May 30, 2010
comments 2

Birds of Toronto

At the bird festival yesterday, we picked up a copy of Birds of Toronto – A guide to their remarkable world. This is a City of Toronto publication and the first in a Biodiversity Series. This is an excellent publication and if you live in the area and have an interest in bird-life, I recommend getting a copy. The cover features a picture of a flock of Whimbrel’s taken in Sam Smith Park, just down the street from Anchovy World Headquarters (for those not in the know, this blog is written in an anchovy cave called Anchovy World Headquarters, hidden deep beneath an ordinary looking residence on 27th Street in the Longbranch area of Toronto).

There is some material in the book about threats to birds , including an hierarchy of threats table. According to this the biggest threat to birds is collision – collision with buildings, vehicles, communication towers, power lines, wind turbine – they crash into stuff a lot. The second biggest threat is recreational hunting, followed by house cats, indirect pesticide poisoning, nuisance bird control, electrocution and scientific research. The book also publishes a list of the top 25 victims of building collisions in Toronto. I sure hope we don’t have a department of bird collisions. I won’t go through the whole list here, because I’m not sure what it tells us. The biggest victim, just because you’re dying to know, is the white-throated sparrow.

For the new birder or for those with a casual interest, Birds of Toronto offers a dozen suggestions for good places to go to spot migrant and native birds, along with a map. It also features an excellent chronology of the Toronto birding year as well as a handy checklist of the birds of the Greater Toronto Area. There are even sections on bird-friendly gardens and a program called “Lights out Toronto” (about the dangers of buildings and lighting to migratory birds).

Overall, this is an excellent publication for Torontonians and for visitors to the city as well.

May 29, 2010
comments 6

Bird is the word

We walked over to Sam Smith Park this morning to take part in a bird walk. Although most of the migratory birds have passed, the leader of the walk was able to identify quite a few species. I may not have recorded all of them, but here is my list:

Whimbrels
Red-necked Grebes
Mute Swans
Canada Geese
Mallards
Gadwall
Ring-necked Gull
Mourning Dove
Hairy Woodpecker
Tree Swallows
Barn Swallows
Blue Jays
American Robins
Gray Catbirds (heard several times but not seen)
Warbling Vireo
Yellow Warbler
Northern Cardinal
Song Sparrow
Red-winged Blackbirds
Common Grackles
Baltimore Orioles (males and females)
American Goldfinch

Goats Beard

We had a very good time, we learned about birds and we learned more about the park. Our guide was a fellow named Bob who was very knowledgeable. I would barely catch a glimpse of a bird as he casually identified it. I’d like to do more bird walks this year and increase my knowledge more. I can identify all kinds of mayflies, loads of fish, plenty of mushrooms, and I’m getting better at trees, but I confess my bird knowledge is not great -yet.

What's this?

I wonder what the strange yellow item is in the photo above. Does anyone know? It’s in the rotted out trunk of a large maple that remarkably is still standing.

male Baltimore Oriole

I bet the folks who were hauling around two-foot long camera lenses got some excellent shots of this male Baltimore Oriole. It’s the yellow-orange splotch in the middle of the photo above. The female was also flying around the same tree.

Mute Swans and Mallards

Mute swans are nesting around this pond. There are plenty of them in the lake as well. The ducks there are mostly mallards, but one Gadwall was spotted as well.

Tree Swallow

There are loads of Tree Swallows in the park, including this one, perched into one of the houses recently installed just for them. There are also plenty of barn swallows, which are nesting under the viewing platform at the pond.

May 28, 2010
comment 0

Magic, etc…

The other day we gave a container of oyster mushrooms to a friend, and miraculously, when the container came back it was full of home-made rhubarb crisp. Magic. I like magic a lot.

While I was out at dog park tonight, a few dog-owners had a discussion about how we might improve our dog park. It doesn’t seem to be a priority for the city, or for our current councillor. Yet, it has started to improve. Someone made us a gate. A welcome sign appeared. Someone else appropriated some junk to make a bench.  Who knows what may happen next? We sure could use a better gate and repairs to the fence by the road. Since it is located at a filtration plant, I wonder if it is possible to get water in there one day?

Some of us have spent some time in Mississauga dog parks, which have an active volunteer organization. Maybe we need something like that…a loose-knit association of Longbranch dog owners. Like in Mississauga, we could easily raise some money for improvements if everyone who joined kicked in a small donation. Perhaps candidates for Council would want to work with an association of dog owners? What do you think? Am I on to something here or am I barking up the wrong tree?

May 28, 2010
comments 2

Search term of the day…

People stumble into this blog while searching for all kinds of things (after all, why come here on purpose?). The search term of the day is: grooming tricks to make them fluffy newf. Memphis doesn’t really get fluffy. Ellie Mae does get fluffy after grooming but I don’t think there are really tricks involved. The whole procedure looks like a basic wash, blow dry (with a cool blow drier) and brush job.

A reoccurring search term I see every week or so is Nuclear Art. I mentioned Nuclear Art once in a post about the late Italian painter, Enrico Baj, and a number of manifestos he was involved with. The movement was obscure enough that when you Google Nuclear Art Movement, the first entry to come up is from my old blog. The Tate site has a small entry online. When I searched the Italian term Arte Nucleare, I came up with all kinds of sites – in Italian. A link to images from that search provides a number of pictures, especially of Baj’s work.  For those interested you can see the Nuclear Art manifesto, as previously published on this blog. I love the confidence: They intend to reinvent painting and they are capable of doing so. And, let’s not forget my favourite line: The Nuclear artist lives in a situation that dull-eyed men cannot even begin to perceive.

Filed under: Art
May 26, 2010
comment 1

New Interpretive Signs in Sam Smith Park

I just read about this over at Friends of Sam Smith Park. I have to say that I’m not a fan of this. To quote from the Friends of Sam Smith Park blog,  “Anything that draws visitors’ attention to wildlife and habitat in the park helps to cement in peoples’ minds the fact that Sam Smith is a nature park and awakens a strong interest in preserving it as such.”  Sorry but I’m just not buying in. At some point it will cease to be a nature park and become a classroom.  Just let the park be. Manage the habitat and resist the impulse to tell people what to think about the park or what they ought to know about the park. If park users want to study birds, great. If they want to just go for a peaceful walk, that’s good too.

Art museums sometimes do a similar thing, putting up cards explaining this or that about the curatorial stance or about the artist or whatever. I don’t like it in that setting either. Let me think for myself, thank you very much. If I need to research something, I can do it very quickly with the help of my friend Mr. Google. I don’t need interpretive signs in the park.

May 26, 2010
comment 0

Foraging

The shot above shows oyster mushrooms on a dead tree in the woods. As you can see, they’re pretty high up. I found a long sapling on the forest floor and used it to knock some of them down. I only found three trees with fresh oysters today, but you get quite a bounty from each tree…if you can reach the treasure.

Morel season is supposed to be over around these parts, but this one obviously didn’t get the memo.

Nature was generous to me today as you can see. I gave some away, cooked some up and I have a full dehydrator drying lots for later.

I gave some oysters to Finny’s Friend, who cooked them up right away…

Here’s his recipe for this tasty soup:

3 x 750 ml home made turkey broth
1 red pepper julienned
1 750 ml box fresh Oyster mushrooms julienned
1 large egg beaten in water and dropped in boiling soup
90 ml cornstarch, 15 ml soya sauce, 75 ml vinegar to make a paste
125 grams soba Japanese noodles crumbled in 1/5 lengths
30 ml sambal oleak chili paste with garlic
5 ml hot chili oil
I pkg commercial vegetarian frozen won tons
to be added tomorrow
4 baby bok choi chopped
1 whole block of extra firm tofu diced.
makes 5 or 6 liters