Crow’s Pass Conservation Area: Late March, 2020

Located on the top of the Oak Ridges Moraine, Crow’s Pass Conservation Area (64 hectares)  offers 3km of forest floor trails along with a connection to the Oak Ridges Moraine Trail.

There is still a lot of snow though the 5 degree temperature today is causing much melting:

melting ice

Elderberry buds are beginning to swell:

Red Elderberry (Sambucus racemosa)

The area is well-named as I heard crows all morning and even a few ravens. I also heard Purple Finch, Blue Jay, White & Red-breasted Nuthatches, Red-winged Blackbirds and Downy Woodpecker. I saw Black-capped Chickadees and this Junco:

Dark-eyed Junco

There are 2 trails here:

The Crow’s Pass Trail:

and the Maple Trail:

Views from the trails:

looking up

Some botany:

White Birch (Betula Papyrifera)
White Birch (Betula papyrifera)
Staghorn Sumac (Rhus typhina)
Large-toothed Aspen (Populus grandidentata)
White Spruce needles
White Spruce cone (Picea glauca)
Scotch Pine (Pinus sylvestris)
Sunburst Lichen
White Ash (Fraxinus americana)
White Ash (Fraxinus americana) dead from Ash Borer
White Ash (Fraxinus americana)
Prickly Gooseberry (Ribes cynosbati)
Black Cherry (Prunus serotina)
American Beech leaf (Fagus grandifolia)
American Beech bud (Fagus grandifolia)
Red Oak (Quercus rubra)
last year’s Intermediate Wood fern
Haircap Moss
Copper Wire Moss
Red Maple (Acer rubra)
Sugar Maple tree growing over fence wire
Ground Cedar
Balsam Fir (Abies balsamea)
Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum)
Turkey-tails
Apple (Malus)
woodpecker drilling in goldenrod gall

NATURE POETRY

The moving Moon went up the sky,
And nowhere did abide;
Softly she was going up,
And a star or two beside.                – Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)

Miles Hearn

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