Community walk; birds seen this year

On Saturday 6th June, we held our first Community Walk in the park. This was also the first session of our Community of Practice. Valentina Gastaldo described this in an earlier post. There were 10 stops in the walk, with different speakers at 9 of them. Valentina had gone out in the morning and marked each stop with a poster showing the names of the speakers.

At the start at 2 pm on Heath St there were an astounding 57 people - the largest number we have ever had on a walk. Valentina introduced the event. She and I both wore our Friends of Cedarvale (FOC) t-shirts. I then gave the first talk, which was on the history of FOC:

I mentioned that FOC arose from then Councillor Joe Mihevc’s “vision” for the park in 2012. From the start we have run guided nature walks and continue to do so. We also remove invasive species, have in the past planted native species and plan in future to do so again. We keep the park clear of litter. A major change came when we joined Toronto Nature Stewards in around 2022. Getting official charity status from the CRA was another significant change, making fundraising much easier. Finally, as we could see from this walk, Valentina’s arrival has brought further developments.

At the second stop down the slope from Heath, Bob Kortright talked about the flora in the ravine. He was well qualified to cover this topic, as he and Rachel Gottesman (seen in the photo on his right) have led our nature walks for many years:

The third stop was at the bench commemorating Councillor Josh Matlow’s mother, Elaine Mitchel. Valentina talked about how significant this bench had been in her life. She was sitting on it when she met Bob, who recommended that she join FOC. By chance, she then found Rachel Matlow’s book about her mother. Here she is in the first two photos below:

The lower two photos above show Caitlin Jeffery, neighbour and artist, at the fourth stop, talking about some lesser known aspects of the ravine. What stuck with me was her mention of finding sitting places in the park in which to meditate.

The fifth stop was at the Bathurst St bridge. I talked about the history of the park. In particular, I told how the Spadina Expressway would have obliterated the park, had it not been stopped at the last minute by a determined group including Jane Jacobs, who persuaded premier Bill Davis to cancel it in 1971. Before that, the floor of the ravine had been cleared to make way for the expressway, so all vegetation that you see today has grown up since then. However, the slopes of the ravine were left alone, so you can still see mature native trees on them. Here I am addressing the multitude under the bridge (photo by Esther Matus):

Stop 6 was at the Glen Cedar footbridge (which would have been torn down, if the expressway had gone ahead). Lauren Grosberg, Coordinator, Outreach and Special Projects with the City, talked about how the City works behind the scene to care for parks like Cedarvale and why that partnership between the City and the community matters:

Stop 7 was opposite the dog park in the entrance to the TTC emergency exit. Valentina and I had managed to arrange to have two dog off-leash bylaw enforcement officials from the City speak to the “dog issue”. They were animal control officer Mackenzy Santos and bylaw enforcement officer Verome Heaven. In the 3 photos below, you can see Valentina addressing the crowd and one of the officers at right:

I was impressed by the way these two officials handled this rather contentious subject.

Stop 8 was in between the dog park and the Community Garden. The speaker was Sue Arndt, Program Director of Park People. She spoke about how community members can play an active role in caring for and activating local park spaces:

Stop 9 was at the Community Garden, where Rona MacDonald (in red hat) invited everyone in and described the structure and work of the garden. She is one of the 30 volunteers in the garden, who make decisions as a group. She answered a lot of questions. You can see Susan Aaron from the Nordheimer Ravine, at her left in the photo:

The 10th and final stop was the picnic. held along from the baseball diamond in the field behind the TTC entrance. We don’t seem to have photos of this. There were still some 40 people at this point. We tucked into the goodies provided by Valentina’s friends Ria, Melissa and others.

All in all, I think we can count this event as a big success! Thanks to Valentina for dreaming it up and organizing it so well!

My resident bird-watcher reported that Ebird lists 120 species of birds seen in Cedarvale Park so far this year. I find it amazing that it is such a large number. She selected some more notable ones, separating them into 4 groups. In the interests of space, I have shown photos of only a few of them.

Off course: Summer tanager

Not usually seen in Cedarvale: American bittern

belted kingfisher, eastern kingbird, pine siskin and solitary sandpiper.

Birds rare to see in Cedarvale: Black-billed cuckoo

eastern towhee

grey-cheeked thrush

indigo bunting

mourning warbler

and orange-crowned warbler

At-risk in Ontario: Blue-winged warbler, Canada warbler, chimney swift, common nighthawk, evening grosbeak, rusty blackbird, Louisiana waterthrush, olive-sided flycatcher and woodthrush.

My friend Phil Aber sent me 3 recent photos of flowers in the park, illustrating the great variety we have:

That’s it for now! The next session of our Community of Practice will be on either Monday 22nd or Tuesday 23rd June in either Wychwood or Oakwood Library. We will be in touch shortly with the exact date and place.

John