Size: 100 acres
Established: 2007
Donors: Omnibus Research, Inc (A.K. Dewdney)
Status: Not Open to the Public
Protection: Donated
Background:
Located in the Municipality of West Elgin, Newport Forest is part of a much larger forest complex known as the Skunk’s Misery Complex, which consists of about 4000 acres of forest in various conditions. Among the early landowners of Newport Forest were Alex Cameron (1840) and Henry Powell (1877). During and since that period the land has always been mixed agriculture and woodlot.
Around 1970, Lorne Thomas Newport of R.R.1, Wardsville acquired the land from his grandfather and for the next several years pastured cattle on the old fields. Selective logging was done from the 1970s to the early 1990s. After the sudden death of Lorne Newport in 1998, his executrix, Eva Newport, put the land up for sale. The Nature Conservancy of Canada inspected the land and encouraged its use as a conservation area. In 2000, it was purchased by Omnibus Research, Inc (A.K. Dewdney), who began the process of gifting the land to TTLT.
Description:
Newport Forest is located on the south side of the Thames River near Wardsville, Ontario within the Carolinian Zone. Historically, it is ecologically contiguous with the Skunk's Misery area on the north side of the Thames, barely one kilometer's distance over intervening agricultural land.
Newport Forest consists of lowland forest, with some upland forest, meadow, ravine slopes and bluff forests, and floodplain.
The lower part of Newport Forest is subject to periodic flooding, which has considerable influence on plant and animal life, including the establishment of the beautiful Virginia Bluebells. The upland forest consists of a Maple-Beech canopy with other woody species present, including Red, White and Chinquapin Oak, Blue Ash and Blue-beech. The lowland forests consist mainly of Box Elder, Black Walnut, Sycamore, Sugar and Black maples, Black Willow, American Elm and Slippery Elm. The Beech-Maple complex, including White Ash, is also present to varying degrees. Blind Creek is an ephemeral wetland formed when Fleming's Creek cut new banks to the Thames River and abandoned its former bed. The banks of Fleming's Creek and the west ravine are heavily wooded, prime sites for spring wildflowers. On the Thames floodplain, between the river and the Riverside Forest, grow some unusual species, including Cup Plant.
The upper and lower Meadows, previously used for grazing cattle, will be allowed to succeed into forest, except for small service areas. The meadows include several interesting native plants such as Wingstem, Coneflowers, Blue-eyed Grass, and Aster species. The meadows and adjacent scrub provide habitat for birds including Savannah Sparrow, Eastern Meadowlark and Eastern Bluebird. The lowland forest and floodplain attract a wide variety of migrating and resident birds including the Red-bellied Woodpecker.