Red headed Woodpeckers at Ojibway Park in Windsor + Ojibway Legal Fund

Ojibway keeps proving itself to be a sparkling diamond in Windsor's West End.

Occasionally people ask me what my favorite bird is. Its a hard question to answer!?!!? Its difficult to even round out your ten favorite warblers, or your top three owls or shorebirds. But overall, I could almost say that with the 403 bird species that I've seen... the Red headed Woodpecker has to be #1.

To my absolute amazement, a local birder/photographer mentioned a breeding family of Red headed Woodpeckers earlier today, and well, I had to stop by and see if I could find them. Sure enough, almost as I got out of my car I saw one fly over my head. I think there are two adults and two juvies... A cute family of four if I'm not mistaken. I only stopped by Ojibway for 10 minutes but almost immediately witnessed the scene above with a juvenile being fed. A breathtaking scene - breeding Red headed woodpeckers in West Windsor! This is just one more reason Windsor should be making Ojibway better and keeping it as a place that future generations can enjoy - rather than degrading it with commercial development, and increased traffic. I'm sure you are probably aware of this but the Red-headed Woodpecker is a "Species of Concern" in Ontario which means it is close to becoming a "threatened" species. See this link for more: https://www.ontario.ca/page/red-headed-woodpecker

I don't know if blog readers have read about the "Save Ojibway" organization that was fighting to have the government stop development next to Ojibway Park. The group founder, Nancy Pancheshan has been fighting and attending municipal meetings, OMB (Ontario Municipal Board) hearings etc. The OMB went with the City and the Developer who are now allowed to go full steam on their "Big Box Development". Save Ojibway was rightfully concerned that Ojbiway Park is one of the most bio-diverse parks in the province, and it has many species at risk. So if there are endangered species laws... why are they building here?  (Good Question!) The developer sued Nancy for $750,000.00 ,  and supposedly spent $40,000 on the lawsuit to sue her. The judge (perhaps wanting to warn environmentalists to bugger off) fined the two women who spearheaded Save Ojibway with almost $12,000 to Coco Paving for their legal costs.  Someone in the community made a "Go Fund Me" account for these two women, and I'm happy to say that 200 donations have added up to $9000 in just 3 days. See these two links below:

http://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/gofundme-campaign-launched-to-help-ojibway-park-activists 
https://www.gofundme.com/save-ojibway 


To me, Nancy P is a hero in our community. She is trying to get the government to follow its own endangered species laws ... and she has been dragged into the media with many people that would rather that she just "shut up and go away". She didn't. She fought hard to save Ojibway, but after a 6+ year battle, the Ontario Municipal Board sided with the builder. I don't want to obligate any of my readers, but if you care to support her, and stand behind her for standing up for the environment - I would greatly appreciate it. Obviously, I made a contribution because I think her fight demonstrates what it means to be a citizen in a country like Canada.  I could write pages of content about how special a place Ojibway is but the few people that read this blog probably already know.

On a lighter note, I would like to end with some sightings from Ojibway. I walked through a sedge meadow (shown above) earlier today to try to find my nemisis butterfly - but no luck. I feel that I saw Tawny-edged skippers, Duke's Skippers and Broad-winged Skippers. But no Mulberry Winged !!!

Good Birding!
Dwayne