A service club helped open the O’Neill Nature Preserve. This is Part Three of Postmedia's How Canada Wins: Love Where We Live summer series.
From a distance, it looks like a typical woodlot. Surrounded on three sides by farm fields, it’s found on the northern edge of Chatham.
But the collection of vehicles parked at Mid-Wood Oxley Park signals people are attracted to something about the location that doesn’t immediately meet the eye.
Recommended Videos
Walk along the path in the park and you’ll soon discover the Rotary eco-trail in the O’Neill nature preserve, long known to locals as Paxton’s bush.
Many people come just to enjoy a stroll through the 1.4-km, crushed stone trail that goes around the 8.5-hectare woodlot.
But it’s what’s living in the woodlot – including woodpeckers, duc