New nature lookout in Schomberg

May 14, 2014 · 0 Comments

By Jeff Doner
Local volunteers rolled up their sleeves and got to work to help put together a new nature lookout outside of the Trisan Centre on Saturday.
A Township of King project, with funding from the TD Canada Trust Friends of the Environment Program, the new nature lookout will give people a place to check out the wildlife in the surrounding wetlands.
“It’s kind of in an obvious spot, where people that are coming into the Trisan Centre can see it,” said Mary Assenstine, the environmental stewardship coordinator at the Township of King. “They can come in and look at the birds and wildlife that are in the wetland. We have a lot of different kinds of birds right now. We’ve got some swans and geese, but we get an awful lot of ducks that come in here too and some shore birds as well. During migration there’s quite a diversity of wetland species here.”
Once the lookout is completed, interpretive signs will be installed with information about species in the area and also give tips on what to look for.
The group will also be keeping six pair of binoculars in the Trisan Centre that people can borrow to take out to the lookout for bird watching. They can then head back in and log what they saw outside.
The hope is that people will on the lookout when visiting the Trisan Centre and will head over to see what’s going on in the wetlands.
The site will also be used for schools and groups to bring students to the area for educational purposes.
Asselstine said the site itself is an interesting story, as it was originally used as sewage lagoons for the waste water treatment plant for the Village of Schomberg. However, York Region has since upgraded their old facility to a high-end treatment facility, so they did not need the sewage lagoons anymore.
“The Region of York decided instead of decommissioning them, that they would make them into a natural wetland,” she said. “It took quite a lot of designing and effort, and it looks like a big pond right now, but there’s a variety of shallow areas and deep areas to try to make habitat for as many different birds as they can. We’ll see in a few years, as the vegetation starts to grow up, what kind of habitats we’re getting out there.”
For more information on the lookout, how you can get involved or to book it for a visit, you can contact Mary Asselstine at the Township of King by phone at 905-833-5321, ext. 5226.