Westmount’s Summit Woods
is a bird sanctuary

The City must act to protect the park’s flora and fauna

By Emma Despland

June 13, 2024

Summit Woods, the City of Westmount’s urban forest covering one of Mount Royal’s three peaks, is at its best at this time of year: spring ephemerals are in full bloom, carpeting the ground with brilliant flowers, and migratory birds are stopping over and filling the air with song.

Summit Woods is one of the top birding hotspots in the greater Montreal area. On the citizen science site eBird, where birders record their sightings, 171 species have been observed.

For as long as I can remember, Summit Woods has been known as “the bird sanctuary.” A little digging on the internet shows that it was donated to McGill in 1895 by an owner who described it as “a splendid region on the summit of Westmount for an observatory.” The site was then sold to the City of Westmount in 1940 with the stipulation that it be used “as a park and playground in perpetuity.” As far as I can tell, it has been forested this whole time. It is home to heritage trees older than any recorded management interventions. A report in 1987 describes the Woods as “a truly priceless example of what an urban forest should be. There are trees of all ages present. (…) There are several examples of forest ecosystems present. Variations in topography result in variations in trees, shrubs and herbaceous vegetation (…)”

A pileated woodpecker in Summit Woods, a bird species known to prefer mature forests containing large trees and standing dead wood.

Summit Woods is one of the top birding hotspots in the greater Montreal area. On the citizen science site eBird, where birders record their sightings, 171 species have been observed. This beats the three other birding sites listed in Westmount by far: King George Park has 28 species, Westmount Park has 29 species, and Dawson College Campus, with students working hard at logging bird observations, has 36 species.

Summit Woods is also likely the only place in Westmount where Trilliums, Trout Lilies, Solomon Seals and other native woodland plants grow. According to iNaturalist, another app that allows people to record observations of nature, Summit Woods is the only place in Westmount where these native woodland plants have been spotted, except the Dawson College Campus where native plants are grown in the Ecological Peace Garden and the Indigenous Garden. These plants require undisturbed leaf litter and only grow in mature, undisturbed forests.

The iNaturalist app also shows that observant visitors have recorded threatened plants (White Trillium, American Bladdernut) and even endangered mushrooms (Perfumed Bolete, and Black Staining Polypore) in Summit Woods. These are simply observations logged by curious visitors, not a formal scientific study or environmental assessment. They are, therefore, incomplete glimpses, and snippets of information, but they paint a vivid picture of Summit Woods as a very special place, an old forest. A forest like this takes many decades to develop before these species begin to grow under the shade of mature trees. Summit Woods therefore really is unique in the city as a reserve for biodiversity.

‘Requiring visitors to remain on trails and to leash dogs are standard policies for nature parks everywhere, as it is clear that these simple measures minimize disturbance to understory plants and forest birds…’

Summit Woods is, unfortunately, suffering degradation. Already, the 1987 report warned: “As more and more people use the Summit, problems developed in that the existing trails increase in width and smaller secondary trails begin to appear.” Trampling by people and dogs, as well as animal waste (including urine!), contribute to the gradual retreat of the more sensitive native understory plants and to the continuous advance of more city-tolerant plants, including many invasive species. Ecological restoration, including the removal of invasive plants and the planting of native ones, is possible but it’s expensive, very labor-intensive and takes decades. It’s always cheaper and more effective and gives faster results to protect existing natural ecosystems than to restore damaged ones.

Photo taken on May 21, 2024 at Summit Woods showing how invasive chervil is crowding out native woodland trillium

Maintaining an equilibrium between nature conservation and access for human visitors is a delicate balance difficult to attain for any nature park. Requiring visitors to remain on trails and to leash dogs are standard policies for nature parks everywhere, as it is clear that these simple measures minimize disturbance to understory plants and forest birds that do not tolerate human presence as readily as the robins and cardinals seen across the city.

At the COP15 summit in 2022, Canada committed to protecting 30% of its territory, making sure to include all different ecosystems. In Québec, the Saint Lawrence Valley ecosystems are the ones most degraded by human activity; it is a region where there is very little natural old forest left. Recognizing its unique position in this region of high conservation concern, the Communauté Métropolitaine de Montréal (CMM, the association of the Greater Montreal Area) also committed to protecting 30% of its territory despite the obvious challenges linked to its high human population density. The City of Montreal has committed to protecting 10% of its area by 2030 (in 6 years!); it currently recognizes 8% of its territory as protected areas. I haven’t been able to find any numbers for Westmount, either for currently protected areas or for commitments. This should be embarrassing for the City. Westmount is not only not a leader in mitigating the biodiversity and climate crises but is seriously lagging behind.

‘If Westmount is to participate at all in Greater Montreal’s goals of protecting natural ecosystems, Summit Woods is the only valuable natural space it has to offer.’

The consulting company Habitat, in collaboration with WWF, has produced a map of the greater Montreal area to visualize natural areas in the region and prioritize their protection according to several ecological indices, including bird biodiversity, carbon storage, and flood protection. The only two sites in Westmount on the map are Summit Woods and a part of the tiny Père Louis Trempe nature reserve behind St Joseph’s oratory. Summit Woods is approximately 23 ha or 5.7 % of Westmount’s total area of 4 km². If Westmount is to participate at all in Greater Montreal’s goals of protecting natural ecosystems, Summit Woods is the only valuable natural space it has to offer.

Feature image: John Fretz
Other images: courtesy of Emma Despland

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Emma Despland is a professor in the Department of Biology at Concordia University, Principal of the Science College and a Fellow of the Loyola Sustainability Research Centre. She is also the mother of three children. Her professional expertise includes insect nutrition and behaviour, insect outbreaks and forest ecology. She supports the role of scientists in informing policy in the face of the current climate and biodiversity crises and promotes nature education and nature connectedness.