Enticing Bird Breeding and Feeding Grounds

Tallgrass prairie restoration blooms on the Oak Ridges Moraine

BY MATTHEW BROWN

When Richard Scott bought his 52-hectare property in the Oak Ridges Moraine region in Baltimore, Ontario (40 minutes east of Oshawa), he was drawn by its beauty but didn’t yet realize just how important the land was to local bird species and to maintaining connections between natural areas.

The property provides habitat for bird species that are experiencing serious declines – including Barn Swallows and Tree Swallows as well as grassland birds including Eastern Meadowlark, Bobolink, and Grasshopper Sparrows. Beyond the local fauna, the property also boasted significant populations of native tallgrass prairie indicator species, including Wild Lupine, Big and Little Bluestem, Switchgrass, and Hairy Beardtongue.

Geographically, the property is close to the Nature Conservancy of Canada’s (NCC) Hazel Bird Nature Reserve – a 118-hectare property secured for the protection and restoration of rare tallgrass prairie, sand barren, oak woodland and oak savanna habitats – as well as three Provincially Significant Wetlands.

“I bought this property just over 15 years ago. There was nothing on it – though part of the property had been farmed and there was also a sand pit,” Richard Scott says. “About 10 years ago, I built the house and then four or five years ago, I called Val Deziel, Forests Canada’s Director of Restoration Programs, and formerly of NCC because there was a lot of Lupin out here and people from the NCC would come to collect the Lupin seeds.”

There was a lot of Spotted Knapweed (an invasive plant that Val knew well thanks to writing an Honours thesis on the subject) on the property, as well as remnants of tall grass prairie. “Val came out to the property and we had a walk around and that was when we first had the idea to do a prescribed burn, which happened in 2022,” Scott says.

A prescribed burn is a deliberately set, carefully planned, and controlled fire that consumes ground-level fuels such as dried leaves, cured grass, forbs (a type of herbaceous flowering plant), needles, and fallen or downed woody debris. Pioneered by First Nations, the process is a widely used and recognized scientific method of controlling out-competing, non-fire tolerant invasive species, allowing for growth and regeneration of the naturally occurring historical grasslands and fire-tolerant tree species.

The goal on Scott’s farm: establish a sustainable tallgrass prairie ecosystem, which would provide a habitat for many endangered and threatened species of flora and fauna. “The day of the prescribed burn was an exciting day – kind of stressful too because of the proximity to the road – but it all worked out. I’d guess that there was a 60 per cent improvement in the density of the tall grasses here just from the one burn” Deziel says.

Flowers such as Wild Lupin and rare tall grasses on the property used to be prevalent all around this region of Ontario, but agricultural farming, invasive species, and just getting crowded out and shaded out by species such as Scots Pine, dwindled their numbers.

“If we didn’t do anything, this area would be overrun by invasive species and undesirable species and all these extremely rare grasses and flowers would be gone – which is what happened to most of the prairies in this region,” Val says. For the threatened bird species in the area, the return of a tallgrass prairie provides an enticing feeding and breeding ground. “The way these grasses form in clumps – with bare ground around the clumps – makes it ideal for ground-nesting birds. They can forage and have their young in there and feel safe,” Deziel says.

But the prescribed burn wasn’t the only action taken to begin to restore this beautiful, tallgrass prairie. Over the course of several years, restoration actions included prescribed burning, thinning, native planting and seeding, and invasive species control. “We also removed some White Pine from parts of this property, as they were crowding – and killing – these old oak trees. One of the main focuses in this area is all about oak. We protect oak, we encourage oak, we burn for oak – they do so much for the animals and the local environment,” Val says.

As Richard – who still splits his time between his legal practice in Toronto and his property in Baltimore – sees the tallgrass prairie begin to thrive and spread, he is grateful for the expertise of Forests Canada’s restoration team and also proud to have played a part in bringing back this incredible ecosystem.

“On any given day, I can see firsthand how this land sustains and protects not just countless species of wildflowers and tallgrasses, but also the insects, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals that call this area home,” Scott says. “It’s an honour to be a small part of taking care of this land.”