Stephen's Gulch is a

conservation area Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural or cultural values. Protected areas are those areas in which human presence or the exploitation of natural resources (e.g. firewoo ...

located in the municipality of

Clarington, Ontario Clarington (2021 population 101,427) is a lower-tier municipality in the Regional Municipality of Durham in Ontario, Canada. It was incorporated in 1973 as the town of Newcastle with the merging of the town of Bowmanville, the Village of Newcast ...

. The conservation area borders a large section of the Soper Creek, and contains 354 acres of deciduous forests as well as coniferous forests and swamps. The conservation area is also an important watershed area for Ontario.

History

Administration and management

The Stephen's Gulch conservation area is under the administration of the Central Lake Ontario Conservation Authority who are responsible for a variety of watershed services as well as upkeep of Stephen's Gulch.

Climate

Stephen's Gulch has a

humid continental climate A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers, and cold ...

with long, cold winters and hot summers. During winters temperatures can drop below -10 °C and can exceed 20 °C during summers.NASA Earth Observations Data Set Index. NASA. Rainfall averages 1093 mm per year, with late summer/early fall being the wettest months and winter the driest.

Geology and soils

Stephen's Gulch is mostly underlain by the

Precambrian The Precambrian ( ; or pre-Cambrian, sometimes abbreviated pC, or Cryptozoic) is the earliest part of Earth's history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is so named because it preceded the Cambrian, the first period of t ...

-era

metamorphic Metamorphic rocks arise from the transformation of existing rock to new types of rock in a process called metamorphism. The original rock (protolith) is subjected to temperatures greater than and, often, elevated pressure of or more, causi ...

and

igneous rock Igneous rock ( ), or magmatic rock, is one of the three main rock types, the others being sedimentary and metamorphic. Igneous rocks are formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or lava. The magma can be derived from partial ...

of the

Canadian Shield The Canadian Shield ( ), also called the Laurentian Shield or the Laurentian Plateau, is a geologic shield, a large area of exposed Precambrian igneous and high-grade metamorphic rocks. It forms the North American Craton (or Laurentia), th ...

. Soils in the conservation area are mostly fine and high-quality, and average high levels of infiltration.

Flora and Fauna

There are a wide variety of animals that live in Stephen's Gulch, including 46 species of birds and 13 species of mammals. Animals that inhabit Stephen's Gulch include

White-tailed deer The white-tailed deer (''Odocoileus virginianus''), also known Common name, commonly as the whitetail and the Virginia deer, is a medium-sized species of deer native to North America, North, Central America, Central and South America. It is the ...

Red Foxes The red fox (''Vulpes vulpes'') is the largest of the true foxes and one of the most widely distributed members of the order Carnivora, being present across the entire Northern Hemisphere including most of North America, Europe and Asia, plu ...

Black-capped chickadee The black-capped chickadee (''Poecile atricapillus'') is a small, nonmigratory, North American passerine bird that lives in deciduous and mixed forests. It is a member of the Paridae family (biology), family, also known as tits. It has a distin ...

s, and

Pileated woodpecker The pileated woodpecker ( ; ''Dryocopus pileatus'') is a large, crow-sized woodpecker with a prominent red crest, white neck stripe, and a mostly black body. These woodpeckers are native to North America, where it is the largest confirmed extant ...

s. Old growth

balsam fir ''Abies balsamea'' or balsam fir is a North American fir, native to most of eastern and central Canada (Newfoundland west to central Alberta) and the northeastern United States (Minnesota east to Maine, and south in the Appalachian Mountains to ...

s, black pines, and white ash are common in the conservation area.

References

{{reflist Clarington Conservation areas in Ontario