Friday litter group hard at it; cardinal sighting; evidence of coyotes; more snow scenes; TTC meets dog walkers?

29th February

Friday Litter Pickup Group photographed

On Friday 23rd February, the Friday litter pickup group welcomed Filip Vukcevic, our unofficial photographer, to record our efforts. Here I am in front of the cricket pitch with new member John Kneller and member Barbara Sternberg:

By some weird coincidence, John, Barbara and Filip are all involved in various aspects of film-making. Barbara is an independent film-maker:

Her web site is:

https://www.barbarasternberg.com

John teaches film at Sheridan College in Oakville:

Filip works as a photographer and video maker. He made nearly all the videos on our web site. He can be found at:

https://www.fvfmedia.com

I merely provide the grabbers for the group:

One thing we particularly dislike is finding doggy-poo bags like this:

If you go to the trouble of putting the poo in bags, why not then put the bags in the appropriate container?

We fill bags with litter and empty them out when we come to a garbage container:

Here we are again with the Heathdale houses up at the top of the ravine:

After the litter pickup, I met up with two Parks officials to discuss possible future invasives removals and replacement plantings, and guided nature walks led by them.

On the next day, Saturday 24th February, John took Barbara and me out for a hike on two sections of the Bruce Trail on the Niagara Peninsula. It was a great day out in below freezing temperatures but bright sunshine!

Cardinal sighting

While on the litter pickup, Filip got a good shot of a cardinal:

Evidence coyotes are around

Also on the same day, Filip took this shot right on the main path proving the coyotes are around:

I have also had several people tell me they have seen and/or heard the coyotes recently.

More winter scenes

On Tuesday 20th February, the sun was low in the sky on my usual patrol through the park. This shot is off the path parallel to Strathearn:

This is the same area:

This is the gully between the Strathearn path and the playing field:

There are several mature trees beside this gully.  They somehow survived the clearance of the ravine for the Spadina Expressway:

There were similar striking low sun effects off the path between the Glen Cedar and Bathurst St bridges:

Looking up from the path towards Heathdale:

The red osier dogwoods are already starting to show their red stems:

Red berries (I think highbush cranberry) show up well against the yellow willow trees in the cat-tail wetland:

TTC meets dog walkers

These TTC people seem to be having a conversation with a passing dog-walker:

Looking forward to meeting some of you as usual in the park!

John Cummings