A city crew came by yesterday and trimmed branches all along the bike path. They got a little slaphappy with our sumacs, maybe ...

Ah well, they'll survive.

A night heron contemplates the river, or life in general:

My woodpecker mojo continued today. As I was putting things away in the equipment box I had to stop and check out the commotion directly above me in the cottonwood tree. Tapping, rustling, bits of debris raining down ... all due to a pair of hairy woodpeckers having breakfast. (Video clip coming later.)

And what are the odds that I would find this feather today on Marnie's Point?! Clearly the woodpecker gods are pleased with me.

A video clip of the pileated woodpecker at work:




It's a girl! A birder at the forum mentioned that this is a female, so I researched the way to tell: the female's crest is black at the front, while the male's is completely red.

Another fine and busy day at Beechwood. I cut some more Japanese knotweed on Marnie's Point and hauled it to the dumping ground:

It can grow pretty tall, with a thick stem ...

... which is segmented and hollow, like bamboo:

It's nice and crunchy to cut, like celery.

The goldenrod is, well, crawling with black things, which I've learned are the larvae of a kind of leaf beetle, genus Trirhabda:

A cardinal joined me for a while. Everyone likes that big dead tree on the point:

The Eastern Cottonwood tree has started sending out its fluffy seed capsules:

The lovely birdsfoot trefoil has started to bloom, but not within my jurisdiction, so I don't have to feel guilty about admiring such a beautiful but non-native plant:

I've been posting recently at a local birdwatching forum. Someone there mentioned that he wasn't seeing any good birds in this area lately, and in particular he'd never seen a pileated woodpecker at Beechwood despite our interpretive sign showing one. Of course I sprang to Beechwood's defense, noting that I've seen downy and hairy woodpeckers there, and then I saw that flicker the other day. Yesterday I posted that the next step on the woodpecker spectrum is a pileated, and I'd be on the lookout. This morning -- well!

Now, technically this was at Pottery Road, not Beechwood, but close enough for jazz, I say. I was walking home when I heard a funny noise. I kept walking as I thought it over ... "Sounds like a person clapping his hands to summon his dog? Sounds like someone whacking a log? ... Y'know, if I were a pileated woodpecker that's exactly the sound I would make." I backtracked a few steps and soon located this lovely fellow (gal?) just off the path:

I watched it for quite a while until it flew off. Continuing on my way, I found this beside Pottery Road. I'm not sure what it is, but it sure seems happy:

It was a rainy morning, but the Don Valley Parkway was closed for a charity bike ride, and I hate to miss a chance to enjoy the Beechwood area without the constant noise from the highway.

There were a thousand tiny spiderlings on the side of the equipment box:

And more young'uns in the river:

(Aww. I count an even dozen goslings.)

I spent some time cutting Japanese knotweed on Marnie's Point:

Note the sophisticated invasive-plant-removal technology: gloves, pruners, and an old bedsheet. You can't cram all that stuff into a garbage bag, and it's very wet and anty to gather up in your arms. I don't want to just leave it on the ground to smother all the good plants I'm trying to make room for, so I haul it away in a sheet and dump it across the path in No-Man's Land. There's also some tansy in there, along with the odd wisp of thistle and even a tree of heaven (betrayed by its peanut butter scent).

Cutting the Japanese knotweed doesn't discourage it in the least, I'm afraid. I've been cutting that stuff for years now, and the city keeps coming in to treat it with napalm or something, and still it grows, and grows, and grows. I came across a sobering picture of some knotweed growing through the pavement in Boston. (That's a cool blog, actually -- check it out.)

A purple-flowering raspberry shows how it got its name:

Also getting ready to flower is the staghorn sumac:

Here's what happens if nobody pulls up the Dame's Rocket ...

... and the garlic mustard ...

Each of those prongs is packed with seeds to continue this plant's takeover attempts.

One of the cow parsnips is now exactly my height, 5'4", but I don't expect it's done growing yet.

A closeup look at the flowers:

I finally got around to identifying that interesting flying thing I saw a while back:





It's an Eight-Spotted Forester Moth, Alypia octomaculata. As a caterpillar it eats grape leaves and Virginia creeper, both of which we have handy around Beechwood.

We're getting some lovely spring weather now, if a bit cool, and everything's looking fresh and green. The goldenrod and other plants are stretching up taller; soon there might be whole herds of deer cavorting at Beechwood and I'd never see them.

The cow parsnip is coming along nicely:

This flicker, a type of woodpecker, perched atop a dead tree for a while. You can see (if you squint a bit) its black collar and the red patch at the back of its head:

I see we haven't licked that viburnum leaf beetle problem yet. This is what they do to the leaves of a maple leaf viburnum:

Some kind of aster ... ?

Got him! Here's an indigo bunting at Todmorden Mills, early in the morning. I think there were a couple of them, actually.




I'm not sure what this raccoon was digging out of the far riverbank -- snails, maybe? Grubs? Any other guesses? It would dig for a bit, then carry something quite small over to that log and eat it, then go back to digging a few inches further along the bank. I watched it do this repeatedly for several minutes. (Also not sure about the orange/grey blur on the left -- think I caught a robin flying by.)




One of the raccoon's partners in crime left some incriminating evidence beside the pond:




Here's a closer look at a wild geranium:




A purple-flowering raspberry gearing up to bloom:




Once again I managed to avoid being arrested, despite "harvesting" a lot of Japanese knotweed.

Usually when people see me "picking the pretty flowers" they nod, smile, or just ignore me. Today a man jogged by, then turned to say angrily, "They see you, they give you shit, stealing the flowers!" He jogged on without waiting for a reply. (I may have made one anyway, under my breath.) A few minutes later a police officer walked by with his police dog; this happens regularly, as the police dog training compound is just a bit farther along the bike path. As usual, I was not arrested, questioned, or paid any attention to, really. Even the dog hardly looks my way. If we come eye-t0-eye we say good morning, and that's about it for the terrible trouble I'm going to get into for "stealing the flowers." Whew.

Ah well, I was comforted by finding several milkweed plants growing among all the Dame's Rocket and other invasive stuff. Now they'll have a little more room to grow.



There was a muskrat in the pond this morning, but it didn't hang around while I figured out the correct setting for my camera. I also got some poor shots of the black-crowned night heron...



... and an interesting flying thing:

I can't seem to find the setting on my camera that identifies the thing I've just taken a picture of. Wouldn't that be a great feature?

There's some cow parsnip getting established at one corner of the site. It's big already, but just wait!

There's a large flower cluster all folded up in this little package:

I saw the indigo bunting again at Todmorden Mills. He's a noisy chap, and too busy to have his picture taken. Instead, here's a robin enjoying some sumac fruit:

It's a great season for birdwatching at Beechwood. This morning a black-crowned night heron flew in to join all the goldfinches, tree swallows and kingfishers at the pond:

There were several orioles around, but they wouldn't sit still long enough for me to get a picture. I decided to take a little video instead, so you get to hear them as well. My previous camera could take video clips but didn't have sound; I'm enjoying my recent upgrade!

No deer today, but I saw an indigo bunting at Todmorden Mills. I didn't get any good pictures of it, but I had better luck capturing another lovely blue thing, this blue flag blooming by the pond right now:

Continuing with the colour theme, we have a green leaf and a red ant:

A bit of natural sculpture I saw this morning:

(Last year's oak leaves and reed stalks, topped by another ant. Just try to take a picture of anything around here without an ant getting in on the action, sheesh.)