The World Through Our Lens
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
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
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
On a rainy, cool day in mid-June, Bob and I found ourselves at Oxtongue Lake ahead of schedule, so we decided to take a spin into Algonquin Provincial Park on the off chance that we might spot a bull Moose. No bull presented itself at roadside, but this darling baby moose with its mother was on the crest of a knoll enjoying a respite from the hordes of blackflies deeper in the forest. Read more
After a spate of hot, humid weather, Bob and I seized the first day of below-seasonal temperatures to go cycling in Toronto. While cruising along the Lake Ontario shoreline at the bottom of Rouge National Urban Park, we spotted a Mink loping along the rocky shore with a floppy fish dangling from its mouth. Read more
On one of our spring birdwatching excursions, Bob and I dropped by Colonel Samuel Smith Park in Etobicoke. The favorable habitat of this urban park attracts many species of migrating warblers, and it often rewards us with sightings of shorebirds. On this particular day, it was a nesting pair of Red-necked Grebes (Podiceps grisegena) that stole our hearts. Read more