Dear Readers, on Saturday we took a walk with some friends in Tommy Thompson Park, better known to local residents as the Leslie Street Spit. Tommy Thompson was Toronto’s first Commissioner of Parks, best known for his sign ‘Please Walk On The Grass’ and his work to make nature more intrinsic to the life of the people of the city. Tommy Thompson Park is completely built on landfill from Toronto’s past and ongoing building projects, and everything that grows there has come of its own accord.

Some of the building debris that is used to form the park

Fortunately, animals and plants don’t care what something is built on, so long as it provides them with what they need. At this time of year, the whole place echoes to the calls of red-winged blackbirds, and over 300 species of bird have been recorded.

Red-winged Blackbird

Merganser ( I think) heading away at speed

Happy Mallards taking a rest

But we were here to see something a little more unusual, at least for a UK visitor – beavers! We’d gone looking for them last year at the Evergreen Brick Works (in the pouring rain I might add) but had missed them. This year, we were luckier.

There were at least three beavers on this pond and, unlike the Eurasian beavers that I’ve been lucky enough to see in Scotland, these creatures were relatively relaxed and just went about their business.

You shouldn’t underestimate the splash that they make when they dive, though…

And gradually the sun was going down, and the red-winged blackbirds seemed to have a particular tree that they liked….

These birds are not thrushes, like UK blackbirds, but are technically Icterids, a family of birds that are only found in North and Central America. They sound nothing like thrushes, and for me, their calls really are the sound of Canada in the spring. This was recorded in Ontario by Manuel Oudard.

It was lovely being at Tommy Thompson Park, but also bittersweet – it reminded me of going to Collingwood to visit our two beloved aunties, Rosemary and Linda, who both died in 2022. But it also reminded me of how much they loved nature, and how important Canada’s wildlife was to them (Linda was treasurer for her local Nature Conservancy for many years). Wild places so close to cities are rare and precious. It’s good to see this one so well protected.

And as the sun goes down, I wonder what opportunities the fading light will bring.

The sun beginning to fade over Toronto

Dear Readers, the first time I came to Toronto, back in 2000, I was enchanted by the Canada geese flying across the atrium of the Eaton Centre. There are sixty birds in all, descending from the third level as if to land somewhere around the new food court on the lower level.

The installation is by Canadian artist Michael Stone, and has been in situ since 1979. All the geese are made of styrofoam and fibre glass, and are covered in a ‘costume’ made from photographs taken of a single goose. It is a stunning centrepiece to what could otherwise be a pleasant but generic mall.

Photo By Simon Law – Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3510488

Michael Snow was an interesting artist, who worked in experimental film, music, photography and sculpture, but Flight Stop is probably his most visible public work. In 1981 the management of the Eaton Centre decided to decorate each of the sixty geese with a red ribbon around their necks. Snow took them to court for defacing his work, and won: the Ontario High Court of Justice held that the sculpture’s integrity was “distorted, mutilated or otherwise modified” which was “to the prejudice of the honour or reputation of the author”. Take that, Eaton Centre!

Ribbon being removed from an Eaton Centre goose (Photo fromhttps://www.thestar.com/life/dec-3-1982-red-ribbons-removed-from-eaton-centre-geese-after-uproar/article_a9be3bfa-eba2-5290-8402-40ca4f3ec458.html)

All sixty of the geese were away for renovation last year, which was quite the task – there was forty-odd years of grime to clean off, plus some of the geese had lost feet and various other appendages. They were crated up in groups of four and sent off to the Toronto Restoration Centre, where each one was given a name and lovingly restored. You can read all about it here.

Goose being repaired at the Toronto Restoration Centre – photo fromhttps://www.blogto.com/arts/2023/05/toronto-eaton-centre-geese/

And so this year the geese are back, and looking more splendid than ever. Michael Snow passed away at the age of 94 last year, after a lifetime of artistic endeavour. One of his other works is ‘The Audience’, perched on the side of the Rogers Stadium, home to the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team.  Each character is meant to represent a particular kind of fan – the heckler, the burger-eater, the father and son. They seem to exemplify Snow’s playful side, though I must admit that they don’t give me an urge to go and watch a game live.

‘The Audience’ by Michael Snow

The Queen Mother Cafe

Dear Readers, this week has been something of an education in the different eating experiences that are possible here in Toronto. First up was an old favourite, the Queen Mother Café at 208 Queen Street West. it’s always full, bustling, and serves comfort food with a distinctly Thai/Laotian twist, for reasons that we’ll see below. The place opened in 1978, in just one of the three buildings that it now occupies, but had soon taken over numbers 206, 208 and 210.

The Queen Mother Café’s name is a play on the idea of ‘the Mother of Queen Street West’, but if you look behind the bar there is a collection of photos of the Queen Mother. And indeed the place has hosted not only multiple generations of diners, but some of the original founders are still involved in the restaurant. It has a feeling of confidence, of somewhere that has been doing what it does for years, and that in turn brings a sense of comfort and ‘being at home’.

In 1980, members of a Laotian/Thai family joined the kitchen staff and introduced such dishes as Pad Thai (pretty much unknown in Toronto in the 1980s), which are on the menu to this day. Chef Noy, the current chef, is a member of that original family. However, there’s also pasta and burgers, and a daily menu of cakes, so there’s something for everybody.

The building that houses the Queen Mother Café dates back to 1850, and it’s been everything from a wagon repair shop to a bonnet makers, to a variety of bakeries and restaurants. In the entry hall there’s a display of artefacts that have been discovered during the repeated renovations and restorations of the building.

Display Cabinet (Photo fromhttps://www.queenmothercafe.ca/building-history/

Last night, though, we decided to explore somewhere different. Carisma is an Italian restaurant close to the Financial District, and it’s every bit as glitzy as the Queen Mother Café is comforting. However, it was still very welcoming – we’d asked for ‘a quiet table’ (a very big ask in this town, believe me), and so we were given a semi-circular table at the back of the restaurant with a great view of all the bankers and sales people in full flight as they tried to impress their clients. The food was great (the creme brulee in particular), and the banquettes were teal-coloured, and the chandeliers looked like they’d been made from mother-of-pearl. It was loud, but at least there wasn’t thumping background music as well.

We were a bit surprised when a couple walked in with a samoyed dog – I wasn’t aware that Toronto had become ‘dog friendly’ to that extent. I was even more surprised when the woman in the couple sat at the table with the huge white fluffy dog in her arms like a giant baby. Maybe they were celebrities, or locals? I have no problem with well-behaved dogs in a restaurant, but  I hadn’t realised how far the trend had gone. Still, the dog was a lot quieter than some of the bankers, so in theory we need more dogs I think.

Carisma restaurant (Photo from https://www.carismarestaurant.com/)

So, that’s two restaurants in Toronto that couldn’t be more different. Let’s see where else we get to over the next few days.

Canada goose (Branta canadensis) Photo By Fabian Roudra Baroi – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=135763237

Dear Readers, yesterday we sprang up at stupid o’clock and flew from Toronto to Montreal to see one of my husband’s aunties. G is in her nineties and living in a rather nice nursing home, where she is one of the only residents on her floor who doesn’t have dementia. Not much is written about how people cope when it’s so difficult to have a meaningful conversation with anyone other than the harried staff, who are always rushing off to take someone to the toilet or pick up someone who’s about to fall over.  Fortunately she is still a reader, and a watcher of documentaries, and she was fascinated with the recent eclipse, although she turned down the chance to go up to the roof and get battered about by the high winds. Very sensible too. G is very stoical, but I wish that she had a bit more human contact. So many of her friends are now dead, or have health challenges of their own.

We flew into Montreal, but we always get the train back – it’s a long trip, but if you go business class you get a rather nice meal, wine and even some Baileys, so it more or less pays for itself. But how come I’d never noticed this very fine mural at the station? They’re a bas relief that reflects Canadian life in the 1920s and 1930s, although they were actually created by artist Charles Fraser Comfort in 1943. Comfort also designed the murals at the Toronto Stock Exchange, so I must have a quick look at them if they’re still around.

The words on the mural (which include excerpts from the National Anthem ‘O Canada’) are in English on one side, and French on the other.

Photo by Sandra Cohen-Rose and Charles Rose https://www.flickr.com/photos/73416633@N00/

I loved these hyperactive giant plaster people, though that golf player looks as if he might take your head off, and I am finding some of the activities a little puzzling. Still, they cheered me up no end. And there’s something about a long train journey that lifts my spirits in a way that hopping onto an aeroplane never does. It’s the slight anxiety before you board, the digging out of books and the Kindle, the sight of that huge, noisy engine.

The Montreal/Toronto locomotive!!

Off we go. Looking out of the window I see huge flocks of Canada geese foraging amongst the stubble. How different they look here, in their native country! It’s hard to think of these belligerent birds as shy and retiring, but away from the parks and cities they’re nervous souls, as well they might be, with one subspecies (the Giant Canada Goose) having been hunted almost to extinction during the last century. In the UK, of course, they’re everywhere, having been first introduced in the late 17th century as part of King James II’s waterfowl collection in St James’s Park in London. I sometimes wonder why, of all the attractive goose species in the world this one was chosen, but then it is a striking (though not colourful) bird. It’s also the first animal I was ever bitten by, having offered one a biscuit as a toddler, only to be nipped and then knocked over in a flurry of wings. I forgive them even so.

Canada geese in flight (Photo By Ken Billington – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12306315)

And then there was this lot, again pecking over the stubble and looking very wary. This isn’t my photo, but you get the general idea. Again they were wary birds, looking around and scuttling away when the train blew its whistle, which it does almost continuously from Dorval to Brockville. There are a lot of level crossings with no barriers, and believe me you wouldn’t want to get into the path of one of these trains.

Eastern Wild Turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) Photo by Tim Ross (Public Domain)

There were also a few turkey vultures riding the late afternoon thermals. What impressive birds they are! Jet black with a wrinkly red head, turkey vultures find most of their carrion by smell, and have been used as an indicator for pipeline gas leaks.

Turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) Photo byBy Charles J. Sharp – Own work, from Sharp Photography, sharpphotography.co.uk, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47807279

And then the light diminished and on we went. I’ve been reading a frankly horrifying book called ‘Cloistered’ by Catherine Coldstream, which documents her time as a Carmelite Nun in the north east of England. Put a group of people together, deprive them of outside oversight and watch as a petty dictatorship grows to the point where the whole organisation falls apart. Interesting and heartfelt, if a bit unfocused at times.

And then we’re heading on the last leg towards Toronto. Somebody’s adorable baby girl started to wail, and no amount of pacing up and down the carriage seemed to help. The seats seemed to get increasingly uncomfortable. And when finally we got to Toronto Union Station, we all pile off and go our separate ways. It’s funny how sometimes strangers ‘gel’ on a train trip and get talking, and how other times everyone just stays in their own world, and it’s fine either way. But I’m tired, and ready to go home after my marathon day. I’m just glad to have had a chance to do a bit of train-bird watching.

One of these days, this will be Eglinton West LRT station….

Dear Readers, I’ve walked along the Beltline before, but Sunday was such a spectacularly beautiful day that we decided to do a section that we haven’t done for a while. First up, we walked past what will eventually be Eglinton Crosstown Light Rail station. It’s been a bit of a disaster, this project, running well over budget and over time, and currently with no actual date for completion. The station is here, but sits behind chicken wire, just waiting for something exciting to happen. Let’s hope it’s finished soon – the project runs west to east, with 25 stations, and would go some small way to taking some of the pressure off of the roads and the existing subway system.

Anyhow, for now we’re on foot, and marching through some very fine houses, including this one with some modern sculpture outside.

And honestly, I must have arrived for peak American Robin season this year, I have never seen so many, and if they’re not fighting they have beaks full of worms, so clearly breeding and nesting season is in full swing.

And just look at the squill! So pretty.

Anybody know what this is? I’m guessing wasps nest, but happy to be corrected.

And how pretty is this alder?

I rather like the friendly road signs of Toronto. Look at this little guy…

And then we’re onto the Beltline. It used to be a railway track, but now it’s a multi-use path, with cyclists and runners and walkers, and generally it seems to work, unlike spaces like the Parkland walk in Haringey, where it’s narrower and so there’s less space for people to get past one another .

Here’s yet another squirrel – they’re gathering nesting material so, although the trees are not as far into their spring finery as the trees in the UK, there’s definitely some sap rising,.

And I love the new leaves on this weeping willow.

There are markers for where the various stations on the original railway line would have been.

And some rather fine street art commemorating the people who worked on the original rail line.

Some of the houses that back onto the Beltline are very modest, and some are extremely grand.

Some grand houses

And then we’re out, and on our way for a spot of lunch, but I turn back to have a look at the new leaves colouring the tops of the trees in yellow and gold. 

And here’s a quick recommendation if you’re in the Eglinton area – a bit of lemon and blueberry cake at the Crosstown Coffee Shop on Highbourne Road is well worth a stop.

Solar Eclipse Glasses at the Ready…

Dear Readers, today was the day for the solar eclipse in North America, to be seen by millions of people from Mexico to Canada. Everyone had been watching the weather forecast with trepidation, as the perfectly clear, sunny weather over the weekend was replaced by cloudier conditions here in Toronto. Niagara Falls had declared a state of emergency because they were expecting so many people, but in Toronto, people were, well, copacetic.

We are really here to visit my husband’s 95 year-old Mum, who has dementia and is pretty much bedridden these days, but we were determined to take some time out to see the eclipse. We headed over to Rachel’s Coffeehouse on Yonge Street for a quick bite beforehand. At about 2.20, one of the waitresses popped out with her eclipse glasses, and then popped back in.

“You can see it!” she said.

And so we paid, and there was a break in the clouds, and we looked at the sun, which looked as if it had had a big bite taken out of it. And just as well we did, because after that the clouds rolled in, and that was the last we saw of the sun until now. As I write, the skies are clear and blue again. Shucks.

Still, just because the sun was hidden doesn’t mean that there wasn’t anything to see. We took ourselves over to Mount Pleasant Cemetery and sat on the steps of the Massey Mausoleum (he of tractor fame). I was much amused by the squirrels, who are clearly fed over here, and give everyone the once over to see if they have any peanuts in their pockets.

A blond squirrel

A chestnut-coloured squirrel

I took a few shots to give you all an idea of how the sky darkened over the next hour – in Toronto the moon covered over 99 per cent of the sun at totality, so it wasn’t pitch black, but it did become eerily colder and darker.

About 2.45 p.m.

About 3 p.m.

About 3.10 p.m

3.19 p.m. (totality)

What amazed me was that the birds started to alarm call in the trees.

And some of them were singing, almost as if they couldn’t decide whether it was time for the last song of the evening or the dawn chorus.

And then the light came back up, and things went back to some sort of normal. A young woman who was expecting it to go completely dark was somewhat underwhelmed, but then I do sometimes think that many people have lost their capacity for wonder. For 4 minutes, the moon and the sun were poised so perfectly against one another that the light that powers everything on earth was blocked out, and I for one was delighted to have been here in Toronto to see it.

And on the way home through the cemetery, we spotted this horse head-shaped tree trunk. I’m seeing faces everywhere at the moment – I know that pareidolia is the word for seeing human faces in inanimate objects, but I’m not sure if there’s an equivalent for heads and faces in general.

Plus it appears that people have been racing cycles through the cemetery. Um, no, people.

And finally, how about this squirrel in a tree? This one is black, as you can see – Toronto has a high number of grey squirrels (yes, the same ones that I have at home) but these are coloured black, and very fine they look too.

And if you’re wondering when the next solar eclipse will be visible in the UK, there’s one on 12th August 2026 which will be 90 percent total, so not quite as impressive as this one, but still worth a look (through your eclipse glasses of course!)

Air Canada Boeing 777 (Photo Vismay Bhadra, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons)

Dear Readers, well, here I am on the other side of the Atlantic, having made the trip from Heathrow to Canada in 6 hours and arriving into Lester Pearson Airport a whole hour early. Holy Moly! Usually it’s the return leg from Toronto to London that gets the tailwind, so this was very satisfactory, even though we did have to wait half an hour for a gate which takes the shine off a tiny bit.

I have to tell you about the Captain, though. When his voice came through the cabin, I had one thought:

‘Barry White is piloting this plane’.

For those of you not familiar with Barry White, he had one of the deepest voices in popular music. He was also a large chap, and was nicknamed ‘The Walrus of Love’ (rather unkindly I thought).

Barry White (Photo by Fotograaf Onbekend / Anefo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons)

And you get the general idea about his voice here.

Anyhow, the captain then proceeded to tell us the flight path, and named every one of his Fantastic, Wonderful team, from Toby the co-pilot via Cheyenne in charge of the in-flight service and about twenty other people, which was extremely sweet, especially when delivered in a voice that had more than a touch of maple syrup and smoke about it.

I was slightly disappointed that he didn’t do the usual and name all of the different languages spoken by the crew, because Air Canada staff usually have at least ten between them, and I’m sure this crew were no different.

And they had apple and maple syrup pancakes for breakfast!

And we were sitting in a row with just two seats, instead of the usual three – this is great because normally I end up in the middle as John has to have an aisle seat for various reasons.

And finally we whizzed through customs (if you’re travelling to Canada any time soon, it’s worth noting that you can do all the customs form stuff in advance, and then you can just whisk through the express lane. I do love an express lane.

And now here we are at our usual hotel (Cambridge Suites) where we’ve stayed every year for the past 21 years, and the sun is shining. But as I’ve been up since 4 a.m. this morning I’m going to spare you any more random impressions for now. You’ll be reading this on Tuesday, by which time I will have experienced my first ever solar eclipse, so watch this space!

Dear Readers, when I posted about spring poems a while back, sllgatsby shared this one in the comments. It’s not your normal spring poem, but it has some lines that seem so appropriate for the times that we live in that I wanted to share it more widely. See what you think.

Citizen of Dark Times

by Kim Stafford

Agenda in a time of fear: Be not afraid.

When things go wrong, do right.
Set out by the half-light of the seeker.
For the well-lit problem begins to heal.

Learn tropism toward the difficult.

We have not arrived to explain, but to sing.
Young idealism ripens into an ethical life.
Prune back regret to let faith grow.

When you hit rock bottom, dig farther down.

Grief is the seed of singing, shame the seed of song.
Keep seeing what you are not saying.
Plunder your reticence.

Songbird guards a twig, its only weapon a song.

—from Wild Honey, Tough Salt

Well, no, but what we do have is a high-ish wind, and the Juneberry/Shadbush opposite is positively raining white petals. It always feels like such a waste when the blossom is blown off, but I wonder if, like leaf fall in the autumn, the petals detach more easily once the flower has been pollinated and/or is already fading? Either way, as I gaze out of the office window it looks as if there’s been a light fall of snow.

We used to have two of these trees very close to where I live, but one of them blew over at about this time last year.

Here it is in fine fettle…

And here it is leaning at a most peculiar angle last year…

And here it is after the inevitable high winds did their work…

The poor thing seemed to have some kind of fungal infection right where the trunk met the pavement, and it had snapped clean off. Since then, the tree pit has been tarmacked over so I suppose we won’t be getting a new tree, at least for a while.

The tree opposite is also leaning at a dodgy angle  – if it’s something to do with the way that the species roots, or if it’s just inadequate planting in what must be a fairly shallow site? And it seems to be getting worse. Here’s a photo from 2019…

And admittedly camera angles can be deceptive, but here’s a photo from today…Hmm, I’m not sure if it’s getting worse or not, what do you think, Readers?

At any rate, the white flowers will soon be replaced by very pale bronze new leaves, which turn green as they mature. The autumn colour is quite something too, so these trees really do punch above their weight as trees for small gardens or as street trees. Let’s hope that the one opposite manages to stay vertical for as long as possible.

Willow Tit (Poecile montanus) Photo By © Francis C. Franklin / CC-BY-SA-3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30949154

Dear Readers, a few weeks ago I wrote about the remarkable comeback of the Cirl Bunting, and how the targeted research on this bird and its habits had enabled farmers in the West Country to change some of their farming methods in order to support its recovery. Alas, for the Willow Tit nobody seems to know exactly why it has declined by a shocking 94 percent during the last century, though there are plenty of theories.

This bird is described thus by Laurence Rose in ‘Into The Red‘,

“It’s a bull-necked, plain-clothed, rough-voiced hewer of wood: a no-bullshit plain-speaking rough-diamond worker. Keeps itself to itself. Doesn’t prance about for all to see (unlike some). Gets on with stuff, checking for rot, hacking out test holes, that kind of thing”.

And for sure, this bird hasn’t got the bright colours of the Blue Tit, the in-your-faceness of the Great Tit. It hid in plain sight until 1897, when ornithologists realised that it was a different species from the still-endangered but slightly commoner Marsh Tit. Partly, this was due to where it lives: it seems to have a love for wet woodland, and indeed some of its last strongholds were old colliery spoil slacks and areas of disused, damp, scrubby woodland, full of abandoned cars and fly-tipped dustbin bags. It just goes to show that animals just need the right conditions in order to do well, without any concern for our sense of what a beautiful landscape should look like. In this case, it’s all about damp, rotting wood that provides a nesting hole (which the bird hollows out itself). One theory is that these areas of wet woodland are being drained, or are drying out. Add into this an increase in the number of Blue Tits, who will take over the nest holes given half a chance, and the fact that woodpeckers predate on nestling tits of all species, and you can see how these factors could  contribute to the decline of the species.

However, in my British Birds magazine this month, a study of the complete extinction of Willow Tits in the Dearne Valley in Yorkshire pretty much discounts all these factors as a root cause. The area has not gotten any drier, and there has been no increased in either Blue and Great tit numbers or Great Spotted Woodpecker numbers. Furthermore, a very similar site nearby has at least twenty pairs of Willow Tits. Sometimes it’s a scramble to try to save a species from local extinction, and although a great deal of work has been done on this particular site, the bird seems to have gone from 70 territories in 2015 to none in 2023.

Incidentally, if any of my North American friends think the bird looks rather like a chickadee, that’s because it’s in the same genus, and so very closely related.

Photo By © Francis C. Franklin / CC-BY-SA-3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31622934

Here’s the song of the Willow Tit, recorded in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland by Dave Pullan. What a sweet, sad sound it is.

And here’s something beautiful. The Back From the Brink project is trying to raise awareness of a number of endangered species through art and poetry. Local artist Linden Katherine MacMahon worked with the Astrea Academy in the Dearne Valley (where the recent study found that the bird had died out) to create a pamphlet of poetry, featuring both the Willow Tit and the Ancient Trees project. You can read what MacMahon has to say about the project here, and can have a look at the poetry here. There are some wonderful pieces of poetry and prose. Such imagination! And that’s  the skill that we’ll need, in the end, if we are to preserve species like this  – to imagine ourselves into the feathered body of a bird and see what straightforward science has missed.

Juvenile Willow Tit (Photo Wald1siedel, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)