Edward O'Connor – Writer, editor, part-time birder
It started with a scream. I was walking down the dirt path that surrounds a pond on the Leslie Street Spit in Toronto. To my right were stands of weeds and wildflowers, and to my left the pond, which was covered with lilypads. At the end of summer, the path was dry and dusty. I … Read more
At the end of July, my wife and I left Toronto to spend a week in a cottage on Manitoulin Island. The largest fresh-water island in the world stretches across the top of Lake Huron for 160 kilometers (100 miles). It takes the better part of seven hours to drive there from Toronto, so I … Read more
I took this photo of three Trumpeter Swans on the shore of Lake Ontario about five years ago. The way it sets up, with the swans on either side looking in the same direction, and the one in the middle turned slightly away, reminds me of the structure of classical haiku. As you may know, … Read more
More than twenty species of mammals have been recorded on Toronto’s Leslie Street Spit, an artificially constructed peninsula that juts into Lake Ontario from the city’s east end. With more than three million people, Toronto puts the kind of pressure on its parks and green spaces that should eliminate any hint of the wild and … Read more
My friend and sometime birding companion, Lynn Pady, recently sent me a copy of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “The Windhover,” a poem about the bird we call a Kestrel. I don’t know for sure but suspect this may be a product of spring fever on Lynn’s part. It’s not the first time she’s emailed me this … Read more
At some point over the long course of its evolution, the Prothonotary Warbler (Protonotaria citrea) developed the peculiar habit of staring at its reflected image in the still waters of the swamps that it calls home. This mirror gazing does nothing to advance either of the bird’s main aims in life, which are to eat … Read more
Over the past summer, I became fascinated by flower-visiting wasps, especially the solitary kind that build individual nests, either by burrowing into the ground or by fashioning small mud-nests that they attach to plants or artificial constructions. For one thing, these wasps are plentiful where I live in Toronto, Ontario. Throughout the summer and into … Read more
I first read about Tennessee Coneflower (Echinacea tennesseensis) in the catalogue I get every year from Salt Spring Seeds on Vancouver Island. The notice described it as a rare and uncommonly attractive wildflower that was thought to be extinct until 1968, when researchers discovered a surviving pocket in a cedar glade in central Tennessee. Tennessee … Read more
On June 13, I went to High Park in Toronto’s west end for what I thought would be a day of butterflies and dragonflies. The park is vast (161 hectares, or 400 acres) and contains a variety of habitats, including wetlands and one of the last dry-oak savannahs in the Greater Toronto Area. More than … Read more
I like every element of the popular name: Early Blue Cohosh (Caulophyllum giganteum). Early means the flowers appear when I most long for them—in April, when winter has just released its grip, and the soil, if not frozen, is still clammy and cold. Blue signifies a color I don’t see much of so early in … Read more