Weekday Walk at Bluffers Park in Scarborough

I had taken off a day for my 50th birthday which I celebrated this year. Nothing big, just my kids and Dad and my husband at Tara Inn on Kingston Rd., a really great Irish pub we like. It happens too to be not to far from Rosetta McLean Gardens, and the Bluffs, places we like to frequent here and there, for nature walks and bird spotting.

We hit the Bluffs a couple days after my birthday, on a weekday, and found it quite a sighting filled visit, Mostly copulating birds lol! Spring has spring it would seem :-)

We did run across one sad sighting, a completely dried out open carcass of what I am sure was a mink, on one of the wood and fence gangplanks around the water treatment areas. I did shoot a photo of it, out of curiosity, which I won't post here of course, due to its hideous nature. Not sure what happened to the poor critter, possibly a bird of prey, but not entirely sure.

Well, the Kingfishers were quite active and rowdy, not to mention frisky (more than one time) though the pigeons on the beach were a lot closer for a better photo unfortunately lol!

The Red Tailed hawk was right above our heads, as was one of the pair of ravens. A pair of Mallard ducks swam along the edge of the main centre pond area, where there also were quite a few turtles, and we learned something about your basic mallard duck. They will catch and eat fish if the opportunity arises. The female duck suddenly had a small fish in her bill, and after a bit of a struggle, she did swallow it. I had no clue ducks like that eat fish! The male duck showed no interest in stealing it from her, maybe due to her possibly being a future Mom?

As we walked through the little paths around the water control area, I spotted a single dried leaf spinning wildly on a branch, making a cool whistling sound, then stopping as the wind dropped. I'm not a huge taker of videos but this entranced me, so I shot a little vid, very short, of it, which I have here above.

It was a really pretty day :-)

Lots of Spring Critters at Birkdale Ravine

Gorgeous day, slight nip in the air but still and warmth touching our shoulders given by the bright sunlight. Just a perfect early Spring day for a walk.

The animals and birds must have had the same inclination because we were treated to quite a few exciting sightings today at the ravine near where we live.

First, the bird that prompted our disagreement later at home, until I was convinced lol! - a Winter Wren (not a House Wren as I felt it has to be).

We spotted a mink running along the bank on the opposite side from where we stood, watching the wren, in its reddish coat. So cute!

Not a great photographic opportunity, but we enjoyed the pleasure of spotting a Cooper's Hawk eating something, in a tree, before 2 squirrels barrelling down a tree right next to it scared it off. It did return to continue eating a bit later,

Lots of Robins out, Cardinals, and Song Sparrows were singing.

A real treat, and not something we've seen as close as we did, an Eastern Phoebe. We normally don't walk on the right side of the Community Centre when we exit the park, but we did this time, and were then lucky to be greeted by the cute bird, sitting on the fence near the town houses, then she popped closer to us in a small tree, affording me the opportunity for a pretty close capture!

The ravine is only a 10 minute walk from us, and is a beautiful area, often offering up quite a few generous sightings of migratory birds, local birds, and wild life. It's a very enjoyable walk.

Tommy Thompson Winter Birding

Seeing such a beautiful weekend was coming along, we decided to make a trip to Tommy Thompson Park at the base of Leslie Street, to see what ducks and such we could spot. As well, it's always good to get a nice long 3+ hour hike in.

We didn't get to see much real close, but my little favourites were there, frolicking in the water, the Long Tailed Ducks. I love their sound. Not often do we spot the Cardinals out in the open, as they tend to be fairly chicken everywhere we go, where we see them. But, they were feasting on the dried red clusters on the wriggly Sumac trees. We saw a pair of Ravens fly by, they are such amazing, majestic birds, and with their dinosaur sounds.

There were 2 sort of new, and rare to us, sightings. We saw a Herring gull, a juvi, hunting fish, as well as the Great Black Backed Gull flying overhead near the west bridge area.

The light was pretty gorgeous, a weird sort of almost hazy atmospheric frosty look to it, which made for some beautiful landscape captures. I put on my light shield on the front of my lens, I never do that, but I thought that maybe I'll see what it does to cut some of the over brightness and too dark shadow issue.

One thing we noticed, which at first, though we logically knew it could not be, was this continuous tinkling almost peeping frog sound, which we thought may be the hundreds of ducks that were clustered, we heard it all the way along the edge of the water on the north side. It got louder as we neared the largest grouping of red headed ducks. When suddenly, we realized it was the broken pieces of ice, clinking together as the waves pushed against them. I grabbed a little video and although the wind sort of wrecks it a bit, the tinkling is audible.

Visit to Allan Gardens in Toronto

For a while now, I have wanted to get back down to Allan Gardens. The last time I was there was probably while at first year OCA, in the Stewart building, which is no longer owned by the college anymore. We went there during a class, to draw. I never forgot that there were cacti there - I love cacti!

I swore I recalled spotting lizards at the time I was there, but it probably was my wishful imagination, since I Love lizards and obviously don't get to see them much. But, on our trip there this past weekend, we didn't see any. We did spot a little brown mouse running around though.

The gardens were decorated throughout for the Christmas season. It was a real dull and overcast, damp day so the light inside was not ideal for photo taking, but still, of course I would not leave without taking any. I had to put my ISO up over 800 at times so there is some grain/noise but ah well, it does not wreck what for me is the feel of the image. I prefer low light and non flash, natural/available light but my camera and lens do not live up 100% to taking shots in that type of very low light - maybe one day but I doubt it, the camera I have will do. Definitely, it is far more capable than the old film camera I had, in living up to the light conditions I am attracted to and like to capture, thanks to image stabilization and other improvements with consumer SLRs. I was a fan of grainy images anyway, so I can live with some noise. And as far as ever using any for reference images for painting, grain never mattered as long as values and most details are still accurate.

We had a great time at Allan Gardens! Walking up the path in the park that leads to the front entrance, it was even sort of neat to see a small group of eclectic people, different ages, one in a motorized walker, talking and laughing; the young man holding a bottle of some sort of liquor, and the elderly man greeting the woman in the walker as Rosie happily, as she came upon the others. Something about them seemed sort of endearing - they struck us as very happy and positive.

After walking past this group, we went inside the Palm building and spent a couple hours walking around the different buildings. Afterwards, we got a small bite to eat along College street at a sort of divey little pub that had a nice atmosphere none the less.

I want to go back and visit the gardens in the spring/summer. There are often different theme and seasonal displays and events there - something I never really realized.

Link to Allan Gardens website

Photos from our visit:

Edwards Gardens - Long Time No See

Having lived in North York, Ontario as a kid, we were taken to Edwards Gardens and Wilket Creek Park often. I also took horse back riding lessons for a couple years, at age 7 or 8, at Sunnybrook Farms. Seeing the place almost 40 years later was really quite a weird feeling. Memories were good and bad but nostalgic none the less.

We walked into Edwards Gardens, through to Wilket Creek, then on to the farms. I originally had recalled the drive to the farm on the road that leads past all the picnicers as longer than we discovered it was. On this walk, to reach Wilket Creek, we discovered 2 red tailed hawks. Quite a sight to behold, one eating on a hill top as the other flew off somewhere. I got shots of the one who stayed but since it was so far, they are not fantastic shots.

There were an abundance of dragon and damsel flies, wasps and bees, and of course, gorgeous flowers. Going on a weekday however, would probably be a better choice, and earlier in the season as the flowers were quite in need of water as a result of this very hot and dry summer we've had so far. Quite a wonderful hike through the parks though, despite all that :-)