Black-crowned Night Heron
Boreal Chickadee
Goldfinch
We’re thrilled to see 3 of our oversized bird mosaics have nested in a beautiful Etobicoke garden. You can see lots more of our mosaic work at the Long Branch Mosaics site.
A benefactor dropped off a heaping helping of good books for the Twenty Seventh Street Book Box today and there are plenty of new titles to choose from + we have lots of back-ups to keep the box stuffed with good reading.
The Twenty Seventh Street Book Box
The box is located at 15 Twenty Seventh Street, in front of our home. While you’re here, be sure to pick up a map/brochure for the upcoming Long Branch by the Lake Garden Tour – 37 fabulous gardens, 2 free seminars + a great hands-on planting activity for the kids. It’s not to be missed.
Here’s the David Bromberg Quintet
Gardening in our back yard always seems like an epic battle against entropy. Let your guard down for a few days and chaos takes over. Every now and then I do something back there to score a few points for the forces of order. Today I built a platform back there, out by the new imagination station, and I made a bench from an old board and some landscaping stones. For good measure, I attached an old shutter to the structure.
This time I was on my own.
female red-winged blackbird
mourning dove
Dryad’s Saddle
yellow morel
yellow morel
Dinner
Today’s nature walk with naturalist Miles Hearn was at the Rouge National Urban Park. This place is one of the treasures of the Greater Toronto Area. I don’t have bird pictures today, not because there weren’t birds, but because these forest birds were mostly beyond the reach of my handy little point & shoot camera. Miles identified 26 bird species today: mallard, turkey vulture, American kestrel, pileated woodpecker, great crested flycatcher, least flycatcher, eastern pewee, tree swallow, rough-winged swallow, American crow, black-capped chickadee, house wren, American robin, red-eyed vireo, tennessee warbler, yellow warbler, bay-breasted warbler, common yellowthroat, eastern meadowlark, red-winged blackbird, Baltimore Oriole, brown-headed cowbird, northern cardinal, American goldfinch, indigo bunting, song sparrow.
For many of the bird calls or songs, Miles offers up a human approximation. For instance, the common yellowthroat says “wichita wichita wichita. The red-eyed vireo calls every 2 seconds. If it happens every 3 seconds, it must be the Philidelphia vireo. The bay-breasted warbler says see-see see-see. The wood thrush on the other hand says oooeeee oooeee bddddddddddddd. I’m learning so much on these walks!
Little Rouge Creek
Here’s a selection of some of the plants identified today (each is captioned):
I was hoping we would come across some morels but the only mushroom of note was a Dryad’s Saddle.
Dryad’s Saddle
This mushroom, which smells kind of like watermelon, is edible when it is young and tender.
One of the most striking plants we came across was jack-in-the-pulpit.
Jack-in-the-Pulpit
However, I’d say the yellow ladyslippers were the highlight of the walk.
Yellow Ladyslipper
I’m trying to learn at least a little bit about many of the plants we identify but there are so many. My strategy is to take pictures and write down the names of the plants in my little Moleskin, then later I match up the names with the photos and look up some of the more interesting ones. Here’s more:
There are 3 trails accessible from the parking area. We took the Vista Trail, which goes through forest, then comes out in a large field, with a viewing platform. If you visit this area, and I encourage you to do so, be careful of the generous quantities of poison ivy, often just to the side of the trail.
Next week, we’ll be close to home at Colonel Sam Smith Park. We’re coming to the end of the bird migration season but we should still be able to see quite a few interesting specimens in the park.
We have a family of grackles in one of our spruce trees and this afternoon was all about food for the kids.
I’ve been working on a new Imagination Station back in the little woodland area of our garden.
….in the back garden
Trilliums
27th Street 