New Trail Opened At Sidney

NEW TRAIL OPENED AT SIDNEY

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 (Napanee Beaver)

Friday, July 27, 2007 (Picton Gazette)

Visitors to the Sidney Conservation Area can now enjoy a complete loop on their hike, without having to return to the parking lot on the same trail. The new feature of the Sidney Conservation Area is thanks in part to the efforts of the Hastings and Prince Edward County Stewardship Council Rangers (OSR), based in Tweed. The Rangers arrived July 10^th donned in hard hats, and armed with pruners and saws as they joined other volunteers from the Picton, Napanee and Shannonville areas. The Stewardship Council is a volunteer group, supported by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, that works towards improved sustainability of agriculture and natural resources.

When word got out early this year that I was interested in re-opening the former loop in this conservation area, south of Stirling, the Hastings and Prince Edward Land Stewardship were quick to respond, and offered the assistance of their Stewardship Ranger program. Last year, this team of 17 year olds assisted with a trail rehabilitation project at Ameliasburgh’s Harry Smith Conservation Area, working in humid temperatures that kept many residents of the village indoors. The previous year, a team of Rangers released European Gallerucella beetles to control purple loosestrife at the H.R. Frink Centre, did habitat mapping along the Salmon River, worked in the maple orchard at the Ameliasburgh Museum, made improvements to the walleye spawning beds at Twin Sisters Lake, repaired ice booms, and cut brush to improve habitat for the loggerhead shrike.

This summer, the Rangers have their July and August calendar almost booked solid with similar projects around the Quinte area. Also scheduled this month are two projects at the Prince Edward Point Bird Observatory, located at the southeastern tip of Prince Edward County, a popular bird migration area that now rivals Point Pelee. Here, they will be building an alternate facility that will house bird banders at a secondary location at the Observatory when the migration season is in high gear and the rush is on to process the migrants as quickly as possible. The Rangers will also be building a rustic snake rail fence along the John Rymes Walkway that will serve to further enhance this trail, named in memory of an avid supporter of the facility who passed away last year of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease)

At Sidney Conservation Area, summer temperatures in this wooded property which lies in a shallow, protected valley, bisected by Chrysal Creek, were reminiscent of those at last year’s project at Ameliasburgh. With plenty of drinking water, the stalwart students of five made no complaints, but toiled away removing saplings, fallen branches and installing trail markers. The new trail was further groomed with a lawn mower. One volunteer who assisted with the project was 74 year old Robert MacGarvey of Napanee. Quinte Conservation can thank this man for the active conservation area volunteer program that now operates annually. I bumped into this enthusiastic retiree at Sheffield Conservation Area several years ago as he and his wife, Mardell, were quietly working away removing branches and saplings from the trail at this 1,100 acre property, south of Kaladar. It was through their interest in maintaining the trail system at Sheffield that Quinte Conservation endorsed a plan to embrace the services of volunteers each year to maintain the trails in some of the more popular conservation areas within the 6,200 square kilometer watershed. The four-kilometre trail at Sheffield was completely rehabilitated by a team of volunteers three years ago in less than a day and a half!

The 52 acre Sidney Conservation Area site, located at 379 Airport Road, in the Oak Hills area, looks much different today than it did in its hey day some 60 years ago. The property was once a field station for the former Entomological Research Institute in Belleville. The Institute acquired the property in 1948, for the purpose of biological and ecological studies of insects in correlation with the research being conducted at the former Belleville Laboratory, located at the corner of Bleecker Avenue and Dundas Street in Belleville. The conservation area was acquired by Quinte Conservation in 1972.

The hiking trail, with its newly constructed loop, weaves through reforestation plots of native hardwoods and evergreens. The new extension provides additional glimpses into the past as it crosses open areas where once there were plots involving experimental cultivation for the study of field and garden insects. As the new extension disappears into the woods, the trail crosses Chrysal Creek beside an old pump house, its pipes and accessories still intact, as though abandoned only yesterday. The trail then ascends an old access road to the cement foundations identifying the locations of storage sheds and the research station itself.

Unknown to many, however, is a checklist of plants and animals, compiled during the field station’s early years. The well documented, unpublished list came to the attention of the Belleville based Quinte Field Naturalists in the early 1970s, who produced a limited number of copies for distribution. While some species in the list may no longer appear due to habitat changes, and other species have since appeared, the list is a praise-worthy attempt at providing a colourful snapshot of the conservation area’s inhabitants. Some, like the scouring rush, listed among three other species of horsetails, remain conspicuous.

Quinte Conservation thanks these dedicated volunteers for their interest and hard work in helping to maintain these popular conservation areas so they will continue to be available to the public.

This week’s column was prepared on behalf of Quinte Conservation