The World Through Our Lens
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
Tommy Thompson Park on the Leslie Street Spit in Toronto, Ontario, is an amazing destination for anyone who is interested in observing birds, especially during spring migration, but a visit in July was also rewarding for Bob and me when we discovered scores of Double-Crested Cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus) with their young in the nests. Read more
Bob and I spend a lot of time at my childhood home at Oxtongue Lake, in Ontario, because my parents still occupy the same house all these 65 years later. That is where I had my first encounter with a Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis) when I was knee high to a grasshopper. Seldom since then have we seen any snakes on their property, but this beauty slithered across the beach property recently, and I was so pleased to become reacquainted. Read more
On a particularly hot July day, Bob and I decided to seek cooler temperatures along the lakefront here in Toronto, so we loaded our bikes and made for Tommy Thompson Park. There, along the bicycle trail, Bob spotted this dainty Hickory Hairstreak Butterfly. It was a Lifer for us. Read more
On a recent visit to Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario, Bob and I were surprised to spot a White-tailed Deer just inside the Park boundary. It was only recently that I had remarked on not having seen a deer in the Park for years whereas at one time, they were very commonplace. Read more
My dad had been trying for 15 years to woo a pair of Eastern Bluebirds to nest on his property at Oxtongue Lake in Ontario, Canada. Not since the year 2000 had he even seen Eastern Bluebirds in the area. You can imagine how excited he was when a pair showed up in May 2015 and demonstrated interest in one of his homemade nest boxes. Read more
Earlier this year, during spring migration, Bob and I set off to investigate Shell Park along Lakeshore Road West in Oakville, Ontario. Our short visit there was rewarded when we spotted an unusual hummingbird, a Leucistic Ruby-throated Hummingbird. Read more
On a recent day spent cycling along the Waterfront Trail from Scarborough to Ajax, Ontario, Bob and I drew up at a picnic table to have our lunch and rest in the shade. There was lots of bird activity in the thickets of sumac, deciduous trees and shrubs that dotted the wide open space of the trail-side park. When Bob spotted a red and black bird, it took us a few minutes to identify it as an Orchard Oriole (Icterus spurius), a Lifer for us. Read more
An Eastern Comma Butterfly was the icing on the cake for Bob’s and my bicycle tour around Tommy Thompson Park in Toronto, Ontario one Sunday. Eager to check out the construction of new cells along the eastern perimeter of the Leslie Street Spit, we had embarked on a day-long circuitous route around the man-made peninsula in the hopes of seeing some shorebirds in the dwindling amount of water in the huge holes. Read more