Rocky Exercises
City of Toronto preparations for the G20 meeting of 2010 brought us some strange scenes. Here, the William Lyon Mackenzie (the city’s fireboat) practices dingy drills in the still-frigid water just off of the Ward’s Beach breakwall.
Arch
One of the first turtles to emerge in 2010, this little fellow basks on a log off of Doughnut Island, the background showing a still-total lack of green in the environment.
Backlight Moon
Reflected light from the rising full moon frames a beaver in silhouette on Ward’s Beach.
Sing Your Heart Out
A blackbird, back on the Island for another season, sings its heart out in the Ward’s wet meadow.
Missing Link
Walking upright out of the water, a Toronto Island beaver carries mud and vegetation in its arms to build a scent mound, territorial markers to let other beavers know that this area is verboten.
Spring Colours
Some of the earliest colours of Spring, a mallard duck swims in the low sunlight of snug harbour.
Mirror Mirror
A beaver swims in an opening in the lagoon ice, still partially frozen in early March.
Humpback of Notre Island
A mink scampers along the lagoon’s edge at the south side of the Manitou Bridge.
Early for the Party
An early arrival in March of 2009: one of the first Great Blues to finish its long migration north.
Moonrise Swans
Illuminated by the light of the rising full moon, mute swans sleep on black ice halfway across the outer harbour to the Leslie St. Spit.
Waking Nap
Mature pintails nap in the light of early morning reflected by the Queen’s Quay terminal building.
Willow Sunrise
At winter solstice, the sun rises directly between the main limbs of the Great Willow in the Ward’s soccer field.
Dive! Dive!
A pintail dives beneath the surface, fishing against the hardened seawall on the city-side.
Happy New Year!
Early January, and a postcard for climate change: a garter snake sunning itself on the boardwalk on an unseasonably warm day.
Shaken, Not Stirred
Like an olive in a martini, a beaver floats in a hole kept open in the ice off of the RCYC’s south island in the winter of 2009.
Diving Mallards (video)
Our local mallards have learned a new behaviour: how to dive. Normally a dabbling duck, the extent of their underwater activities usually stops at mooning passersby and picking up what they can reach under the water’s surface. Some local mallards, however, have picked up the ability to completely submerge themselves, just like cormorants. Captured here […]
Jimmy on the Beach II
Very furtive and shy in the wild, the elusive Jimmy Jones is one of the hardest creatures on the Island to photograph.
Minklight
A late-season mink roams the shoreline of Centre Island. When they’re wet, they look positively vicious. When they’re dry, they look remarkably cute.
Wile E I and II
A late twilight, and unfortunately distant, encounter with a resident Toronto Island coyote who wasn’t very happy with the human interloper on its turf. These are thoroughly tagged as b-roll shots, it was far too late in the evening for any sort of useable light. Still, it isn’t every day that you kayak past a […]
Late for the Party
An adolescent black-crowned night heron clings to an IYC tree in November, 2009. By this time of year all of the herons are gone, migrating south to sunnier climes. Perfectly able to fly, its a mystery why this fellow hung on so late in the season.
Egret ABCs
Great egrets do the most fantastic then when they catch and swallow a fish — all of their feathers stand on end. In this progression, an egret catches a fish (left), swallows (centre), and totally punks out (right).
Ancient Waiting
Taking a page from the old “Is it live, or is it Memorex?” ads, a large painted turtle leans into the sunset light of a gorgeous August evening.