Christmas Day Walk at the Guildwood

Had a nice Christmas eve and morning with my kids. Later in the day, went for a little walk/hike through the Guildwood Inn Park. It was surprisingly mild day, that began as a sunny one, but did get overcast later on, closer to 2 or 3pm.

We have not been to the Guildwood Park since about 2013, in winter. It's lovely and sort of moody. Old Toronto architecture pieces have been brought there, standing now as monuments to what remains of the historic Toronto.

There were quite a few birds there, mostly gathered just in from the beginning of the path where people had left a lot of seed.

We saw a Spotted Towhee, a White Crowned Sparrow, Chickadees, Blue Jays, lots of Dark Eyed Juncos, lots of Downy Woodpeckers, Yellow Finches, and 2 gliding Red Tailed Hawks.

We called it Double Day because in several instances, we spotted twosomes of things :-)

Right in Our Back Yard

Ok, well, I guess not Literally, since we don't own a house, but live in a condo. Though, this is very close, basically right across the street :-)

Often, we walk a ways, to the Birkdale Ravine, or we drive a short distance to one of the parks or trails down on the shores of Lake Ontario off Kingston Rd. in Scarborough, or we head into the city for Tommy Thompson, or even out to our old haunts in Durham Region (which are sorely missed by us).

However, there is this lovely little forest area right near Scarborough Town Ctre, on Borough Dr. and it is basically on the street that runs just south of our condo building. It's a 5 minute walk. We decided to do this little walk, something we have not done since last Spring, and see what there was to enjoy.

This time of year the Trilliums are coming up, and lots of other little forest floor flowers. They were starting, and there were a lot of Trout Lilies already. The fallen tree pieces seem to lay in a beautiful elegant way in this forest, among the plentiful piles of leaf debris and pine cones, and with the flowers nestled all around these, it makes for quite a scrumptious sight. There also was some beautiful lower evening light on lots of dried leaves and new buds and such, always a visual joy :-)

We did come up with some really cool little bird and critter sightings! Right in this little urban forest. Lots of White Throated Sparrows, 3 Hermit Thrush, and lots of Robins, as well as your usual House Sparrows. We spotted many of these city sparrows on the way there, eating the new blossom buds and dandelion flowers.

A critter, we think a ground hog, was collecting dried clumps of leaves for its den, which we did find the entrance hole to.

Pikachu even waved to us from out his window high above, welcoming us back lol!

All in all, really, we did not need to go to far to enjoy a fun and beneficial walk.

our little urban forest

Woohoo a Chipmunk - First Sign of Spring 2013!

Last weekend, we went out for a walk in one of our favoured areas. There was still quite a lot of signs that winter was still here, namely the stark and frozen marsh and cold, monochromatic landscape.

In the midst though, with the mild temperatures, there were signs of Spring - always exciting to see! One was some buds on a bush/tree, the 2nd were male blackbirds, both themselves and their loud unmistakeable chatter. The 3rd, and unexpected, was the sudden appearance of a chipmunk near the path. Just as I commented that in a couple weeks or so, as we did last year, we'll soon see the chippies out again. Not 2 seconds had passed after my comment when there ran a chippie out of the brush, stopping to check out the snow still left on the ground. We tossed it a peanut but it paid no mind of it, and ran back into the brush. So cool to see what I always think of as a sure sign or Spring!

Lots of other cool things to see too, both alive and inanimate. We also came upon Mergansers, the closest I've ever managed to view them, as we drove over the marsh on our way home. Boy did they take off fast though!