Presqu'ile Provincial Park

Presqu'ile Provincial Park is known amongst birders for its spring and fall migrations. When I visited last fall, there wasn't much birding action. Like most landscape and nature photography, conditions can be hit or miss, and animals may not cooperate. Hoping for better luck I returned this spring to look for the spring migration and explore some new areas of the park for potential landscape images

Marsh Landscape

The park has an extensive marsh habitat spread over the east side, with a boardwalk trail weaving its way through the rushes and tall grasses. The plants can really restrict views during the later summer and fall months, but seem to be trimmed back in the spring, yielding more expansive views of the wetlands. A lot of these plants are actually an invasive species and part of the the management of the park may involve giving them a periodic trim.

The Shorelines 

Birding is the highlight of a visit to the park if that is one of your interests (and fortunately it is something I enjoy). The park is a peninsula that juts out into Lake Ontario and acts as a rest stop for migrating birds, including many varieties of ducks, shorebirds, herons and many species of songbird. Unfortunately, my experience over several visits has been very hit and miss. The shorebirds mostly use the beaches as a temporary rest stop and I’ve encountered mainly Canada geese and seagulls. I’ve seen social media posts about other birds visiting in the days before and after my visits, but my luck hasn’t been that great. This trip was mostly the same, although there a few Caspian terns present as well.

I had much better luck on the eastern side of the island near the lighthouse where I was able to observe and photograph several of the small passerines, including some warblers and cedar waxwings feeding on berries.

Dune Landscape

The land in the northern side of the park is dominated by sandy dunes and pannes (depressions between the dunes that often fill with water and aquatic life in the spring). Before leaving the park for the day I briefly explored the dunes searching for a landscape composition. The area was more forested and chaotic than I expected, but I found a couple potential subjects including this interesting gnarly tree below.