Southern Ontario
It is the smallest forest region in the province, kingdom of the deciduous forest (also called deciduous forest). It borders the shores of Lakes Ontario and Erie and is also found in the southern part of Lake Huron. The region is dominated by agriculture and urban areas and covers nearly 3 million hectares, with the largest number of tree species. Species generally found in the United States are present (black walnut, butternut, tulipwood, magnolia, Scots nyssa, many types of oak, hickory, sassafras, red sheath), as well as mixed forest.
This region is also home to mammals, birds, insects, reptiles and amphibians that are rather rare in the country, such as the northern flying squirrel and the northern garter snake. In the vicinity of Point Pelee National Park, bird watching is the flagship activity and allows you to see hundreds of species such as stream warblers, herons, bitterns and waterfowl. This is also where the migration of the monarch butterfly, an emblematic insect of North America, takes place. Highly recognizable by the intense orange of its wings, which are circled and veined with black stripes with white dots, this migratory butterfly moves twice a year, southward (high mountains of Mexico) in the fall and northward (northeastern United States and Canada) in the spring. This quite exceptional migration forms clusters of thousands of individuals that flutter in an impressive orange cloud. However, this migratory phenomenon is in danger of disappearing, particularly due to the decline and loss of natural habitat, the eradication of milkweed by pesticides in industrial agricultural areas, as well as climate change along the entire migratory route and mainly at wintering sites in Mexico.The Great Lakes and St. Lawrence region
It is Ontario's second largest forest region, covering some 20 million hectares, or 20% of the province. It is located in central Ontario, from the St. Lawrence River to Lake Huron, and west of Lake Superior along the border with the state of Minnesota. On poor soils, white pine and oak grow, while on rich upland soils, which have often become agricultural, hardwoods, sugar maple, American beech, birch, and a softwood, hemlock, grow. Elm, ash, red maple, and eastern white cedar grow on moist lowlands. The higher you go, the more coniferous trees mix with the deciduous trees. In autumn, the deciduous forest is set ablaze: the leaves take on enchanting colours before they fall. The Pennsylvania cherry, red maple, red oak, Virginia creeper, dogwood and sumac are all decked out in a blazing red. Hickory, birch, aspen, basswood, elm and larch choose a bright golden yellow. Everywhere the sugar maple shines, oscillating between the brightest red and the sunniest yellow. Big-leaved beech and bur oak add their golden or coppery tones to this symphony of colours. This enchantment reaches its peak during the Indian summer, the brief warmth of the North American autumn.
This region is the kingdom of the pileated woodpecker and various migratory birds, small mammals such as muskrats, otters and beavers, large wavy animals such as white-tailed deer and the original, and fearsome predators such as wolves and black bears. The latter two are the figureheads of Algonquin Provincial Park, particularly the endangered Eastern Wolf, for whom the park is one of the last refuges where it is not hunted. And because the wolf's howl has always thrilled humans, you'll hear this heart-wrenching lament with park guides in the summer.The Boreal Zone
The centrepiece of the forest regions, the taiga - also known as the boreal forest - covers no less than half of the province, from north of Lake Superior to the Hudson Bay Lowlands. This forest is extremely dense and difficult to penetrate. It is home to ferns, mosses and grasses, as well as berry plants such as the boreal clintonia, a large plant with bright blue berries, the red berry bunchberry, whose four leaves turn red in the fall, the red berry pimbina, and the wood tea or anisette, whose small white berries shine amidst thick mats of moss. In the undergrowth there are also many shrubs, often very bushy: raspberry, kalmias, rhododendron, dwarf birch. Mushrooms grow on the ground and on the trees. The latter are almost exclusively conifers: black spruce, white spruce, jack pine, eastern white cedar, fragrant balsam fir, tamarack, which often lives solitary on the edge of the large fir and spruce forest and whose needles turn golden yellow in the fall. There are also a few deciduous species such as poplar and white birch. This forest is often ravaged by forest fires, but having adapted well to them, this natural disturbance allows some of its plant species, such as jack pine and black spruce, to regenerate.
The taiga is home to many animals. A characteristic inhabitant is the moose, recognizable by its large antlers, as is the caribou, another deer. Black bears, wolves and lynx also inhabit the boreal forest, as do small mammals (American marten, hare, red fox, porcupine) and a myriad of birds.On the Hudson Bay frontier
The northernmost region of Ontario, the Hudson Bay Lowlands represent one of the largest expanses of wetlands in the world. It is composed of bogs, slow-growing forest (tamarack and black spruce in the foreground, with some rare hardwoods such as white birch, dwarf birch and willow) and thousands of lakes and ponds. It is home to snow geese, ptarmigan, Canada geese, sea ducks, arctic hare, arctic fox, woodland caribou and polar bear. Polar bears are also closely observed at the Canadian Polar Bear Habitat in Cochrane in Northern Ontario.
