E-Book Overview
What do experienced field naturalists discover when they explore the heavily populated Lake Ontario shoreline as if they were surveying a wilderness for the first time? In this beautifully illustrated book, Aleta Karstad takes you on a journey of discovery along the route of the Lake Ontario Waterfront Trail. Listening for calling frogs in spring, turning stones, sampling shoreline drift, identifying plants and animals, Karstad and her husband, herpetologist Frederick W. Schueler, discover a wealth of natural life, sometimes in unexpected places. The expedition journal, illustrated by Aleta Karstad's elegant drawings and delicate watercolours, takes up where popular field guides leave off. It is a guide and inspiration for readers to explore their own region with fresh eyes, with an invitation to assist in monitoring animal communities.
E-Book Content
A Place
to Walk
TITLE PAGE: The base of a red balloon on a blue ribbon among sparse drift picked up 8-15 September, Port Darlington, West Beach. Clockwise from the bottom of the drawing: yellow wooden golf tee, pastel-dyed plastic salmon eggs in a net bag, Stagnicola catascopium (Lake Stagnicola, old broken shell), Stagnicola reflexa (Striped Stagnicola, fresh shell of this large slender snail which we found only here), unexplained black plastic-like seedpod, Webberian ossicles (modified auditory vertebrae) of a Cyprinoid fish (Sucker or Minnow), Alosapseudoharengus (Alewife, ventral scales and ribs), Pleurocera acuta (Flat-sided Horn Snail, old shell), Stagnicola catascopium (Lake Stagnicola, old shell), Helisoma trivolvus (Larger Eastern Ramshorn, small shell), Dressensiapolymorpha (Zebra Mussel, fresh shell).
A Place
to Walk A Naturalist's Journal of the Lake Ontario Waterfront Trail
Aleta Karstad with the assistance of Frederick W. Schueler & Lee Ann Locker
Natural Heritage / Natural History Inc.
A Place to Walk: A Naturalist's Journal of the Lake Ontario Waterfront Trail Published by Natural Heritage / Natural History Inc., P.O. Box 95, Station "O", Toronto, Ontario M4A 2M8 Copyright © 1995 Aleta Karstad No portion of this book, with the exception of brief extracts for the purpose of literary or scholarly review, may be reproduced in any form without the permission of the publisher. Design: Robin Brass Studio Printed and bound in Canada by Hignell Printing Limited, Winnipeg, Manitoba Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Karstad, Aleta, 1951A place to walk : a naturalist's journal of the Lake Ontario Waterfront Trail ISBN 1-896219-01-2 1. Waterfronts - Ontario - Toronto Region Guidebooks. 2. Natural History - Ontario Toronto Region — Guidebooks. 3. Trails — Ontario - Toronto Region - Guidebooks. I. Schueler, Frederick W, 1948- . II. Title. QH106.2.05K37 1995 C95-931090-8
508.713541
Natural Heritage / Natural History Inc. gratefully acknowledges the assistance of the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Ontario through the Ministry of Citizenship, Tourism and Recreation.
Contents 1 The Lake and Us - 6 Getting close to the lake; surveys and journal writing
2 Auditory Station Spring ^ 9 Journal of the amphibian calling survey
3 Royal Botanical Gardens Camp ^18 Dundas & Burlington — the Arboretum, the Bruce Trail, Grindstone Creek, Cootes Paradise by canoe
4 Burloak Park Camp - 32 Burlington, Oakville - Burloak Park, Lakeshore Road, Shoreacres Creek, Bronte Creek by canoe, Coronation Park, Oakville Museum, the Esplanade
5 Port Credit Camp - 45 Oakville, Mississauga — Gairloch Gardens to Southdown Road, Rattray Marsh, Port Credit to Marie Curtis Park
6 King's Mill Park Camp - 51 Etobicoke, Toronto — Marie Curtis Park to Humber East Park, Colonel Samuel Smith Park, Kings Mill Park, down the Humber River and through Toront