Whenever the weather is on the miserable side, I hear this question: “Has there ever been a walk when no-one showed up?”

Indeed there was one. May 25, 2017 at Beechwood / Don Valley. The temperature was 12 degrees but the rain was extremely heavy.

I walked the entire area on my own and had this bird list:

Species list: mallard, downy woodpecker, American robin,  yellow warbler, red-winged blackbird, Baltimore oriole, brown-headed cowbird, northern cardinal, American goldfinch,  song sparrow. (10 species)

As I always want to include a group photo, I took a selfie:

Here are some group photos from previous rough weather days:

With rain overnight and the prediction of rain all today, I was happy to see that we did have a few walkers this morning at Thomson Park:

It was too wet to carry my camera about so I took some photos from the car before the walk:

Here are photos from previous walks of the 14 bird species we saw:

NATURE POETRY

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.               – Emily Brontë (1818–48)

Miles Hearn