The Mighty Monarch Butterfly Mating

Every year, I recall the season when we are most likely to see a lot of butterflies. Generally it's end of Aug, very early Sept. For the Monarchs, it is the beginning of their migration time. If you ever get a chance to, it's very interesting to read about the life cycle of the Monarch Butterfly, it's just amazing and interesting! These seemingly delicate creatures, the 4th generation being the one that makes the trip to Mexico.

Doris McCarthy Trail, in Scarborough (now the City of Toronto), is one of our favourite places to go. It has the combination of varying terrain of a light forest and treed area as well as the lake shore, some inclines for exercise, it's not super long, it has ideal conditions for birds and butterflies, there are the bluffs, it's never super crowded with people like Bluffers Park yet has the same landmarks and aspects. It's definitely worth checking out, especially in Spring and late Summer. Spring, it attracts a lot of migratory birds, it has humming birds pretty much the whole season into Fall, and it has raptors and cliff swallows, as well as Cedar Waxwings. The wild flowers are always abundant, especially in the meadow like area at the west end when you reach the end of the terrain and hit the breaker wall of rock and an inlet of Lake Ontario. Lots of butterflies fuel up there and can be seen in the hundreds in late Aug. Lots of Swallow Tails and Monarchs. We even got the pleasure of seeing a Cedar Waxwing in a nest, in mid July.


Yesterday, as soon as we came off the trail down, at the lake shore area, we spotted pairs of coupled Monarchs floating through the sky and landing on trees and plants. We must have timed our trek right, to hit the mating for the 4th generation of the life cycle, the one that is then born and makes the journey to Mexico.

The landscape is so gorgeous and wild, so full of living creatures and beautiful plant life, but death too sometimes. A couple weeks ago, we ran into the pretty much disintegrated carcass of a white tailed deer. Patches of hair everywhere, ribs and bones scattered around. This trip down, there was little sign of it left, just a patch or 2 of its course hair and a couple small bones.

Happy Valley Again This Summer!

Since we loved it there last year, we decided to head up to Happy Valley again for a hiking and walking day. It's nice to go to a bit father nature area than the usual ones near our place in Scarborough/Toronto. Happy Valley is in the Township of King which is a bit north west of Wonderland, up the 400 and then west.

This is a hot summer, so far, but the temps were fine for hiking, especially since about 3/4 of it is in forested paths. The one really nice thing about the Happy Valley trails, with are part of the Oak Ridges Moraine area as well as the Grey Bruce trail system, is that there is a nice variety of forest and open meadow like areas as well as a bit of wet areas. The means that you have a variety of terrain, plants, birds, and creatures that you may see.

There were not many deer flies or mosquitoes, as there have been in the past at certain times of the year (like last year). However, as I soon discovered by walking face first into one, there were quite a few little orb weaver spiders suspended just at or above head level throughout the trails lol! I should have realized as early on, I spotted on really cool one that looked like a living CD, highlighted by the sunlight, suspended between trees.

Lots of mushrooms too! We don't tend to see as many of those in the forested areas near us in the GTA, not that many.

One other creature we don't see often here is toads, nor frogs, and there are quite a few different types of butterflies we only tend to see if we go a bit further north, or into different types of terrain and forested areas than in the GTA. There are quite a few fritillary butterflies and northern pearly eye butterflies up there too that we rarely see down here in our parks.

We did see quite a few yellow finches and a few different warblers. Wrens were everywhere to be heard, but we did not get lucky enough to see one. We also got to see a Mom and baby Wood Ducks in the marsh, as we headed back along the roadway at one point. Too bad they were so far away, but it was still such a cute sight to see! Lots of dragonflies were around too, mainly orange and green ones, but a few red ones, and those black and white winged kind.

Not sure if we ended up in an area that was private property, as there were tons of signs saying so but on every side, on swallow houses, along the path, very hard to figure out if we were or weren't and if we Were then how the hell did we end up in one lol! In any event, we ran across a little bee farm area. I've never seen one before and it was quite fascinating! A bit creepy too though.

This is an area that is really worth checking out. It is a lovely and unique area, part of it was bequeathed to the township by a couple, who wanted the area to be preserved and enjoyed for generations to come. So, treat the land, as all land, with respect, pick up after yourself and leave no sign that you were there :-)

Glad I Found The Bird Man of Toronto

A couple of weeks ago, during one of my lunch time walks near where I work, I discovered an amazing wood crafter carving on the street corner. I discovered later, his name is Ross Ward, and he is known as The Bird Man of Toronto.

He carves these wonderful little primitive style wood birds on perches.

Walking back down Yonge Street, to turn on to Edward, at the corner there by a lunch place, which I believe is Panera's (they are good by the way!) I walked by this man sitting on the sidewalk, holding something, seemingly carving, 2 little birds sat on the ledge of the store's window.

I'm fairly shy with initiating conversations with strangers so though I was curious, I continued on (plus I only had 10 mins left). Something made me stop, I wanted to look closer, so I stopped, turned and walked back. I thought, he cannot see me as he is facing the other way so I'll look a little closer and leave if I wasn't comfortable. I looked, and indeed, he was carving a little piece of wood. I saw that they were birds, I was right. I love birds! My husband and I are both fairly avid hikers and bird watchers, though not expert nor super serious in any way, more a love nature and exercise and photography way.

I crouched down to ask him if he is always here, and he said not always, though he used to be, in the past. He gave me some locations where I could find him often. I memorized as best I could, said I only had a few minutes left for lunch and I would look for him another day. Back at work I thought, hey, there Has to be something online from somebody about this guy, and sure enough I did find some stuff as well as images too, from other buyers.

I so wished I had had money on me so I could have bought one of his little birds to take home that day, but alas, I rarely carry cash (who does nowadays I guess). So, I thought, I'll take a chance and look next day. Well, happily, he was there again. He probably took a chance I may come back. Plus, it was his old haunt he had mentioned.

So, now I own 2 of his sweet little birds and I look at them all the time at home, while I work on my own creative pursuits, and I feel so honoured and happy that I had chosen to go that route on a walk that day which allowed me the opportunity to discover this wonderful and genuine artisan here in our amazing city, Toronto!

Loon at Milliken Park This Spring!

It's been a while since I've posted anything new. Life's been pretty busy. There's work, and my painting, and my photography and design stuff, as well as lots of family and friends things going on.

I'll jump to the weird but exciting highlight of this Spring so far, bird wise. Not your everyday sighting to say the least. I've only seen one a couple times as a kid, and always at dusk, almost in silhouette, once canoeing with my Dad at Bon Echo Provincial Park, and maybe once at my kids' Dad's parents cottage one year. I don't even recall if I've heard one before. But, there was actually a Loon in the pond waters at Milliken Park a couple weeks ago!

We'd heard about people seeing it and we figured, hey, let's just venture up there and see, and if we don't see it, well, we will walk around and enjoy the park anyway. I will be honest, I did not expect to just park, get out of the car, walk over to the wooden walk way that sits on the parking lot side of the oval body of water, and look out and there the Loon would be floating around in the centre. But, lo and behold, that is exactly how it went down. I'm like, "no way, that's gotta be a cormorant!" when I spotted a low laying black bird in the water. As we got closer though, you could see the white markings. It was indeed the Loon, and he was hunting for crayfish. He dove and brought up about 3 or 4, then he must have gotten full, because he stopped sitting so low in the water, and started cleaning himself. He then floated around, and at one point he lay his head on his back and was resting.

We watched him for about an hour, talked to another person there for a bit, walked around the entire oval pond on the path, then we headed back to our car and home. I kept looking back at him, further and further away, I was reluctant to leave him as I knew I'd never see him again, nor likely, a Loon again, for a very long time, if ever.

Later, after we looked at the images I took, which weren't great, but at least we got to see him, we read that someone else mentioned they thought he had a fishing line caught in his beak. But, there wasn't, and I saw better images of someone else's, and he had no fishing line present. He was behaving normal, eating, cleaning, sleeping, content, so I feel confident he was fine, no harmful fishing hook and line in him. I did see a small piece of weed hanging from his mouth in a couple shots, and I believe the person who thought they saw the line, also had taken shots the same time as I did, so that is most likely what they spotted.

By now, he has probably headed further north, now that the water surfaces are not frozen over anymore.