Inside Caledon, Ontario

This little guy seems to come around my house every year in the evening. He hops around slowly and follows the same path on most nights. I took a picture of this toad with my Olympus 25mm F2.8 Pancake Lens. I basically just put the camera flat on the ground and used the light coming off the motion detector light.

While hiking the other week I came across these pieces of rusted out machinery. I am not sure exactly what it is so if you know please let me know, “Woodbridge Machine Works” is engraved on it and it has obviously been there a long time probably decades. A search for Woodbridge Machine Works on Google doesn’t return much information. The first main photo above was enhanced slightly with the program Photomatix to brighten it up a little, the photos below are untouched/not modified.

While looking on Google Maps one day I found an area along the Humber river north of Palgrave, Ontario that appeared to be densely forested and appeared to be untouched. It looked interesting and got my curiosity going so I decided to take small hike for about an hour or two and check it out. Once entering this area it was quite clear that there was no trails, no paths, nothing, the land is completely untouched so you need to make your own trail and find your way through some of the dense bush and trees. I started off following the Humber river but at times was forced to detour into the forest. All of this land I think is owned by someone but is unused and the land definitely borders on other people’s property as I came to the edge of a few people’s properties when I went off course a bit but the bulk of all this land is untouched and peaceful where you’ll never see anybody but animals and birds. Below are some more pictures of the area.

The fallen tree in this last photo I actually climbed accross it to get to the other side of the river, camera gear and all.

In this case he was just looking for a nice place to sun tan and dry off. I saw this turtle on Mt Hope Rd. beside Gibson Lake. I was actually quite surprised how little people cared about the turtle driving over top of him instead of driving around him in most cases, he was not harmed but I can imagine not all turtles are so lucky. Anyone who drives along Highway 50 just north of Castlederg Rd. will be familiar with the Turtle Crossing warning sign, perhaps it could be added in other areas in Caledon like at this spot along Mt Hope Rd. I believe this little guy is a Common Snapping Turtle (correct me if I am wrong), they widespread throughout southern and central Ontario however they are found as far west as the Rocky Mountains and as far south as Mexico and Ecuador. While in the wild the lifespan of wild snapping turtles is estimated to be around 30 years (assuming they aren’t run over).

Here is some gossip news from the Toronto Star about Elton John possibly moving into the Caledon, Ontario. Rumors of him building a mansion on a large estate which is some where off Hwy. 10.

A few excerpts from the article:

The sprawling house on a large estate adjacent to the Devil’s Pulpit Golf Association has been widely rumoured to belong to John and Furnish since construction began about three years ago.

The house may be larger than 20,000 square feet. It is mostly obscured by trees and it is surrounded by barbed wire. Though nobody in its vicinity seems to have actually seen John there, much of the town appears convinced it belongs to him.

When John has concerts in Ontario, security around the estate increases noticeably, says John Corby, owner of Orangeville’s Blighty’s Tuck Store. The shop, which sells products imported from England, is a short drive from the mansion.

To read the full Toronto Star article, click here.

The signs of spring are here (actually it feels like summer today), I stumbled across these baby Geese in Bolton, Ontario this morning right across from the Canadian Tire. There was quite a number of them walking across the road and holding up traffic earlier but all managed to cross the road safely. See some more pictures below.

Interesting facts about the Canadian Goose: During the second year of their lives, Canada Geese find a mate. They are monogamous, and most couples stay together all of their lives. If one is killed, the other may find a new mate. The female lays 3–8 eggs and both parents protect the nest while the eggs incubate, but the female spends more time at the nest than the male. During this incubation period, the adults lose their flight feathers, so they cannot fly until their eggs hatch after 25–28 days. Adult geese are often seen leading their goslings in a line, usually with one parent at the front, and the other at the back. While protecting their goslings, parents often violently chase away nearby creatures, from small blackbirds to humans that approach, after warning them by giving off a hissing sound. The offspring enter the fledgling stage any time from 6 to 9 weeks of age. They do not leave their parents until after the spring migration, when they return to their birthplace.

Noticed this article in the Toronto Star today, not about Caledon but interesting article about Wild Turkeys which we have many all over Caledon, Ontario.

Wild turkey is one smart bird

Chefs head to the country to hunt elusive fowl, but wiley creatures prove difficult to catch
By: ivy knight

It is still dark at a farm near Cobourg when three men, decked out in full camouflage, set out with their decoys.

“You have to wear full camouflage” one of them explains as he pulls a hood down over his face, leaving only his eyes and mouth exposed. “Their eyesight is incredible.”

Sous-chef Chris Wiseman is referring to wild turkeys, of course. He and grill cook Nick Bentley are experienced hunters and they’ve joined Anthony Walsh at Walsh’s family farm.

Walsh is executive chef at Canoe and also oversees all of the Oliver & Bonacini restaurants. He often heads to the farm with some of his staff in tow. He holds impromptu lessons, getting cooks to make fresh pasta with eggs laid only minutes before, or heading out to forage edible plants from along the creek-bed, and sometimes setting the alarm for 4 a.m. to go hunt wild turkeys.

Contrary to popular belief, the wild turkey is not a stupid creature. “They are nothing like the domesticated bird. They’re extremely smart and very cautious. The first one I ever caught came after five straight days of hunting and not catching a thing.” Bentley says.

Wild turkeys were pretty much wiped out in Ontario in the early 1900s through unregulated hunting and deforestation. In the mid-1980s, the province embarked on a restoration program with contributions of wild turkeys from the U.S. Approximately 4,400 wild turkeys were released at 275 sites across Ontario and the turkey population now has exceeded the numbers projected by the Ontario Wild Turkey Management Plan.

Patrick Hubert, an avian biologist who worked on the plan, says, “It’s a long-term plan … Hunters have a relatively difficult time harvesting them, turkeys are very wary.”

The spring wild turkey hunting season runs until May 31 this year.

The turkeys nest in the trees and come down in the morning to feed, so the hunter must be `dug in’ to his spot well before they wake. The three chefs and their decoys are in place by 4:45 a.m., fully camouflaged and silent save for Bentley’s intermittent turkey calls.

They return to the farm for breakfast at 8 a.m. with fresh eggs from a neighbouring farm but no turkey. “A damn squirrel gave us away,” says Walsh as he fries up hash browns with a few handfuls of tender fiddleheads foraged the day before. “He knew we were there and I could hear him chittering away letting everyone else know it.”

After breakfast the chefs head back to the woods. “Soon the morels (mushrooms) will be ready. We should be able to harvest a significant amount, around the same time the mousseron will come in,” says Walsh. “They’re called a fairy ring mushroom,” he says of the mousseron, “because they grow in a circle formation. The old stories say that fairies danced in the ring they formed. I just know that when you cook them they taste like fried chicken.”

Along the creek-bed he points out fiddlehead sprouts that will be ready to harvest in another week. Farther on is a patch of watercress. “This stuff is so peppery, we get it all through the spring and summer, along with trout lilies. They look similar to a wild leek but have a very mild lettuce flavour.”

His children are often sent out to pick watercress before dinner. “One of the adults always goes along, because there’s a big bear who lives around here and the kids are all scared of him. They’ve named him Big Jack, after my dad.”

Walsh enjoys being able to bring some of his staff to the farm.

“It’s nice to see them in a different light and let them see you in a different light as well. They’re all crazy about coming here. Soon we’ll take them fishing for brown trout.” He points out a few tiny trout swimming in the clear creek water.

“Some of these kids from Oliver Bonacini have never picked up a fresh, warm egg let alone cracked it and made pasta with it right away. We hunt whitetail deer in the fall. … We take all the trimmings and make a massive amount of sausage. When we catch wild turkey I like to do it `à la king’, with wild leeks and noodles tossed with some crème fraîche and dijon. It’s killer.”

“Turkey has a significantly stronger flavour and you don’t want to mess around with it too much because it can get quite dry. I usually cure the legs and then confit them in duck fat. We make a dish that’s similar at Canoe but we use domesticated turkey because even if it were legal to serve to customers, we can’t plan a menu around wild turkey. They’re too damn hard to catch.”

If you are looking for breakfast in the Caledon area and tired of the same old places and want to try something then I recommend trying Cora’s which has opened recently in Bolton, Ontario. Cora’s is a fast growing chain of breakfast/brunch restaurants that offers a bit of a unique take on breakfast offering more healthy dishes, they accomplish this by giving you more fruit with your standard bacon and eggs as well they offer a number of fruit smoothies. For the full menu check out their website. Be warned though like all other Cora’s the Bolton location is already extremely popular so be prepared to wait a bit to get in and be served. The Cora’s in Bolton is located in the same plaza as the new Home Depot.

Here is a wild red fox I saw on the way home from work at Mt Pleasant & Castledurg. He had a mouse in his mouth and was walking along Mt. Pleasant for a long while, I followed him for about 1-2 km. I didn’t think I would be able to get a good shot of him as its kind of hard to operate a camera and car at the time but luckily he stopped for a brief moment as we got closer to Castledurg and I was able to snap the above picture. I didn’t even know he had a mouse in his mouth until I loaded the picture up on my computer.

The Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) is a mammal of the order Carnivora. It has the widest range of any terrestrial carnivore being native to Canada, Alaska, almost all of the contiguous United States, Europe, North Africa and almost all of Asia, including Japan. For more info on Red Fox’s click here.

Just by chance I spotted this Blue Heron out of the corner of my eye on the outskirts of Bolton, Ontario this past week. There was a small little pond and green space near the Caledon Rec centre where he landed, he looked a little more exotic that typical birds you see in the area. He wasn’t too scared, I was able to get fairly close and take some good photos of him although he kept a watchful eye on me the entire time.

Some background info on them, the Great Blue Heron , Ardea herodias, is a wading bird in the heron family Ardeidae, common over most of North and Central America as well as the West Indies and the Galápagos Islands, except for the far north and deserts and high mountains where there is no water for it to feed in. It is an extremely rare vagrant to Europe, with records from Spain, the Azores and England. It is the largest North American heron, with a head-to-tail length of 91–140 cm (36-55 in), a wingspan of 167-201 cm (66-79 in), and a weight of 2–3.6 kg (4.4-8 lbs). For more info on them click here.

Photos were taken with my zoom lens around noon, I processed them all through the program Photomatix to bring out the colour a little more. Click on the images below for larger pictures.