Nature Along the Way: Birds and Wildlife on the Niagara Parkway and Bruce Trail

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes,

but in having new eyes.”

 

Marcel Proust, La Prisonnière (The Captive), from In Search of Lost Time

 

Learning to Look Close to Home

 

There are journeys that begin with the desire to discover somewhere new, and others that begin because we have forgotten how much there is to discover where we already are. Our time on the Niagara Parkway and Bruce Trail belonged to the latter. When we first began walking sections of these trails in 2014, we were not yet long-distance hikers or pilgrims. We weren't thinking about crossing countries on foot, going on pilgrimage or building our lives around slow travel. We were simply spending too much time indoors, too much time at desks and in front of screens, and we wanted to get outside again.

 

The solution seemed almost too simple. We could walk.

 

Rather than travelling far away, we began exploring trails within reach of home. Beyond our own interests, we also took these trips as opportunities to encourage a younger family member to look for birds and spend more time outdoors.  Those early outings were not formal nature surveys, and neither our travel journals nor our published blogs have complete records of every species we encountered. Some days we photographed birds and wildlife; others we explored forests or watched waterfalls. What mattered was that we were outside again and beginning, perhaps without realizing it, to pay closer attention to the places around us.

Over the following years, that attention changed. We became better at identifying what we were seeing. Birding became increasingly central to what we share. Curiosity increasingly led us to photograph an unfamiliar plant, investigate a fern, identify an amphibian or submit an observation to citizen science projects. The trails themselves encouraged us to think about habitat, corridors, restoration and conservation. Yet none of this happened all at once. Even our hike on the Bruce Trail did not take place in a single continuous journey. Ultimately, it would be started, experienced and completed slowly over repeated walks, different seasons and over the course of almost a decade of our lives. That is perhaps what makes it unusual among the long trails we have since followed. Most journeys carried us continuously through a landscape. The Bruce Trail gave way to us repeatedly returning, completing small day hikes and sections one at a time.

 

Our hikes began beside Lake Erie at Old Fort Erie, following approximately 100 kilometres of the Niagara Parkway Recreation Trail along the Niagara River to Niagara-on-the-Lake. We later returned to Queenston Heights and turned inland onto the Bruce Trail, following the Niagara Escarpment north toward Tobermory. We completed these sections through day hikes, weekend trips, camping excursions and organized End-to-End events, often walking them out of geographical order. In the end, however, they formed a connected progression from the Niagara River through southern Ontario's forests, fields, wetlands and escarpment country to the limestone cliffs and clear waters of Georgian Bay.

 

Along the Niagara River

 

Our first part of the journey began beside Lake Erie at Old Fort Erie and followed the Niagara River north. It was not a landscape anyone would mistake for wilderness. Homes, roads, bridges, golf courses, parks and hydroelectric infrastructure were rarely far away, and the United States remained visible across the river for much of the route. Yet walking through this familiar region rather than driving across it immediately changed what we noticed.

 

The weather conditions at the time also helped make that lesson memorable. It was extremely hot, and long stretches of pavement offered little protection from the sun. Shade quickly became something we actively searched for rather than simply stands of trees to be admired, and it was while taking refuge beneath trees along the river that we came across two Great Egrets. One stood brilliantly white in the shallow water only a short distance offshore, while the other watched from a branch above us. Near Frenchman's Creek, Double-crested Cormorants gathered in trees beside the water, and farther along, the forested shape of Navy Island contrasted with the roads, lawns, bridges and houses surrounding the river.

 

None of these were rare discoveries from some remote corner of Ontario, and perhaps that was part of their importance. Birds were feeding and resting within a heavily altered international river corridor, beside roads and bridges used by thousands of people and tourists every day. As we continued north, Dufferin Islands offered shaded paths, water and tree cover only moments from the crowds and commercial intensity surrounding Niagara Falls. The contrast was remarkable, but so was the realization that one did not have to leave a city or major tourist destination before natural observation could begin.

 

At the iconic Niagara Falls, the scale of the river temporarily overwhelmed and defined everything else. Mist drifted across the pathway, and the sound of falling water grew until conversation became difficult. Here the geology beneath our journey made itself dramatically known. The Niagara Escarpment, which we would eventually follow hundreds of kilometres toward Georgian Bay, was no longer simply a line on a map. Following along it – in the years ahead it would repeatedly emerge as waterfalls, cliffs, ravines, caves, broken limestone and abrupt changes in elevation which the trail wove along.

 

Continuing toward Niagara-on-the-Lake, the river narrowed into gorge, rapids and whirlpools before opening again toward Lake Ontario. En route, botanical gardens, vineyards, generating stations and residential areas remained intertwined with patches of forest and shoreline – all of which the trail wove through.   At Mississauga Beach, near the end of those first days along the river, we watched terns moving over the water as daylight faded. It was a modest ending to the beginning of a much longer journey, but already the familiar Niagara landscape was becoming more complicated than the place we thought we knew from weekend drives and tourist vacations.

 

Following the Escarpment Through a Working Landscape

When we returned to Queenston Heights and turned onto the Bruce Trail, the pathway along the Niagara River gave way to packed earth, exposed limestone, forest and shade. Autumn brought Virginia creeper and poison ivy glowing red against tree trunks, while asters, goldenrod and fleabane coloured open ground. Near Woodend Conservation Area we encountered Ribbon Snakes and Eastern Garter Snakes around ponds, old foundations and agricultural land.  Yet even here the trail rarely separated us entirely from human development. Highways, railway lines, neighbourhoods, quarries, the Welland Canal and university lands repeatedly bordered or crossed the route. Sometimes traffic or lawnmowers could still be heard through the trees. At first those intrusions could make a stretch feel somehow less natural, particularly when compared with the image of wilderness that so often dominates how we imagine meaningful experiences outdoors.

 

Repeated walking gradually complicated that assumption. A narrow woodland between roads could still provide cover and connection between larger habitats. Ravines carry water through urban areas. Meadows, thickets and regenerating land support different species than mature forests. The Glenridge Quarry Naturalization Site made the point particularly clear. A landscape once used as a quarry and municipal landfill had become green space again, not restored to some imagined untouched past, but transformed into something living, useful, and ecologically dynamic.

 

This pattern continued along the escarpment. Lake Moodie reflected autumn colour beside a landscape shaped by reservoirs and hydroelectric development. DeCew Falls combined moving water, forest, industry and history. Short Hills Provincial Park offered rolling woodland, old fields and streams whose character changed according to season and rainfall. The places we were walking through had been farmed, quarried, settled, fragmented, protected and sometimes restored. Nature close to home was not pristine or static - it existed and at times thrived within an ongoing relationship between people, geology, water and wildlife.

 

Returning Through the Seasons

 

Because we section-hiked the Bruce Trail over many years, we often experienced the same broad landscape under very different conditions. What initially seemed like one of the limitations of not walking the trail continuously and regularly eventually became one of its greatest gifts. Returning meant seeing that familiarity did not necessarily mean sameness.

 

Autumn forests around St. Catharines and Lake Moodie could be filled with reds, yellows and oranges, only to become almost transparent a few weeks later when strong winds removed the leaves. Winter altered the same places again. Snow covered rocks, roots and crevices, while bare branches opened views across vineyards, subdivisions and Lake Ontario that summer foliage had completely hidden. During one snowy walk through Woolverton Conservation Area, the forest seemed quieter and emptier than it had in warmer months, yet its underlying structure was easier to see.

 

At Beamer Memorial Conservation Area, the escarpment provided another kind of seasonal connection. Sugar Maple and Red Oak forest surrounded Forty Mile Creek and Beamer Falls, while the ridge itself formed an important corridor for migrating raptors. We were not there during peak migration and saw considerably more people than hawks, but standing at the lookout helped make the relationship between landform and migration easier to understand. Below us stretched Lake Ontario and one of Canada's most developed regions, while along the escarpment people, wildlife, and migrating birds were all using the same geography in very different ways.

 

Spring brought another transformation. Frozen waterfalls returned to movement, wildflowers appeared, and low ground became wet enough to require boardwalks, careful footing or simply acceptance that our shoes were going to get soaked. Near the Devil's Pulpit, while descending slowly through a historic quarry, our attention was pulled from the larger scenery toward something very small: an Eastern Newt (which was a new discovery for us).  We stopped, photographed it and later submitted the observation to iNaturalist. The moment itself was of course very simple, but it reflected something increasingly common in the way we travelled. Curiosity no longer ended with seeing something interesting; more often we wanted to identify it, understand where it lived and, when appropriate, contribute the observation to a larger record.

 

Wetlands, Crevices and the Details Between Views

 

Some of the places that rewarded this sort of attention were not necessarily the ones that would appear on a list of the Bruce Trail's most dramatic viewpoints. Wetlands in particular could first be experienced through mud, mosquitoes, flooded pathways and uncomfortably wet footwear. Yet walking through them made it difficult to dismiss them merely as unpleasant obstacles between more picturesque places. In the Griersville Management Area, we found shallow wetlands with nest boxes intended for Wood Ducks. We did not see the species we might have hoped to find there, but Mallards and Green-winged Teal moved across the water. The empty nest boxes were interesting in themselves because they revealed another aspect of these landscapes – that there were people deliberately managing habitat and attempting to create opportunities for wildlife.

 

Bognor Marsh made it even harder to observe wetlands from a comfortable distance. Floating boardwalks carried us among tall reeds, Mallards called nearby, insects found us readily and lower sections once again left our footwear soaked. Later, after climbing back onto higher ground, Turkey Vultures and hawks circled above the same wetland that had felt so enclosed when we were standing inside it. From above, it looked like a landscape - yet from within, it had been water around our boots, birds disappearing into vegetation and mosquitoes buzzing around our heads. Both perspectives of this stretch were important to see and shifted how we reflected on habitats and woodlands in the years to come.

 

Geology offered similar changes in scale. At Mono Cliffs we walked beside rock faces, through shaded passages and among ferns growing from crevices that appeared to contain almost no soil. In places, extremely cold air flowed from openings in the rock even during the extreme temperatures of the summer day. We stopped repeatedly to investigate, knowing that our curiosity was putting us behind the pace expected during the organized End-to-End hike. Later, near McCarston's Lake, a porcupine sitting in a tree above a rural concession road became one of those wonderfully unexpected observations that could easily have been missed had we been concentrating only on distance or our footing.

 

That tension between keeping pace and remaining attentive followed us through several organized hikes. Walking slowly does not automatically mean looking closely; it is entirely possible to cover kilometres on foot while thinking only about the next checkpoint. As a result, we increasingly found that we wanted enough freedom to stop when something called from the trees, to look into a crevice, photograph an unfamiliar plant or stand for a few minutes beside a wetland, even when doing so made the day less efficient.

 

Birding Along the Way

 

Now it should be made clear that birding was not something the Bruce Trail introduced into my life or our time together. Long before reaching the northern sections of the trail, my work and interests had already taken me into bird research, migration monitoring and fieldwork, including time with Bird Studies Canada, Ontario's Bird Breeding Atlas, the Wildlife Research Station in Algonquin and the bird observatory on the Bruce Peninsula. What the trail increasingly changed, however, was the context in which that knowledge was being used.  Rather than setting out specifically for a birding location or research project, birds became part of ordinary walking days. Sometimes we immediately recognized what we saw or heard.  Sometimes we photographed something to investigate later.  At other times, a call disappeared into the forest without ever being clearly identified.

 

During the Blue Mountains End-to-End, we combined the hike with a birding and conservation fundraiser connected with Bird Studies Canada. Of course, as already noted, trying to record wildlife while keeping up with an organized long-distance event was imperfect, particularly on rocky ground where watching our feet frequently had to take priority, but it helped bring together activities that had previously occupied different parts of our lives. A shift in how we spent time in nature that would profoundly transform our lives in a few years' time.

   

 

Citizen Science offered another way to connect observation with participation. The Eastern Newt near the Devil's Pulpit and later fungi and other organisms on the Bruce Peninsula gave us reasons to photograph, investigate and document what we encountered. None of this meant we suddenly knew the identity of everything around us. If anything, these tools repeatedly reminded us how much we did not know and made uncertainty something to investigate rather than avoid.  We also appreciated the Bruce Trail Conservancy's programs encouraging young people to become interested in birds, ferns, orchids and other aspects of natural history. 

That idea resonated with some of our reasons for beginning these walks in the first place. A child did not need to travel to a distant wilderness or compile an enormous life list to begin engaging with nature. Learning to use binoculars, drawing a bird, sketching a mushroom, keeping notes or asking what was living beside a local pathway were each potential Spark Moments that could be enough to begin.

 

North Toward Georgian Bay

 

As we continued through Beaver Valley and Sydenham sections of the BTC, forests, farmland, wetlands, waterfalls and exposed limestone increasingly overlapped. Rather than recounting every conservation area or creek we crossed, what remains strongest in memory is the accumulation of textures: moss and lichens colouring boulders green, snow lingering in shaded crevices after surrounding fields had long since moved toward spring, water disappearing into fractured limestone, and narrow wooded corridors continuing between farms and roads.

 

Farther north, the Bruce Peninsula changed the character of the journey again. Beyond Wiarton, forest, alvar, marsh, cliff and shoreline increasingly dominated the landscape, while Georgian Bay appeared more frequently through the trees and below the edge of the Niagara Escarpment. Clear water contrasted with pale limestone and dark conifers, and the trail itself became much rougher. Footing demanded more concentration; water at times became more difficult to find, and repeated descents and climbs along the escarpment slowed our pace considerably.

This was also a region we already knew through summer vacations, camping trips, and birding research, but arriving on foot changed the scale at which we experienced it. Instead of driving to a birding site or research location, we were travelling gradually through the habitats that connected them. Near Crane Lake, a Parks Canada ranger reminded us that black bears and Massasauga Rattlesnakes also occupied the landscape. Not long afterward, the warning became considerably less theoretical when we found a Massasauga basking directly on the trail. A fascinating and somewhat unnerving encounter all in the same moment.

 

Given Sean's longstanding fear of snakes, discovering a venomous one between us and the direction we needed to travel was memorable for obvious reasons. Yet the animal did nothing dramatic. It did not strike, pursue us or even rattle; it was simply occupying a warm patch of its own habitat. We stopped at a respectful distance and waited for roughly ten minutes until it eventually moved from the trail and disappeared into the grass. There was no reason to provoke it, handle it or push closer for a photograph simply because we wanted to continue walking. In that moment the appropriate response to wildlife was also the simplest one: give it space and let it move first.

 

The northern sections of the BTC and final kilometres are remembered in this way – as a series of smaller encounters. At High Dump, the calls of loons mixed with the sound of Georgian Bay against the boulder shoreline. Around Cyprus and Marr lakes, Eastern Garter Snakes and Northern Watersnakes basked on rocks or moved through vegetation. We watched an American Giant Millipede climb a tree, its legs moving along its body in waves, while Eastern Kingbirds darted through lakeside habitat. Northern Leopard Frogs appeared near the trail, fungi emerged from leaf litter and decaying wood, and near Loon Lake a Sandhill Crane became one of the memorable final bird encounters of the journey.

 

What strikes us now is how little these memories resemble a conventional list of Bruce Trail highlights. A Great Egret standing in the Niagara River, autumn colour reflected in Lake Moodie, cold air flowing from a limestone crevice, exploring Bognor Marsh, a porcupine watching from a tree, a rattlesnake occupying a patch of sunlight and loons calling beside Georgian Bay would make a strange itinerary. Yet together they are much closer to how we remember the trail than any list of kilometres, checkpoints, or sectional patches on our backpacks.

 

Looking Back from Tobermory

 

Our final day on the Bruce Trail carried us past some of the Bruce Peninsula's best-known places - the Grotto, Marr Lake, Overhanging Point, Driftwood Cove and Little Cove - before eventually bringing us to Tobermory, Ontario. From the lookout near the Parks Canada Visitor Centre, the peninsula's forest stretched below while Georgian Bay opened the horizon around us. From here, less than a kilometre of our first long hike remained.

 

The northern cairn beside Little Tub Harbour brought the journey to a surprisingly simple conclusion. There was no final dramatic wildlife encounter waiting beside the terminus and no single revelation that suddenly explained the years behind us or the ecology of the escarpment. After so many day hikes, seasonal returns, weekend trips and sections completed years apart, there were simply no more white blazes left for us to follow. It had taken roughly forty trail days spread across almost a decade to make our way from the Niagara River toward Tobermory, but by then kilometres seemed like a poor measure of what the journey had been and what it gave us.

 

When we began, much of what we wanted was simply to get outside again, spend time together and rediscover landscapes within reach of home. Over repeated returns we began noticing seasons rather than simply weather, varied forest communities rather than undifferentiated stretches of trees, and wetlands as more than muddy obstacles. Geology helped partially explain why water, plants and wildlife appeared where they did, while unfamiliar organisms increasingly encouraged questions, identification and lots of citizen-science observations.

 

None of this meant learning the name of everything around us. We still do not, and that was never really the point. What the Bruce Trail gave us was the opportunity and time to be curious about familiar places. Nature existed beside international bridges and hydroelectric stations, behind neighbourhoods, in restored quarries, between agricultural fields and within narrow woodland corridors. It also existed in wetlands, escarpment crevices, old forests and along the rocky shoreline of Georgian Bay. Returning through different seasons and over the course of many years showed us that even a landscape we thought we knew could repeatedly become unfamiliar and fascinating again.

 

During the years between our first and final Bruce Trail walks, the scale of our journeys changed dramatically. We went on to walk Camino pilgrimages in Europe, Newfoundland's East Coast Trail and eventually  - over the course of almost 18,000 kilometres across Canada on the Trans Canada Trail under the banner #Hike4Birds. Those later journeys certainly carried a great deal of what we learned here forward, but the Bruce Trail does not need them to give it importance. The egret beside the Niagara River, the newt near the Devil's Pulpit, the porcupine in the trees overhead, the wetland birds, the rattlesnake occupying its patch of sunlight and the loons calling beside Georgian Bay were not preparation for somewhere more significant.  They were part of discovering what had been around us all along. Perhaps that is the particular gift of a trail explored repeatedly over so many years: discovery does not always require travelling somewhere we have never been. Sometimes it begins close to home, when we slow down enough to see a familiar landscape with new eyes.

 

See you on the trail – hopefully with your binoculars.