More travels, home schooling, prairie themes and the beginnings of Tallgrass Ontario

There were some overlapping events in the late '80s and early '90s. Certainly Marie and I enjoyed being the parents of a growing youngster, and Tim was very active. Marie was a big fan of home-schooling, and I supported her. We were encouraged by some friends who were strong advocates of it, and were successful doing it with their kids. Tim seemed to enjoy it, although he was not initially interested in reading. But once he got interested in planes, especially military planes, he adapted to reading quite well, and actually excelled at it. Learning came naturally to him. The military books from the library were always stacked high as Tim locked onto the subject. Even when Marie or I were reading a bedtime story to him, if it was one we had read before, we could not take short-cuts, as Tim would notice and correct us! Home-schooling was done for only about 4 of the elementary school years. There were various benefits, and was definitely the best course of action for all while it lasted.

In the fall of 1992, the three of us took a trip west. Marie had met someone at a writer's conference, who was based in southern Manitoba, but whose father, Jim, was a retired fellow with the US Air Force, and was stationed at Colorado Springs where he was involved with the US Air Force Academy. Since we had Colorado Springs on our travel route anyway, we were encouraged to stop in to see him and see the Academy, which we did. He gave us a wonderful tour of the place, watching the members of the Academy marching around, and seeing some of the various historical planes, and even had our accommodation paid for.  

Tim posing by a plane

While we were at Colorado Springs, we also visited the studio where Focus On The Family produced a kid's radio show, known as Adventures in Odyssey, which we had listened to regularly on the radio. It was an entertaining program for both kids and adults, with so many great Christian values to learn and live by. Not only did we get a tour of the facility, we also were asked to participate with a group of others who were providing background 'crowd noises' for one of those productions.

We moved on from there, stopping at Great Sand Dunes National Park, where the gigantic sand dunes continued to be a crowd pleaser.

 Next on our journey was stopping at Mesa Verde National Park, to explore the long-abandoned cliff houses of the Anasazi people. I had read a book about this place many years before, and was interested in seeing it, and convinced the others it was worthwhile. We camped just inside the park, and then the next day went and explored this fabulous place. It was awesome.

We then continued on, heading for California, stopping at the Edwards Air Force base near Barstow, where a couple of the newly produced SR 71 blackbirds stealth planes were kept. Tim was enthralled by this visit as well, but we had to keep moving. Our western-most destination was to visit a cousin of Marie's, who lived with her husband about an hour south of Yosemite National Park. We stayed there for three days, and I went to Yosemite for parts of all three days. Tim came twice, and Marie only once, as she and I had been there before and she, of course, wanted to visit with her cousin.

Overlooking the Yosemite Valley, taken by Tim

After this part of the trip, we headed north to British Columbia to visit my sister in Nelson, and while we were there, we were keeping track of the success of the Toronto Blue Jays, which both Tim and I were fans of.

In the late spring of '93 the three of us went to Arizona, where my parents were spending the winter. Marie and I had been there several times before, beginning in the early '80s, but it was always a treat to visit family as well as see the wonderful Sonoran Desert with all of the varied cacti and desert wildlife.

At Saguaro National Park, taken by Tim

These trips were great, and Tim really lapped up as much of the history and geography of our travels. One time when we were traveling, with him sitting in the front passenger seat and he and I having some discussions about the area we were traveling through, I still remember him looking over at me and saying 'I just can't get enough history' with a big happy smile on his face. This was definitely a trend for him. I also remember when he was moving to the high school grades, the teachers indicated he should be doing the technical studies program rather than the arts and sciences due to what to them seemed to be a lack of interest or ability in those studies. However he was able to take some of the A & S classes as an option, and in one case it was a history class, and the end result was that he scored right at the top of the class ahead of almost all of the A & S students! And on another occasion when some of the teachers earlier thought he had a learning disability and wasn't doing as well as they had expected, we had Tim appraised by someone who specialized in assessing students with learning disabilities. We weren't too concerned with his suspected learning 'issues', and in fact after he was tested and evaluated by this Ph.D. specialist, we were told that there was no learning disability; the problem was that Tim was probably smarter than the teachers, and may just have been bored! No question that Tim has always been a very smart dude, with a great memory.
 

 My work continued to present all sorts of opportunities and challenges. I was quite involved with anything to do with Tallgrass Prairie, especially as it pertained to management and other issues at Ojibway Prairie Prov Nature Reserve. I had also continued working with the natural heritage staff of Walpole Island First Nation regarding their excellent tallgrass prairies and savannas, along with the management of those exceptional places and the numerous species at risk that were there, which sometimes were seldom or even not found anywhere else in Ontario.

On one occasion as I was examining a section of Ojibway Prairie, I came across this plant.

I was pretty sure what it was, as I had seen it at Walpole in previous years, and took a sample to the staff at the city-run nature centre to get it confirmed. However although it had been discovered in the Windsor area in the early 1890s by the notable botanist of that era, John Macoun, it had not been seen since! This was the first time this extreme rarity, Pink Milkwort, had been documented in the Windsor area in almost a century.

With so much involvement with prairie, along with many other things that were part of my work load, I managed to get to several North American Prairie Conferences. I mentioned in a previous post about going to the one in 1984, at the twin cities of Fargo, ND and Moorhead, MN. I also went to the one in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1988, and stopped in at the historical Rochester cemetery which was surrounded by prairie.

In 1990, I took a prairie display to the NAPC at Cedar Falls, Iowa. It was at this latter conference that Paul, the prairie specialist from Windsor's Ojibway Nature Centre made a presentation to the selection committee to put in a request for Windsor to host the 1992 conference. He asked me to go along, and at one point I was asked by members of the selection committee about OMNR's support for it. I told them it would definitely be supported, and also due to my being quite involved with tallgrass prairie at Walpole Island, the WIFN would undoubtedly be involved as well. When all was said and done, the city of Windsor, along with OMNR and WIFN was given the green light to host the 1992 conference, which would be the first time it was held outside the USA. The staff of the WIFN heritage centre were quite involved, fortunately.

Ojibway Prairie PNR

 We had two years to get ready, and it was a lot of work, but it really was worth the effort. The conference was well attended, and there was a lot of interest and attendance by folks in Ontario who normally would not have gone to the USA to participate in this conference. There were some excellent demonstrations of how OMNR handled the ignition of prescribed burns in a city environment through aerial ignition using a helicopter. Aerial ignition added to the overall safety of the burn, to ensure that local kids were not out exploring in places that would soon be fired up. The attendees were quite impressed. We also had drummers from WIFN perform at one of the evening barbecues, and had field trips to various high quality prairie sites. Being the most familiar with so many of the excellent prairies of WIFN, I was in charge of field trips there. I still remember watching some of the US prairie specialists behaving like a kid in a candy store, as they were quite delighted to see the quality and diversity of prairie on Walpole.

Pottawatomie Prairie, WIFN

It was clear that this conference was an all-round success, and I prepared a short summary of it for my supervisors and the district manager. I indicated that since there was a lot of interest in prairie from the many Ontario attendees, who in many cases were doing some type of prairie management on their own, but on a small scale, it would be really beneficial if we could establish an Ontario Tallgrass Prairie group. The district manager replied, saying it was a good idea, and to go for it! Thus the beginnings of Tallgrass Ontario was under way. It didn't happen right away, however. At one point there had been support from the Species At Risk folks in main office, to establish a recovery team to focus on habitat recovery plans rather than just species specific plans. The initial proposal was to focus on Lake Erie Sandspits, but when I was consulted by my counter-part in the region, I strongly suggested that Tallgrass Prairie was a much higher priority, so he went back to the main office folks, and it was decided to have a Tallgrass Prairie and Oak Savanna recovery team. I was asked to participate on that team, and one of the main recommendations of that report was to establish a group to consolidate the efforts of various people across southern Ontario involved in various ways with tallgrass prairie. It took awhile, but as a result, Tallgrass Ontario officially came to be! Yay!

All the while so much was going on on the work front, family life continued. Tim was growing, a busy seven-year old, and one of his regular prayers was 'Please God, give us a baby'. We had kept on pursuing the adoption route, and in September of 1993, Tim's prayers (and ours) seemed to be answered. A little one-year old girl, who had been in foster care with some folks in Strathroy was going to be placed for adoption. Marie, Tim and I went to meet her and her foster family. Before the meeting was too far along, Tim came up to Marie and I who were sitting on a sofa, with a big smile on his face, and whispered to us 'I want her!' Everything went really well, and we now had a little girl in our family, who we named Kristin Alana Jessie. Yay again!

All this time, Pelee Island had become an ever increasing focus of my workload, and rightfully so. I expect there will be at least a couple of blog posts dealing with the enormous and complex issues it required!

If you would like to subscribe to Life Is A Journey, send an email to: prairietramper@gmail.com
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exploring some amazing natural areas

 Once we got settled into Chatham, it was certainly different than being a resident of Rondeau. The new job continued to expand into all sorts of opportunities, including with Walpole Island First Nation...

Island Prairie, WIFN

...various things related to Tallgrass Prairie, and Ojibway Prairie Provincial Nature Reserve....

Ojibway Prairie PNR

a reclaimed prairie patch on city of Windsor property

....and the Erie Islands, including Pelee Island. This first photo is from back in the day when, believe it or not, Double-crested Cormorants were considered rather rare. When a population became established on Big Chicken Island, about half way between Pelee Island and East Sister Island, the plan was to band and monitor this populations. A Conservation Officer, shown on the extreme right, handled the boating duties and took a small crew of us out. There were two people from the Canadian Wildlife Service, and three of us from the Ministry of Natural Resources, who went out for the banding.

Lighthouse on Pelee Island

All of these topics were a very, very major focus of my career, and each topic will require one or more posts to cover even the basics, as you will see as future posts get added.

In the early fall of 1988, Marie, Tim and I ventured into the Great Smokies National Park area, the first of many trips we took with the kids. The Smokies were amazing to visit, and Tim enjoyed it as well as a 2-year old could.

This photo shows the 'smoky' appearance, which is frequently what the area looks like.

But one of the more significant things of the fall, was an opportunity for me to go to Costa Rica. At one of the several natural history outings I led at Rondeau for organizations such as the Federation of Ontario Naturalists, a couple of folks who participated had been planning to start up a natural history tour company. So after a few weeks, I got a phone call asking if I would like to join a small group going to Costa Rica as a sort of familiarization tour, to explore potential for future tours. Essentially all it cost me, aside from the time, was the air fare. And so off I went with about 7 others, exploring the cloud forests, the coastal mangrove swamps and various places in between. It was very exciting and a great opportunity. And so as it turned out, I ended up going to Costa Rica three more times, all as a representative/leader for what became known as Quest Nature Tours. The first time was in the fall of 1989, when I was a co-leader for a special group that was made up of strong supporters of the World Wildlife Fund. And in 1990 I went back as the main North American leader two more times! I don't speak Spanish, so there was a local leader with us at all times, as well as the driver of the small tour bus, so the language issue wasn't a problem. There were plans to continue with future tours, but the Gulf War of 1991 brought international travel almost to a halt, so plans for 1991 were cancelled. As it took awhile for that type of travel to build again, I did not go again, but it was for the good, as otherwise I would be gone for about two weeks at a time leaving Marie at home with a very busy young lad.

Being a leader wasn't without some challenges, although the most serious one was when on about the second day out, one of the participants could hardly wait to go swimming in the ocean we were staying near, so ventured out by himself without telling anyone. And he got caught in a rip-tide and was dragged well out, and fortunately someone in a small boat noted his dilemma and rescued him. Whew!

Of course I had camera and binoculars with me on all of the outings, and there were so many highlights of things to see, which I captured on my film camera of course, so I had to go through so many slides and scan a few representative ones to insert them into this blog. But it brought back so many memories, such as a few of them shown here.

Bare-throated Tiger Heron

This Boa Constrictor came to visit us one evening, and was hanging out in a tree right outside a door of our motel.

Next is a Caiman, a smaller version of crocodile, although it can get quite large. It let me get quite close before it dashed off! Fortunately it retreated, as it took off so much faster than I could have escaped if it had decided to attack me.

There were a few Crested Caracaras to be seen, especially in the more open areas.

Emerald Toucanet

On one occasion, we were staying right along the coast, and had the opportunity to venture out well after dark to observe female Leatherback Sea Turtles come ashore to lay eggs. This species is the largest of all living turtles. We managed to see several on a couple of nights in the autumn trips....

...and on another trip, in about March of the next year when again, we were staying along the coast, we saw a small number of recently hatched turtles, scamper from where they had emerged, heading to the water!

Next is a photo of the typical cloud forest of Monteverde...

...and this is the typical scenery along the narrow, winding road we had to go up to get to Monteverde. No guard rails here, and the road was literally right at the edge!

We saw so many things, such as Scarlet Macaws, Three-wattled Bellbirds, and a few members of the monkey family such as this White-faced Capuchin.

The opportunities with Quest Nature Tours were amazing, and I am so thankful for that opportunity! And before long, another significant travel opportunity came along, although it was much more related to my work. During one of my annual evaluations with my supervisor, the question came up about what other work-related opportunities would I be interested in, and I responded saying a chance at doing some natural history field work in another part of Ontario would be nice. And so when a colleague from another MNR district approached me to see if I would be interested in spending some time doing wildlife surveys along the Hudson Bay coast at Polar Bear Provincial Park, I checked with my supervisor and was given the green light! So over the course of 10 days in late June of 1990 I wandered about the sub-arctic coastline habitats along the western extreme of PBPP doing wildlife surveys! We had periodic radio contact with folks from the MNR office in Moosonee, but being so far away it was iffy at times, and we were really on our own. But the excursion was something else. Of course I took my camera, and got lots of photos, some of which I shared with the organizers of the survey project, so when the second year came along, they asked me if I would come back and concentrate on photography since it was an area that so few people even within the local MNR office ever got to. So back I went, for two weeks in late June/early July of 1991, and while I spent more of my time doing photography, I also managed to do a few of the survey routes as well.

This first photo shows the Albany River, which enters into James Bay, not too far from Moosonee. 

  

Next is the extremely wide open sub-arctic tundra landscape.

There were a few trees a little farther inland.

In the second year, our camp was closer to the east side of PBPP, along the Brant River. En route we saw some fabulous parts of the sub-arctic landscape from the air.

Our camp was adequate, using prospector tents for accommodation. For outhouse facilities, it looked like this. 

This was an amazing time to be at this provincial park. It was still light enough to read at 11 p.m., and it started to get light again by about 3 a.m., so there were lots of hours in each day to document things. We got by on very little sleep!

Woodland Caribou came by on occasion, as did Arctic Fox.

We had Willow Ptarmigan nesting almost right in the campsite. The females are well designed for nesting in this landscape. This next photo shows a female on its nest. Can you see it?

...while the more vividly coloured male was not far away.

Nesting Semipalmated Plover

An unexpected highlight was to find a nest of a Parasitic Jaeger....

....and this breeding plumaged Pacific Loon had a nest on a small island just a little way out. This male got our attention more than a few times.

And as our campsite in the second year was close by the Brant River, we managed to catch a few fresh Brook Trout that were coming upstream to spawn.

In a few places where there were trees, we found Bonaparte's Gulls nesting in them. Quite different than any of the gulls or terns nesting in southern Ontario!

In between the various forays I experienced as described above, I also did some more usual things in these early years, such as helping some forestry colleagues in the office to evaluate the impact of severe drainage on a recently established tree plantation.

 So these are a few of the highlights of that time period. God is so good to allow me to experience some wonderful elements of His creation, no doubt about it. But some of the major challenges related to places like Pelee Island and several others, and some of the family times growing and traveling, will be featured in a few of the upcoming posts, so stay tuned. 

 

If you would like to subscribe to Life Is A Journey, send an email request to: prairietramper@gmail.com 

 

 

The first few years on the new job

Before proceeding to the next post, I want to make the following quite clear: As I look at the duration of my career, in spite of the major change I experienced in 1985 which I described in my previous post, I at first focused on the devastation and loss. At that time, I just could not fathom the incredible blessings and opportunities God had in mind for me. However as time went on, I can see that it opened up so many opportunities in learning about, and protecting God’s creation. He knew of my great and increasing love and passion for His creation, and decided to put me in a position to have a much greater impact on protecting it than had I remained at Rondeau. Certainly there would have been opportunities at Rondeau had I remained, but with my new position now covering the most biodiverse part of Ontario, and arguably Canada, there were so, so many more needs and opportunities, with wonderful habitat diversity and numerous SAR.

 So the things I have, or will, suggest that ‘I’ accomplished in some of the next posts, I must give proper credit to God for the huge and ongoing number of blessings over the years that He enabled me to have a significant role in, and they continue even to this day. It is awesome having the Creator of the universe who knows what is best for me and has this plan for my life to help protect and educate people about His creation…He is my best friend and we communicate numerous times a day!!

My new position in Chatham resulted in me being the first District Ecologist within the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. Chatham District, at the time, just included what was then, the tri-county area of Kent, Essex and Lambton (but that changed about a decade later). Not a huge part of Ontario, but the biodiversity and natural history needs were immense, and certainly the greatest in Ontario. My new role encompassed so many things, although they started by focusing on the provincial parks and nature reserves in the south half of the district. But that soon expanded to include some additional challenges when it came to influencing municipal planning and private development and the effects of such developments on natural areas and a multitude of rare, threatened and endangered species. 

This period was just getting underway to be one of the best times within OMNR, at least from a natural history perspective. There was now a focus on things such as Wetland Inventory, Areas of Natural and Scientific Interest and an ever increasing number of species being considered by provincial and national governments regarding to be legally protected via the Endangered Species Act. The ESA first came about in the early 1970s, with a mere 12 species on it. Over the years, there were dozens of new species added in the Endangered category, with many more on the Rare and Threatened categories as sort of a watch list, which was re-evaluated every year. 

Since public education was such a major part of my role at Rondeau, it continued now that I was in Chatham. Two of the educational programs that OMNR was involved with was Project Wild and also Focus on Forests. I attended the training sessions of each, and brought the energy and information back to Chatham. I gave several sessions to teachers during their professional development days regarding these two programs, in various schools across the district. It was quite rewarding to share the enthusiasm with them, and see how they responded.

I mentioned in an earlier post about initially thinking about pursuing a career in forestry, but that changed to biology before I actually applied to university. However some of my colleagues within OMNR, especially some of the Chatham forestry technicians, felt that I could benefit from a forestry perspective rather than just my biological one, and so I was nominated to take the Forest Resources Certificate Course. This was a great opportunity to get an inside look at the forest industry across Ontario, and I spent a week in southern Ontario, a week in central Ontario, and two weeks in northern Ontario (one week in the Cochrane area and another in the Thunder Bay area) learning from some of the provincial specialists. It was quite enlightening, although I was still glad my specialty was in the biological realm.

For the first couple of years of this new position, we lived at Rondeau. Marie and I regularly enjoyed meandering the trails and natural features of the park.

 I should mention that I had been building a relationship with folks at the Walpole Island First Nation (WIFN) over the years. For example I had been the regional coordinator for the first Ontario Breeding Bird Atlas, which occurred from 1981-1985, and part of the region I was responsible for included WIFN. And as it turned out, I became involved in an inventory of the nationally significant tallgrass prairies and savannas of WIFN, which started in 1985. I was heavily involved with collaborating with the staff of WIFN and others, overseeing the project and actively participating in it to its completion several years later. So my connection with WIFN increased quite a bit, and I have maintained at least some connection to the folks and programs at WIFN even after retirement. I am convinced that the connection with WIFN in those early years had some bearing on our family's future.

Marie and I were not able to have children the biological way, but we kept trying! But we realized that adoption was likely the more successful way to have a family, so began the adoption process. Marie was quite involved with the local Right-to-Life organization at the time. She had also been employed at the Southwestern Regional Centre, and then with some group homes in Blenheim. 

In the late spring of 1986, Marie and I decided to take a trip to explore the west. Most of the other trips west were later in the summer, or even in the autumn, so exploring in the spring sounded appealing. While we were going to be away, some married friends of ours from university were going to enjoy our cottage.

Shortly before we left, we were in the early stages of another adoption possibility, but the person representing the adoption agency (Jewels for Jesus) said that since several of our previous adoption possibilities had not come to fruition, to carry on with our travel plans. But she did say to keep in touch with my parents being the contact, just in case.......

We got as far as southern Saskatchewan, and camped at a small community called Big Beaver. Marie called my parents from a nearby pay phone, and found out that the adoption process was going to happen!!! Praise the Lord!! We had about a day of leeway, so as we were just at the edge of the proposed Grasslands National Park (GNP), we took a bit of time to explore it, but were also anxious to get home. We made it home the day before our son was being brought to us.

This part of extreme southern Saskatchewan is very wide open, as this next photo illustrates. I took this the day before we returned home. 

 I also managed to get this photo of a Burrowing Owl, a regular but not common resident of such open areas.

 

 We had to call our cottage visitors, and explain the situation, of course. We were only gone a little over a week in total, so they had some cottage time at Rondeau, but not what they were originally hoping for. They do come back during some of the spring period, camping and birding.

Our new son was barely a month old, when he arrived and has both Indigenous and Caucasian heritage. I am quite sure that my connection for several years with the WIFN, worked in our favour through our home study, to be selected to become his parents. What a huge blessing it has been to have Tim as our son!

We continued to live in Rondeau, but now that we had a youngster,  that meant Marie was less able to get out for various things. I was gone for long days, so we realized it was probably time to move. 

Another important point is that ever since I was young myself, I realized that all I had belonged to God, and that included income. I believed that tithing a portion of all the income was a good idea, and it was Biblical, so we tried to do at least the minimum all the time. We supported various God-honoring organizations, such as the church we attended, as well as organizations like Compassion Canada (we have supported 1-3 children for many years), World Vision, Open Doors, Slavic Gospel Association, Hope and Healing, UCB Canada, and things like that. I am convinced that God honored our tithing and our hearts, as we also realized that everything we had was a result of His blessing and generosity. And that had allowed us to purchase our cottage at a very low price in 1982, especially since the cottage leases did not have a long life at that point. When it came time to sell and move to Chatham, the price we got for our cottage was several times what we paid for it. We basically lived in the park for free! Thank-you Lord! 

We looked at many places to move to, and since both Marie and I grew up on a farm, we chose a place that was on the edge of the city, with a municipal park on two sides of us, and a completely open view across farm fields. Of course the farm fields of 36 years ago gradually were filled with houses, but the municipal park remains, and this house and setting has been another huge blessing for so many years.

Moving day, March 2, 1988

We planted a few trees, shrubs, wildflowers and such. In fact someone who lived near by, and knew we had lived in Rondeau, even asked one time if we were trying to make our lot look like Rondeau!

June, 2025

 

 If you would like to subscribe to Life Is A Journey, send an email to: prairietramper@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

First decade at Rondeau

 As mentioned at the end of the previous post, Marie and I were married on October 16, 1976. After our honeymoon, we lived in Blenheim for the first few months, at my grandparent's place since they were in Florida for the winter. Since I was on a 9-month contract at Rondeau, it meant I had some time off in the winter before getting ready for the 1977 season of hiring staff, etc. We did a bit of traveling, visiting friends in Pembroke, and put some snowshoes to work a bit.

 The '77 program was getting off to a good start, with some really talented and capable seasonal staff, some of whom returned from '76, which made my life easier! And it was in the spring of '77 when someone new arrived at Rondeau. It was a fellow by the name of Stafford O. Kratz. He had been in the military during WWII, and was a very talented person, who had lots of experience with wood-working as well as tool and die/machine shop work. And he was also a very energetic and enthusiastic wildlife photographer, especially when it came to finding and photographing bird's nests. As a volunteer, he and his wife Ruth brought their trailer and stayed at the park for several months, and he and I spent a lot of time early in the morning searching for birds and their nests. Using his talents in building things necessary for wildlife photography, he had built photo blinds, the stand structures to raise them to a good level, as well as small punts and boats for getting through the shallow parts of the marsh in search for those species. The punt and boat even had the capability to have a blind on it, so we could photograph right from it. 

Rondeau Marsh

 Stafford and Ruth were at Rondeau for the late spring/early summer of three years, which enabled me to get to areas otherwise difficult to access, and get some very useful photos. Here are a few showing the success of our efforts, the first three were from the punt.

Least Bittern on nest

 The next one shows a Forster's Tern which was considered quite an unusual species to be nesting in these lower Great Lakes at the time. Nowadays they are more common, especially along the wetlands of the Lake St. Clair area.

Forster's Tern at nest

Black Tern at nest

Common Tern on nest

This next one is of the iconic Prothonotary Warbler. This was photographed in 1977, and I really liked the setting, being in a stub of a Yellow Birch, and the curled bark added to the appeal. This bird was quite cooperative, and this photograph was used for various things, such as the main photo of the park's spring newsletter for several years and also in nature magazines.

Yellow-breasted Chats are quite a rare breeding species in Ontario, especially in the 1970s. Due to some serious blow down of forest trees, the shrubby vegetation complete with lots of raspberry bushes dominated parts of the park, and this pair of chats made use of it. Nesting of chats at Rondeau and elsewhere on the mainland have been very few and far between, but they nest with a bit of regularity on Pelee Island.

 On another occasion, we were able to find and photograph the nest of a King Rail! This was in 1978, at a nearby wetland area, and as far as I know, this was the last time an actual nest of a King Rail was found in Ontario. King Rail is a very rare, even endangered species, and although one can find them, or at least hear them, in some of the higher quality wetlands of SW Ontario, finding a nest is almost never done. Due to its endangered status we did not spend much time with this nest or adult. I don't know what the outcome of its nest attempt was.

King Rail nest

And on another occasion, using a blind set up in the Rondeau marsh, we were able to photograph Black-crowned Night Herons using a branch as a perch while it was waiting for a frog or fish to be available for a meal. This photo won an award at the local camera club that I was a member of.

 Bald Eagles were a provincial rarity at that time. In fact in the very early 1970s, the only active nest on Ontario's Lake Erie shoreline was at Rondeau, and even then although it was active every year, did not always produce young. So when there were one or more nestlings, there were also efforts to band them. An eagle specialist associated with the University of Wisconsin was very actively involved in eagle banding. Since I was the main person who knew how to access the Rondeau nest, I led a group of people across several sloughs to the nest tree.

One of the adult birds was usually in the area, of course, keeping an eye on its young, but never really bothered the crew.

Over the course of the first decade of my career running the program at Rondeau, there were many other things to photograph and document, including many plants. Here are a couple of herps that were always popular to find and photograph.

Eastern Fox Snake

Eastern Spiny Softshell Turtle

Aside from running the naturalist program, which included arranging for hundreds of students to visit the park and learn about its natural history, I was busy preparing and updating various booklets, including trail guides, newsletters as well as bird and plant lists.

 During the time I was still on contract, with no long term certainty of full-time employment, I had considered returning to university to pursue a Master's degree, possibly in the field of aquatic vascular plants. I had some initial discussions with a university professor I knew from Guelph with that specialty. He even came to Rondeau on one occasion, and we spent some time canoeing the Rondeau marsh. It was while we were there, that he discovered a plant that, in his experience, was the first time for it in the Lake Erie region. All other locations were farther east somewhere around Lake Ontario. Unfortunately it wasn't a good discovery, as it is quite invasive.

 

European Frog-bit

 On occasion when the International Plowing Match was held in a local county, I was called on to give demonstrations of one sort or another. The photo below was at the plowing match held near St. Thomas in 1985.

Aside from the very busy times running the programs at Rondeau, Marie and I found time to do other things, including moving to Rondeau in 1982. We had been renting a large brick farmhouse a couple of kilometres from the park for about 5 years, but were looking for something we could call ours. This first photo shows our new to us home, a reasonably winterized cottage, from the lake front view, complete with a couple of bird feeders...

...and next is the view from the front door, showing the lake, the grassy beach dunes in winter, and a few deer that probably had come to visit our feeders to see what they could nibble on.

One of the things we really found enjoyable, aside from living year-round in this fantastic natural area, was to listen to an excellent Christian radio station. Since we were right on the Lake Erie shoreline and could almost see across to Ohio, we could receive this station from Cleveland without any problem. It was WCRF, which was part of the Moody Radio Network based out of Chicago. There were some great teaching programs on this station as well as wonderful Christian music. But the one thing I remember most fondly was the program called 'Nightwatch', on every week night from 11-11:30. It was a great way to wind down the day! The host was a fellow by the name of Chuck Wagner. He had a quiet, thoughtful voice full of wisdom, and there were many great soft, inspiring, reverential Christian music pieces to listen to as well. It was definitely a highlight of our time there, to be sure. In fact I was so inspired by the host's voice and music that made the Nightwatch program, when I was asked to give slide shows of nature to church groups, I tried to emulate the Nightwatch style at least as the opening of my program, and apparently with some success as more than one person would come up to me afterwards and ask if I was a listener of Nightwatch. I can still remember the opening to the program even after so many years of not being within radio receiving distance. And in the 35 or more years since, it is no longer part of the radio network's programming. 

We also found time to travel, as from 1976 until early 1979, I was still on contract, so I had lots of time off. We traveled west for the most part, as we both had relatives in that direction, and visited lots of places on our meandering routes. 

Yosemite NP

This next photo shows Rocky Mountain NP in Colorado where we traveled the road that went above the tree line. We got out to hike a bit, but at that altitude, the air was thinner, and we were huffing and puffing in very short order.

Rocky Mt NP, above the tree line

Rocky Mt NP

Redwoods NP, CA

Next is Death Valley NP in California, and this is the lowest point in North America, at an elevation of 282 feet below sea level.

Elk at Banff NP

Chiricahua Mts in Arizona

Arches NP, Utah

We did get to the east coast, but rarely.

King's Landing

A quiet inlet in Nova Scotia

 It was in late 1978 when I learned that my job was going to be made full-time, which I was ecstatic about. The only thing was that I had to apply and compete with others who had similar experience. But as it turned out, my interview was successful and I got the job! Praise the Lord! So in January 1979, I became full time. My job title was: Visitor Services Programmer/Natural Resource Management Specialist! Quite a handle, but I was okay with it. I knew I was going to do more of the usual things, and could plan for even more. And so 1979 through most of 1985 was more of the same, even more intensive, and my plans to pursue a Master's was not going to happen after all.

 

As part of my new, full-time position, I was tasked with becoming more involved with other provincial parks and nature reserves in the south part of the Chatham District of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (OMNR). This included becoming involved with some life science inventory of Fish Point Prov Nature Reserve and Lighthouse Point Prov NR on Pelee Island. But one of the larger tasks I had was to give a fair bit of time to the needs of management of Ojibway Prairie Prov Nature Reserve (OPPNR), in Windsor. I hadn't had a lot of experience with tallgrass prairie, but more than anyone else within OMNR at the time, and Ojibway Prairie had just recently been acquired and established as a significant nature reserve. So with some investigation, including consulting the staff of the city's Ojibway Nature Centre right across the street from OPPNR, I began my task. 

 

Ojibway Prairie is an incredible natural area, and within the city limits of Windsor. The vegetation is truly impressive, with a multitude of rare and significant plants.

Dense Blazing-star

One of the things I was able to do was attend my first North American Prairie Conference in Fargo, North Dakota, in 1984. Marie and I traveled to it, and we explored a few tallgrass prairie sites along the way. This conference, held every two years, was chock full of useful information. Together with whatever else I could find, I produced the first Vegetation Management Plan for OPPNR. This included promoting a regular regime of prescribed burns, as prairie needs them periodically to suppress shrubby invading species.

 While some of the upper level OMNR managers were fairly supportive in what I had put together in this vegetation management plan, they wanted a second opinion, so hired a prairie management specialist from Wisconsin to read my plan as well as come to Windsor to see what OPPNR was. The end result was that he endorsed what I had prepared wholeheartedly. My tallgrass prairie future was heading in the right direction, which will be discussed in a future post.

 

In late 1985, I experienced my next devastating event. It was on a Friday afternoon, when one of the park managers from the Chatham office was at Rondeau, and before he returned, he wanted to inform me of something. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I certainly wasn't prepared for what he told me. First the bad news: my job at Rondeau was declared redundant, which meant it no longer existed. Yikes!!! After that news, he told me that instead the district wanted me to work out of the Chatham office in a larger capacity. Yikes again!! No consultation with me, just a management decision imposed on me.

 

I had been to the Chatham office on numerous occasions, and while I knew the folks there, and got along fine, I did not see myself as working out of an office of that type. My whole existence was based on being in close touch with the field, exploring and sharing God's creation. Rondeau was one of the best places in Ontario to do that, and I had many plans and ideas to implement in my capacity there. All of those ideas would not come to be, as I was being uprooted and forced to work in an office, an artificial environment. I was devastated. I still remember leaving that meeting, somewhat shocked, and headed to the south end of the park. I often walked along the shoreline and south beach for a multitude of reasons, especially peaceful inspiration, and first off I wanted to get away from what I had just been told about my future. I spent more or less the rest of that afternoon hiking along the shoreline, wondering exactly what to expect and already missing my Rondeau future. I was not enthusiastic about it at all. So going for a long hike (fortunately there were no short piers to walk off of :-), was how I dealt with this unfortunate news, just focusing on the sounds and views of this intriguing part of Rondeau, which I had come to envision my long-term future here. I don't remember specifically praying, but I undoubtedly did.

At any rate, that was how my 1985 ended, and beginning the first of January, I started making the 45 minute commute to the Chatham District Office. And what that resulted in, which was a lot, will be the focus of my next post or two.