The World Through Our Lens
Tommy Thompson Park in Toronto is recognized worldwide as a significant habitat for breeding waterbirds, and during the summer months, when fewer songbirds make the Leslie Street Spit their home, birdwatchers will still be rewarded with glimpses into the lives of the colonial species, one of which includes the Black-crowned Night Heron. Read more
The addition of some vibrant red Canna Lilies in my backyard garden this year has had just the result I’d hoped for. Every day, for several weeks in August and early September, I had a Ruby-throated Hummingbird visit my flowers on its trek south. Read more
How would you like to come face to face with this fierce-looking caterpillar if you were about knee high to a grasshopper? It was about 4 inches long (10 cm), around 1/2 inch in diameter (1 cm), and surprisingly quick at navigating through the tangle of grass. This is the larva of a Modest Sphinx Moth (Pachysphinx modesta) that we saw in the community of Oxtongue Lake, Ontario, near the end of August. Read more
I relocated some Coneflowers in my Toronto garden last fall, and was blessed with the gift of a few more from a friend, and the plants seem to be flourishing in their new location. Bob and I have monitored them closely since they are said to attract butterflies, and late one afternoon, we spotted this beauty, a Black Swallowtail Butterfly tasting the nectar from one particularly tall specimen. Read more