….enjoying the day while I work on the back garden
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Article about the Long Branch Garden Tour
Chinquapin Hunting
Bruce Molsky…
Close but no Cigar
The Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio….
Hot Chicken
Dom Flemons…
Weekly nature walk – High Park
High Park is such a Toronto treasure! Our group enjoyed a wonderful nature walk today with naturalist Miles Hearn. There were a lot of birds around today – Miles listed 41 species on his nature walk report today: double-crested cormorant, mute swan, Canada goose, mallard, gadwall, wood duck, red-tailed hawk, ring-billed gull, rock pigeon, northern flicker, red-bellied woodpecker, downy woodpecker, great crested flycatcher, eastern pewee, eastern kingbird, blue jay, black-capped chickadee, white-breasted nuthatch, American robin, veery, blue-gray gnatcatcher, European starling, blue-headed vireo, red-eyed vireo, warbling vireo, tennessee warbler, nashville warbler, northern parula warbler, yellow warbler, yellow-rumped warbler, American redstart, house sparrow, red-winged blackbird, Baltimore oriole, common grackle, brown-headed cowbird, northern cardinal, house finch, American goldfinch, chipping sparrow, song sparrow.
I found it impossible to photograph some of the little warblers in particular today, with my point and shoot camera. By the time I’d locate the bird on the screen and zoom in as tight as possible, my target bird would fly off. My best bird picture was of a Northern flicker, which was happily shopping for a meal in the grass right near us.
Northern flicker
I also snapped a nice shot of a pair of wood ducks up at the top end of Grenadier Pond.
wood ducks
Here’s a few of the other birds we saw….
Baltimore oriole
Eastern kingbird
female cardinal
mallard
mute swan
There is a lot of poison ivy in High Park. This time of year the leaves have a reddish tint about them.
poison ivy in with bush honeysuckle
poison ivy
Speaking of nasty plants, we came across a huge patch of stinging nettle.
stinging nettle
This next shot is a nice comparison between black oak and white oak.
black oak vs white oak
Here’s a selection of other plants we talked about today. Some of these I was previously familiar with, but others we new to me in terms of identification.
common blue violet
cup plant
flowering quince
greater celandine
red bud
sassafras
serviceberry
wild geranium
Things go better with fish sauce
Yesterday I realized we were almost out of nuoc mam – that super-fantastic fish sauce concoction that makes just about everything better. I use it regularly, not just for making a tasty dipping sauce with some garlic and hot chilies and lime juice, but also in soup, in braises, and in all kinds of sauces.
Vietnamese fish sauce, like many fermented foods, is a source of a taste known as umami, that savory flavour which, combined with a great variety of foods, enhances their best qualities.
I trundled off to Grant’s market, a great Asian specialty store, to re-up. While there, I also bought some frozen squid, a package of Vietnamese fish balls, some fried tofu, and then headed to the produce section, where I saw a vegetable I hadn’t seen since we were in Vietnam – morning glory. I love this stuff!
I recognized it right away – long hollow stocks with long, narrow leaves. It was being marketed as ton choi, but Mr. Google quickly confirmed this veggie is known by several names, including tong choi, ong choi, water spinach, Chinese watercress, rau, or course morning glory.
The first time we ate morning glory was in Hoi An, in Vietnam. It was stir-fired with lots of garlic, and it must have been cooked with a wok on an open fire, as it had a kind of wood-smokiness about it. Later on our vacation we had a similar dish in Can Tho, in the Mekong Delta – it was very good too, but not as good as the dish we enjoyed in Hoi An, which was perfect.
Garden Tour maps now available
Maps/brochures for the June 23 FREE Long Branch by the Lake Garden Tour are now available in close to 60 locations in Long Branch. For a full list, visit the Garden Tour site.
Most participating businesses will have a purple poster in the window. Please show those businesses some love when you’re there picking up your map.
You can also pick up a map at the Twenty Seventh Street Book Box, which is located in front of 15 Twenty Seventh Street.
Nature walk – Scarborough Bluffs
Today’s nature walk with Miles Hearn took us to the Scarborough Bluffs, a treasure along the waterfront east of Toronto and a place I haven’t visited in many years.
turkey vultures, Scarborough Bluffs
It’s a lovely place to walk, with many birds and a rich variety of plant life. By this point, I’m learning that the key to successful birding is to learn the calls and songs of the birds. That way, you’re alerted to the presence of a particular species by what you hear, then you can start looking around to find the bird creating that particular song.
I’m pretty much a newbie to bird identification. Sure, I can recognize a good number of common birds, but after that, my knowledge drops right off. Early in the walk, Miles recognized the song of a brown thrasher. This bird has a varied repertoire of sounds, but it is distinctive in that it sings a phrase twice then moves on. After hearing one, we started to follow the sound and found it high up in a tree. I was able to snap a couple photos…
We heard and saw quite a few Baltimore orioles this morning. With my slow point & shoot camera I had a difficult time getting a good shot of one, but finally managed a shot which, if not great, is at least recognizable.
Baltimore oriole
We saw a couple different warblers. There were quite a few yellow warblers. They have a distinctive song, which Miles described as “cherry cherry, cherry cherry sweet.” This is one of two warblers which next in Ontario. The other (which we didn’t see today) is the pine warbler.
yellow warbler
And, there were yellow-rumped warblers, a bird which is just passing through.
yellow-rumped warbler
Perhaps the best sighting of the day was a bobolink. This bird is usually found in fields, but the one we saw was up in a tree.
bobolink
Here are a few other bird pics I snapped this morning. In total we identified about 25 species this morning.
The plant focus of our walk was also a great learning experience. Of course I recognized some of the plants, like this huge forsythia…
Another plant highlight for me was the marsh marigold…
The next shot of a fern-like plant is yarrow. 
And growing near it was this clump of sweet clover.
I’m learning it is common in the spring to come across plants with last year’s berries still attached. That’s the case with this high-bush cranberry.
high bush cranberry
Here’s a selection (by no means complete) of some of the plants we identified today.
I’m learning so much on these walks!
The Return of Cowboy Tom
Nobody expected to see Cowboy Tom and his old nag riding down from his mountain cabin for the cattle drive. “He’s just too damned old to wrangle,” that’s what they all said.
Tom fooled them all. “I reckon I got one more drive in me.” Tom cleaned up at the hotel, put back a shot of whiskey at the Bucket of Blood, and went to see the drover.
27th Street 