeling is that these birds were recruited from that population.
As of May 9, 2004, two pairs of Prothonotary Warblers are reported from both Essex County and Rondeau Provincial Park. A pair of Prothonotaries has been reported from Coot's Paradise in Hamilton.
Our sincere expression of appreciation to Phil for leading the Prothonotary Warbler walk and for giving us insight into the life of this Essex County nesting species which has found this special habitat along the shores of Lake Erie coastal wetlands.