Edward O'Connor – Writer, editor, part-time birder
The term “thin place” has become popular to refer to a location where two worlds, two planes of existence, seem to converge. Heaven and earth, time and eternity, the sacred and the profane—in a thin place you feel the barrier that separates these different worlds has worn away or thinned out. Suddenly, your awareness shifts, … Read more
I’ve been observing birds around Toronto for about fifteen years now (I started late), and over that time I’ve often had cause to wonder about owls. Mainly, I wonder what lies at the root of their effortless ability to fascinate me. I know of no other group of birds so capable of transfixing … Read more
Thirteen years ago, the Canadian poet Don Coles published a remarkable essay with the title “Light Fantastic” in the Three for Thought series that used to run at the back of the Globe and Mail’s Books section. At the time, I was so impressed that I cut the essay out of the paper and filed … Read more
The first thing I learned from writing book reviews is that it’s much easier to write a negative review than a positive one. The same goes for profiles of people or institutions. Perhaps this is because we open ourselves to criticism when we praise someone in a way that we don’t when we blame … Read more
One of my correspondents has asked how religious I am. This is a legitimate question—it’s one I sometimes ask myself—, but the answer is complicated. I’m no good with abstractions, or with arguments for that matter, so to illustrate my thoughts, I’ll tell a couple stories instead. Both stories are factual and they share … Read more
In August, my wife and I spent two weeks in Ireland, where we joined a bike tour through the region on the west coast known as Connemara. As with many things in Ireland, nobody agrees on the exact boundaries of this area, so let’s just say it includes much of the coastal parts of … Read more
I talked with a birder several years ago who was also an amateur artist. We were on a field trip to Amherst Island, where there’d been reports of a Eurasian Wigeon. At the time, this was a life bird for me, so I was understandably excited. My companion was indifferent. He wanted to talk about … Read more
A few weeks ago, I spent an hour at the Black-crowned Night Heron colony on the Leslie Street Spit, watching the birds build their nests. The males were in their mating finery, which means bright plumage—cream-colored below, grey and slate-blue above—and two long, thin plumes that stick out of the head and arch over the … Read more
Walking on the Leslie Street Spit last week, I came upon a pair of Canada Geese. They were belligerent. Hissing and blocking the path, they refused to let me pass. I soon saw why. A gosling sat in the weeds just off the path, and the parent birds wanted to protect it from me. The … Read more
With butterflies, it’s color that attracts us first, but with moths, it’s their names. Just to scratch the surface, to get a hint of what they offer in North America, let the following names fall trippingly from your tongue: Rufous-banded Crambid, Pigeon Acrobasis, Frosty Olethreutes, Crepuscular Rock-rose Moth, Spun Glass Slug Moth, Ferruginous Eulin, Feather-duster … Read more