Today’s nature walk with Miles Hearn was at Humber Bay, a treasure in our bustling city.

There were lots of birds around this morning in a light drizzle – we saw and identified 31 species, including a rufous-sided towhee (isn’t that a great name?) and a golden-crowned kinglet (whose crown looked more reddish than golden). Photography – even my highly ameteurish point-and-shoot photography – was somewhat challenging in the rain, but I got a few pretty good shots.

Nannyberry AKA Sweet Viburnum

female cardinal

grackle

I had never heard of hedge parsley before. There was quite a bit of it growing around the various shrubs at Humber Bay.

hedge parsley

motherwort

We found some sea buckthorn. This plant has edible berries in season.

Sea buckthorn

I’m not very good at identifying the various ducks, but the long-tailed duck is distinctive.

Long-tailed duck

Sandbar willow

There are enough tree swallow houses at Humber Bay to support quite a good colony and we saw many of them flying about.

I’m learning so much on these walks. It’s a great way to spend a couple hours focusing on nature.