If you plant it, they will come…
LWI members were privileged to be invited to visit the Enbridge Solar Farm, in Sarnia, on June 21st to observe how the restored tall grass prairie habitat has attracted rare bird species. Resident expert Larry Cornelis led this 3-hour outing. 28 members, including Larry, participated. The group included novice through to very experienced birders. Weather was ideal: clear, sunny but not too hot.
The Enbridge Solar farm is the largest in Canada and has a total of 257 hectares covered with 1,300,000 solar panels, enough to power 12,000 homes on a sunny day. Due to electrical grid limitations there will be no more panels installed on this site. The remaining 188 hectares of the Enbridge property have been designated for conversion to tall grass prairie and these areas were the subject of our visit. The very secure property is normally inaccessible to visitors so this was a unique opportunity to see these large grassland areas close-up.
The highlights of the outing were multiple sightings of Grasshopper and Clay-colored Sparrows. Both rare species were observed in the tallgrass prairie rehabilitated areas and these birds are evidence that restoring habitat does have the positive outcomes expected. Other bird species observed were: Killdeer, Brown-headed Cow Bird, Willow Flycatcher, Song Sparrow, Red-winged Blackbird, Savannah Sparrow, Tree Sparrow, American Goldfinch, Eastern Kingbird, Turkey Vulture, Cedar Waxwing, Meadowlark, American Crow, Yellow Warbler, Field Sparrow, Hairy Woodpecker, Great Blue Heron, Grasshopper Sparrow (3), Clay-coloured Sparrow (7), Mourning Dove, Common Yellowthroat, Starling, Common Grackle, Northern Flicker, Catbird, Indigo Bunting, Red-tailed Hawk, Robin, Yellow-billed Cuckoo.
Kudos to Larry for organizing and leading this activity, it really was an awesome day! A special thank you to Enbridge for allowing us to visit the property and for planting this habitat. Indeed it is encouraging for all naturalists to see the relatively short term effects of planting tall grass prairie. Imagine what might be possible when other land areas are restored in this manner.
