Big Otter Creek (alternately Otter River, Big Creek) is a waterway that empties into

Lake Erie Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has t ...

Port Burwell, Ontario Port Burwell is a community on the north shore of Lake Erie, in the Municipality of Bayham in Elgin County, Ontario, Canada. It is situated at the mouth of Big Otter Creek, which stretches more than forty miles north through Bayham to Tillsonb ...

. It is long, and the area of its drainage basin is . The creek's headwaters are north of the Horseshoe Moraine, and its mouth is just west of the Long Point Conservation Area. Scenic bluffs line the valley as it passes through the moraine.

Carolinian forest

Most of southern

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

was covered by

Carolinian forest The Carolinian forest refers to a life zone in eastern North America characterized primarily by the predominance of deciduous (broad-leaf) forest. The term "Carolinian", which is most commonly used in Canada, refers to the deciduous forests which ...

, characterized by large, slow-growing

hardwood Hardwood is wood from dicot trees. These are usually found in broad-leaved temperate and tropical forests. In temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostly evergreen. Hardwood (which comes from ...

trees, like

Oak An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ''L ...

and

Beech Beech (''Fagus'') is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to temperate Europe, Asia, and North America. Recent classifications recognize 10 to 13 species in two distinct subgenera, ''Engleriana'' and ''Fagus''. The ''Engle ...

. Very few stands of old growth Carolinian forest remain. Between

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

and Lynedoch, the creek passes through a long incisized valley that has stands of old growth that add up to in area.

Communities

The creek passes through the communities of

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...

, Otterville,

Tillsonburg Tillsonburg is a town in Oxford County, Ontario, Canada with a population of 18,615 located about 50 kilometres southeast of London, on Highway 3 at the junction of Highway 19. History Prior to European settlement, the present site of Tillso ...

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, and Port Burwell.

References

Rivers of Elgin County Landforms of Oxford County, Ontario Important Bird Areas of Ontario Tillsonburg Tributaries of Lake Erie Long Point Region Conservation Authority {{Ontario-river-stub

Carolinian forest

Communities

See also

References