Event Report – 2025-04-27 – Trestle Trail

On Sunday Apr. 27 2025 the Midland Penetanguishene Field Naturalists gathered for an outing at Hogg Bay and the Trestle Trail near Port McNicoll.

Here’s a link to a Flickr album with some of the day’s sightings.
MPFN Apr. 27 2025 Hogg Bay Trestle Trail Flickr Album

Here’s the trip report from MPFN President Bob Codd.

I’m not one who picks favourites easily. Ask me what my favourite colour is and I’ll vacillate. Or my favourite bird? Who could choose? There are so many to pick from, each with their own special qualities that make them candidates for my most liked list. But ask me what my favourite season is and I’ll reply without hesitation. It’s Spring. Throughout my many decades on the planet this has remained true. I yearn for Spring. The first brave blossoms pushing through the melting snow are an elixir for my soul. A promise that even a fierce winter like this past one will come to an end.

Snowdrops, Coltsfoot and Crocuses signal a rebirth and a splash of colour emerging from the gray dullness of winter. But they do not last. So it is with most of the Spring flowers. Their fading succession to the next blossoms in line also brings a sense of loss to me. It’s my particular Spring illness. I want these precious moments to last. I long to see the first Trillium but I can’t bring myself to let it go and move on to the next. I find myself wishing for the impossible. I want to make time stand still. I want to savour each Spring flower, each returning songbird and each new bud on the trees and hold onto it until I’m ready to let go. Spring brings to me a weird, joyful sadness. My spirits are lifted by the chorus of singing birds and the pageant of colourful wildflowers even as I quietly grieve, knowing that the moment cannot last. I’m forced, as we all are, to live in the moment, knowing that I will have to wait twelve long months to see the first flowers of Spring once again.

Accepting this inevitability makes me hungry for every new sight, sound and fragrance of this season of rebirth. I can’t make time slow down so I try to cram my senses with these reawakened seasonal experiences. I’ve become a nature hoarder. I take photographs of each new vernal revelation in my vain attempt to make the moment last forever. I have scores of images of Coltsfoot for example yet I greedily snap more. Dozens more – each one unsatisfactory to my quest to make the season linger. They serve as reminders of what has slipped away and that the progression of the seasons will inevitably return me to the darkness of winter.

The antidote to my peculiar malaise is sharing these moments with friends and that’s what our little nature club does best. Somehow the first warblers of the season or the earliest flowers are more durable when shared. Many eyes seeking Spring’s bounty means little will go overlooked. Sharing the quiet joy at each new discovery makes these precious moments more intense and the memory more vivid. Knowing that there are others like me who hold these experiences as dearly, deepens my bond with nature.

Club members were still gathering in the parking lot when the abundance of the season made itself known. Turkey Vultures soared overhead and a Northern Flicker sang its repetitive song while we strained to see an Osprey through the budding trees as it hunted over Hogg Bay. We posed for a photo in front of a monument to the historic Hogg Bay Trestle whose remnants are little more than wooden pilings, the favourite perch for Double-crested Cormorants. The demise of railroads in our area rendered this magnificent structure obsolete but I can’t help thinking that it would have made a fantastic boardwalk through the wetland!

Our route followed an abandoned rail bed that ultimately led to the grain elevators in Port McNicoll, the same destination as the trestle bridge route would have. I pondered the economics at play, trying to understand why anyone would build a massive timber bridge when an overland path was so near at hand. Historians may know the answer to that riddle but I certainly can’t guess it. These defunct railroads are a modern day boon to outdoor enthusiasts and casual walkers alike throughout Ontario. Some, like this one, give access to some impressive natural habitats that would have been seen as obstacles when they were constructed. This human attitude has changed little with the passing of time.

Finally underway we’d only progressed a few hundred meters before stopping again to scope out the ducks and shorebirds in Hogg Bay. Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs probed the exposed mudflats hunting for delicacies we can only imagine. What is in the mud that these wading birds find so appealing? Someone must have done the research. I’d be really interested to hear about this from a guest lecturer at one of our club meetings. The birds aren’t giving their secrets away.

It was here that we gained a new participant. A precocious young lady named Marina, out for a bike ride, became curious what our flock of naturalists were doing. Marina stayed with our group through to our destination, the lookout (outlook?) that was the terminus of the trestle bridge, back in its day. She marveled at each discovery and eagerly looked through scopes and binoculars at every new sighting. We talked about sedges and wildflowers and her interest never faded. If our delightful young protegé was representative of the younger generation I would have far less cause to worry for the future of the planet. Unfortunately, I think she is the exception. Still it was truly encouraging to stumble upon one so young who shared our excitement about the natural world. I like to think that we helped this young lady to appreciate and want to protect nature and maybe even lead her generation in this endeavor.

The season was still very young and quite cool. Wildflowers are a natural focus of a spring outing but they were reluctant to commit themselves to blossoming. Perhaps that is a wise choice this year. Winter likewise was reluctant to commit to departing. The buds of Trilliums and Trout Lilies were skeptical. They wanted proof that it’s truly their moment in the sun. A day or two later would have told a different tale but for now we had to content ourselves with the bravest blooms who dared to cast off doubt that Spring had finally arrived.

The avian jewels of springtime had begun trickling in from their southern wintering grounds but so far only the earliest returning songbirds were evident. Warblers are the most eagerly anticipated migrants and are highly sought after by birders. Palm Warblers and the abundant Yellow-rumped Warblers provided a nice distraction through the forested section of trail. Their frenetic movements created a challenge for the photographers amongst us. We walked in stops and starts, finally making our way to the lookout.

Local trail walkers have been feeding birds here throughout the winter and they’ve come to expect these gifts from humans. Personally, I can’t resist the opportunity to try to hand feed birds. Black-capped Chickadees are the boldest. They don’t hesitate to collect their tribute from we petty human beings and will buzz past your ears to remind you to pay up. Our young naturalist Marina seemed to share my fondness for hand feeding birds and even attracted a Red-winged Blackbird to – almost – eat out of her hand. The smile on her face put a smile on my own. When almost every living thing is justifiably frightened of we humans the tiny Chickadees seem to fear nothing. It’s a moving experience to feel them land on your hand and accept the gifts we bring them. For me, it’s an act of contrition, an apology for all the harms we humans have caused them and their wild cousins. Please accept my humble offering and forgive us our self-centered remaking of the natural world. Apologies won’t suffice. We must do better and accept that all creatures are part of this world and deserve their own share of it without fear that we’ll take it away.

This was a successful outing by any measurement. We saw a surprising total of 41 bird species despite the early season. Here is a link to our eBird checklist: https://ebird.org/checklist/S230323200

And here is a list, compiled by my significant other, Sue Codd, of everything else that we managed to observe:

Fungus:
Rock shield lichen

Plants:
Yellow Trout Lily ( aka yellow dogtooth violet ) emergent leaves
Red Trilliums flowering
Blue Cohosh
Wild ginger
Poison Ivy
Horsetail
Coltsfoot
Longstalk sedge
Herb Robert
Mullein
Dandelions
Garlic Mustard

Turtles:
Map, Snapping, Midland Painted

Cheers
Bob Codd
President, Midland-Penetanguishene Field Naturalists