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bloomsday june 16 2022
one minute video of images taken over the last six weeks or so of spring awakening mainly featuring the oak in highland creek valley the oak that was stripped by caterpillars last summer and since the oak is now the "official" tree of toronto https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-oak-official-tree-1.6453659 click on the arrow and then on full screen symbol (arrows) and have audio turned on Till as clouds grow on the blast Like tower-crowned giants striding fast And glare with lightnings as thy fly And speak in thunder to the sky from percy bysshe shelley's the mask of anarchy |
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drumming up darwin one minute tribute to darwin gravitational waves valentines and family weekend of february 12 to 15 2016 |
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raven hill see but mostly hear a raven flypast near white lake ontario december 2015 |
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solstice sunday song sunday june 21st 2015 one minute video of this solstice sunday morning at the local scarbro beaver pond the soundtrack is 50 seconds of one unedited single birdsong by what a birdwatcher says might be an orchard oriole with a few other birds singing in the background (+ 10 seconds of a different small bird at the end) |
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swansong sunday april 12th 2015 finally got the grandkids down to the pond on the sunday after easter sunday to see and hear the trumpeter swans they're back! easter sunday april 5 2015 two trumpeter swans stayed on this beaver pond near highland creek for most of last year they left on Nov 14 but arrived back on easter morn they trumpet a bit here (rare) |
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scarberia sunset shinny January 17 2015 just before a thaw at the same beaver pond near higland creek where the trumpeter swans spent most of the year see below |
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trumpeter swan song (silent) these two trumpeter swans were on this beaver pond near highland creek scarborough from april to november 2014 the first year they've been seen there no sign of any cygnets Lest We Forget
Remembrance Day 2013 They say that the Dead die not, but remain Near to the rich heirs of their grief and mirth. I think they ride the calm mid-heaven, as these, In wise majestic melancholy train, And watch the moon, and the still-raging seas, And men, coming and going on the earth. from "Clouds" by "war poet" Rupert Brooke The images in this slide show are the skies above Highland Creek on November 8th 2013 |
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L.S.D trip (no, not that kind) All of the photos in this slide show were shot in Highland Creek Valley, Scarborough, Ontario which finally got some snow on Friday Jan 25th, 2012 after many, grey, cold, snowless days. On the two sunny days following the snowfall the valley was transformed by Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds |
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"a narrow fellow (or female) in the woods" the eastern hognose snake is one of the least dangerous snakes in Canada but he/she puts on a good show when that head flares |
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bosong Having trouble understanding the LHC and the Higgs Boson? Let Domenico Vicinanza and Bob Dylan help! The music of the spheres? For further explanation, click here. |
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The tune used here is canadee-i-o an old English/Canadian folk song about a woman smuggled by her "sailor boy" on board a ship bound for Canada, dressed as another "sailor boy", so maybe this fits Canada Day and Pride Day? Nic Jones who plays the first guitar part is English and Dylan's an American but Jones's birthplace, Orpington, Kent and Dylan's Hibbing, Minnesota are both more northern, at higher latitudes than many places in Canada including Scarborough where the video was shot this morning, July 1, 2012. |
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of mouse and moose For the second year in a row, Mrs Mouse made her home in my barbecue up north. Unfortunately she and her brood had to be evicted on June 16th (Bloomsday!) before we could put on the hamburgers. Then on the way home the road was blocked by Ms. Moose who let her feelings about humans be known. |
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Luney Tune Video made in Galway Township, Ontario on the night of May 4th (before the May 5th, 2012 hype about the "supermoon") which was at perigee, a mere 221,802 miles (356,956 km) from Earth. You could have read a book by it. The spring peepers (above) had finished their evening clamjamphrie by this time. Very quiet. |
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Earth Day, April 22nd, 2012. Bernie Benson-Kelly finds a snail. |
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Robin Eastersong in "Maple Grove Cathedral", Scarborough. |
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Singing fools!
April first here in Scarborough was wet, the first rain in over 2 weeks. Robins have been getting lean pickins from worms over these dry days but today the worms are plentiful and the robins are full and in full voice. I had to keep the camera sheltered from rain so the visuals are hopeless but the sound is striking. If this were high quality stereo it would give a better idea of the symphonic quality of their singing in this echoing, wooded ravine. |
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The music used on this video is the lead-in to Canadian, Loreena McKennitt, singing an Irish traditional song, Bonny Portmore, about the demise of the oak forests in Ireland in the 18th century, specifically The Great Oak at Portmore Lough, near the Derry-Antrim divide, which fell in a windstorm and was used for shipbuilding for the British Navy, as were many others "cutten down" for that purpose.
Similar destruction is happening again in Old Prehen Woods near Derry City, this time clearing ancient trees to build luxury houses. (Derry; "doire", meaning "oak grove"). Malachy Kelly-Benson has something to say about all this! |
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Google is using frog cartoons today to celebrate Feb. 29th ... LEAP YEAR DAY? Well, let me tell you, much as I admire frogs, they don't measure up, in the leppin' department, to these wee beasties. Like their dog and human-biting cousins they make prodigiously athletic leps, according to some studies, each lep is up to a hundred times their body size! These "snow flea" (springtails) leppers were recorded on Feb. 22nd, a warm winter day last week, up north. After plodding through fairly deep snow, I was retracing my steps, when I saw them in their millions on the snow surface but especially concentrated down in my earlier footprints. They don't bite, as far as we know.
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Short slide show of photos taken on late afternoon of January 31, 2012, in Highland Creek Valley, Scarborough.
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into the sunset
2 minute video of sunset over Highland Creek Valley, Scarborough on the evening of Monday August 22, 2011, coincidentally the day Jack Layton died. Sure, other things happened that day but Jack was on many of our minds in Toronto and throughout Canada. He was a politician but he seemed like a decent human being too. Colleague MP, Paul Dewar said Jack’s heart was “as big as a prairie sky”. The photos may not be prairie skies but Scarborough skies can be almost as big and emotive. Music is “Incantation” by Loreena McKennitt (originally a prairie woman). |
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butterfly fx
Most of the images in this video are 'doctored' photos taken around White Lake, Ontario. |
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pondsong
2 minute video of birds and frogs in full throat at a beaver pond in Scarborough, Ontario, a pond squeezed in between a 2 lane road and a 6 lane highway (Old and New Kingston Roads). It's a natural amphitheatre with echoes bouncing off the hill curving along a good half of it. Traffic noise ruins some of the finer, echoing, distant notes but considering it is in the middle of a busy urban area ... not bad. |