Naturalist Miles Hearn has generously featured our mosaics work in the “Friends of Miles” section of his excellent website. I’d appreciate it if you would take a moment and click on over for a look. Kindly show some love to Miles by clicking the “like” button at the bottom of the post.
While you’re over there, check out Miles’ full website. He has posted many articles and photo essays about birds and plants, including several on his travels to other areas. He has also posted an impressive catalog of nature walk reports, with great photography, going back several years. You can even find a series of bird identification quizzes. Miles continues to add content to this amazing resource on a regular basis.
I’ve been going on the nature walks Miles leads through the Toronto District School Board, since early spring. I can’t begin to tell you how much I’ve learned about birds and plants on these walks.
I was reflecting this evening on how much I’ve learned about the natural world around me here in the Toronto area, during 3 seasons of nature walks with Miles Hearn. We started in April with the spring session, did 4 July summer walks, then a full slate of fall walks. We visited three spots close to home – Sam Smith Park, just down the street, Marie Curtis Park, and Humber Bay. We explored the top and bottom of the Scarborough Bluffs, and visited our urban national Park, Rouge National Urban Park. We walked two connected parks, Wilket Creek and Sunnybrook, visited Crother’s Woods in the Don Valley, and Cedarvale Park uptown.
We’ve observed plants in early, mid and late season, and saw both migrating and resident birds. I’m happy to have helped out with some mushroom identification, with the assistance of my brother. Miles has given us so much information on everything from bird calls to buds, it’s hard to take it all in. I don’t remember everything, but now when I walk on my own I realize just how much I’ve learned.
Next week I’m going to go on my first nature walk with the Toronto Field Naturalists group. The have an extensive schedule of walks, all of which are included in the modest cost of membership. Then in January, Miles is doing 7 winter walks, which I’ve also signed up for.
I took a lot of pictures on these walks, and in spite of not being outfitted with fancy equipment, I snapped what I consider some pretty good pictures. I took advantage of a “Black Friday” sale and ordered a new camera, a significant upgrade from the one I’ve been using. It’s a mirrorless bridge camera with a 1″ sensor and a zoom equivalent to 400mm. Hopefully it will be in next week.
Here are some highlights of 3 seasons of walks in pictures.
We had a great time as guests at Bloor Street Entertains last evening, the fantastic CANFAR fundraiser in support of HIV/AIDS research. This event took place in various retail environments on Bloor St. here in Toronto, converted for the evening for a dinner event. We were at Holt Renfrew.
Today’s nature walk with Miles Hearn took place close to home at Marie Curtis Park. This is our final walk of 2018 in this series of nature walks. More walks will take place beginning in mid-January. Meanwhile I plan to do other walks on my own and possibly also with Toronto Field Naturalists, a group I recently joined.
Lake Ontario
It was very cold when I arrived at the park but the temperature rose during the walk and it became quite comfortable. I was ready for the cold though, with long-johns, thermal socks and a mackinaw under my warm jacket.
Marie Curtis Park contains hidden treasures. When you enter the park and cross Etobicoke Creek, the amount of forest trails is not obvious. Beyond the forest, there is access to large meadow with an old water tower and some ponds.
We started along the creek, which is home to a variety of ducks and many gulls at the mouth.
Bufflehead
Goldeneye
Ring-billed Gull
Gulls overlooking the lake
The highlight of today’s walk was a fairly close sighting of a Red-tailed hawk.
Red-tailed hawk
Isn’t that a spectacular bird? There were also some chickadees around, and cardinals and we heard, then saw a Hairy woodpecker.
Adjacent to Marie Curtis Park are the Arsenal lands. This is a 15.7 acre property. The water tower is part of the original complex, which included a WWII small arms factory and rifle range. When you hike in there, you come across some strange wooden structures.
Baffles
I’ve learned these are sound baffles which were erected to mitigate the noise from the old rifle range. There are some lovely ponds in there.
In one of the ponds we spotted a muskrat.
If you walk along the bike path which runs through the Arsenal Lands, you can see a great deal of invasive Japanese knotweed on both sides.
Mile-a-minute on both sides of the path
This plant is an annual and grows very fast. No wonder it is also known as Mile-a-minute. If you look closely at Japanese knotweed this time of year, you can see little dart-shaped items, which are the fruit of the plant.
Japanese knotweed or Mile-a-minute fruit
The colour highlight of today’s walk was a High-bush cranberry along the bike path.
Highbush cranberry
More fantastic red can be found on the Sweet briar rosehips.
Sweet briar
This is a great time of year to look at buds. Here is the Missouri willow.
Missouri Willow
And here are some Silver maple buds.
Silver maple buds
We have several varieties of oak in Ontario. Each have distinctive leaves. Here is a typical Swamp white oak leaf, still on the tree at the end of November.
Teasel is a plant we see on most of the nature walks throughout the season. It looks lovely with a bit of snow.
Teasel
Another plant we see all season is poison ivy. Right now though, the tell-tale three leaf configuration is absent. You can still identify this plant by the berries. Beware – the leaves may be gone but this plant can still cause nasty reactions. Look but don’t touch.
Poison ivy berries
The most unique tree in the woods at Marie Curtis and the Arsenal Lands is the Shagbark hickory. In summer it is difficult to get close to this tree because it is surrounded by thorny blackberries. This time of year betting around through that brush is much easier.
It’s so great to see Ruby running around, playing and enjoying a great life. Last spring she tore both her hind cruciate ligaments and went through 2 surgeries. At one point before the first surgery, she could barely walk at all. These days she can handle longer walks again, loves to swim and enjoys goofing about with other dogs.
27th Street 