News

Site Stories – Highland Creek Park

Salima Pirani, Lead Steward

The Highland Creek Stewards have their own website with additional photos and information

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August 31, 2022

*Apologies for the wonky formatting — my power is out and I’m typing on my phone*

Hi everyone! 

Last week, Mark (he was still in town!), Sandy were greeted by deer (see attached photo) as we checked on the Japanese Knotweed.

With thorough scouting through to the perimeter, we found several short sprigs that had escaped our eyes and garden shears the week before. We also went across the path and found about seven JKW plants living their best life, pretty much undetected against a forest backdrop and unchecked DSV sprawl. Apparently whomever sprayed missed the edges of the patch and didn’t look across the path. All of these are now cut to contain the spread, and we’ll take one last look later in the season in case anything else slipped by us.

You Suggest!

Several of you haven’t had a chance to make it out to stewarding this season. Send me your ideal timing and we could do either a pop-up event or add another regular time each week (which brings me to…)

2023 Lead Steward Training Update:  I visited a sister site in the west end last week that has an Indigenous lodge and is partnering with them to create a seed bank of native plants. There, I spoke with Anna, who updated me on recruitment. 

Current Stewards may now apply for Training to help Lead existing sites. There may only be a select few new priority sites announced by TNS next year. The strategy is to strengthen our existing sites with a team leading each one. This gives Leads an opportunity to share the work, recruit and work with more volunteers (10 stewards per Lead), offer more than one session per week and collaborate, monitor and evaluate impact more thoroughly. Some of our Site Leads across the City already do this and we’d love to encourage this at Highland Creek Park as it may be the biggest site TNS has!

Want to take the training on invasive species and learn about lead stewarding? A sign-up form will be available in the fall.

Tonight’s Plan: Dog Strangling Vine seed pods are exploding right now so we’ll work on eradicating them either at the park entrance or closer to the oak tree. Either way, we’ll be close to the main path within a minute of the park entrance.

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July 27, 2022

Hi everyone,

🎵 Sun is shinin’… weather is sweet🎶

No heat wave tonight! We’ll continue taking down the dog-strangling vine and any other approved invasives along the park path. We’ve got some momentum going just as the seed pods are all popping up so we might prioritize lots of top-chopping. We’ll be less than a minute into the park, so anyone arriving late will not only see us but also our beautiful new TNS BANNER!

Highland Creek stewards and sign

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July 20, 2022

Hi everyone!

Four of us had a fun evening last week, with Mark on a mission to rid the forest of litter, as John, Penny and I took a moment to nibble on some yummy native black raspberries while decimating dog strangling vine (DSV) at the park entrance! We also met a local resident who wants to join us… which reminds me: If you or someone you know can help with outreach and recruiting (contacting local groups, cultural communities, UofT Scarborough, local schools — not just give ideas — please drop me a line!).

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July 13, 2022

I’ve been away on silent retreat for close to a week in nature, with ZERO dog strangling vine or garlic mustard anywhere! I saw loads of milkweed, cattails, pines, cedars, native maple, balsam, black cherry trees and spent time on the trails in pure, lush wilderness. I wasn’t so spoiled — I got in lots of mindfulness practice and dirtied my hands removing weeds from the vegetable garden. Here’s a photo of the little chipmunk (I called him Charlie in my mind) that would visit asking for nuts  I’m keen to get to the invasives in our park now! 

Ready for tomorrow? There is so much to do in this beautiful park. We can really use all hands on deck! I’d like for us to roll up our sleeves and attack more of the dog strangling vine and garlic mustard around the park entrance and along the park path tomorrow. If you have a garden spade, then we can uproot some of the burdock too. 

Bring your clippers if you have them! Anyone arriving late will spot us easily.

A City-wide Stewardship Celebration – Oct 1

A Celebration of Stewardship and Volunteering is taking place on October 1 at Middle Mill from 10am to 1pm. 44 Beechwood Drive, Toronto, ON M4K 3H8

Join the Toronto Nature Stewards, Toronto Field Naturalists, A Park of All and many more. This will be a fun filled day with lots of nature and kid friendly programming. This is our opportunity to thank and recognize every steward, volunteer and all those that give their time and energy to make Toronto a world class city. More information from the Toronto Field Naturalists.

If you are a volunteer steward and would like to help TNS with our table please fill out this form.

EventBrite info on all participating groups (Registration not required)

Here is a pdf version of this poster. Please share.

From our Stewards – Stories from the Field: Index

The Toronto Nature Stewards are working hard but still having fun while removing invasive species in our ravine and park sites. Each Lead Steward organizes their volunteers and have many different experiences to share with each other. The following posts are specific to a site, how to improve the experience and personal reflections. Follow the links to these stories.

Highland Creek stewards with their new sign

Site Stories

Stewards Stories

Photo essay: From Landfill to Nature Renascence by the Northline Nature Stewards

My Experience as a First-Year Lead Steward by Laura Muntean, Betty Sutherland Park

West Woodbine Beach, Dune and Meadow Habitat, Biodiversity and Damage Report, Summer 2022 by Clyde Robinson, Ashbridges Bay and Noam Markus

Articles and Recordings

Discover Toronto’s Ravines with Ellen Schwartzel
Recording of presentation on Oct 14, 2022
At approx. 44 minutes, the talk describes the good work of TNS and also the City’s CSP.

2021 Newsletters

There are 4 newsletters from our pilot project: Jan 2021, March 2021, July 2021 and November 2021

How we Steward our Sites 

TNS has over 30 sites in 2023 and around 100 trained Lead Stewards (in 2023) but there is much more to do. There are 6,600 hectares of public ravine land and we are stewarding approximately 74 hectares on 23 sites (2022).  Each hectare needs active regular stewardship to improve biodiversity and ecosystem health.  Each site has one primary Lead and other co-Leads as needed to keep our ratio of 1 Lead to 10 volunteers at any one time. We’ve had from 2 to 145 people at each session and they occur every day of the week and at different times so there are lots of opportunities for everyone. Each group has (or will have) a dedicated team but there are also pop-up sessions organized by the site Leads. 

Each site works independently and organizes itself based on the needs of the Leads and the Volunteer Stewards but all following the same city approved protocols. You can view the sites, schedules and register to join on our Get Involved page (if you want to be an ongoing Steward) . Once you register for a site, the Lead Steward will contact you with details. People wanting to join a pop-up should contact torontonaturestewards@gmail.com for more info.

Currently there are 10 specific invasive plants that we can remove on approved sites on public land. If you want more info on them you can find it on our website.

Lead Steward Training session with Paula Davies, President at Todmorden Mills Wildflower Preserve (TMWP). Photo by Sharon Lovett
Photo by Gary James
Boots on the ground

My Experience as a First-Year Lead Steward

By Laura Muntean, August 2022

Laura Muntean BSUT

Background: I am a first-year lead steward that is working with Gary James, the other lead steward at the Betty Sutherland Site. Last year, I volunteered for several weeks at the Glen Stewart Site, where I learned much of my hands-on knowledge for stewardship from Cherie & Sylvie. Previously, I had very little knowledge of ecology or plants, and got started with the Toronto Nature Stewards when I was teaching students about invasive plants and discovered this program.

Stewarding has been a really rewarding experience. It’s been a great way to make an impact, learn more about plants and ecology in a hands-on way, and regain hope that we can all make a difference. It’s been so great to find so many people people that are also committed to getting involved.

The following are tips that I believe are helpful for successful stewarding (many of these are based off of slides from training that applied to my experience): Tips for Lead Stewards

Site Stories – Betty Sutherland Trail Stewards

Lead Stewards Gary James and Laura Muntean

We are a dedicated group of volunteers working to restore, monitor and preserve the biodiversity of the  Betty Sutherland Trail ravine through the Toronto Nature Stewards. Our specific TNS Site Page can be found here which includes contact information.

We have also created our own website to make communications with our volunteers easier. Please see documents posted there for more information about our site, including our Site Assessment and Stewardship Plan for the year and messages that have been sent to our Stewards on our progress.

Check out iNaturalist for our ongoing tracking of plants at our site at the Betty Sutherland Trail Project.

Here is a sample of our August 3rd message to our stewards.

Site Stories – Cherry Beach

Anna Hoad, Lead Steward

This spring we thought our site at Cherry Beach was doomed. The empire (of invasive plants) strikes back!

We took off half the old phragmites stalks in one area, but the rhizomes were so thick they had killed off all the undergrowth and were in the process of choking out the bushes and trees. Seeing the completely bare earth was sobering… garlic mustard, wood avens… Dog strangling vine was springing up and I thought, that’s it. We’re doomed! This site’s just too disturbed. It’s invasives ALL the way down.

Cherry Beach Phragmites in spring

Then I remembered Paula Davies telling us that the natives were hiding there; waiting to be released. So, we went on a hunt in areas we’d just cleared. And there they were … baby raspberries, currants, cottonwood trees, sumacs, and clumps of bergamot. They’re thrilled to have light and nutrients to themselves and are thriving. There were also non-natives, like comfrey and valerian, hopefully fitting into the ecosystem and feeding someone. There was even a little orchid (eaten too soon to be identified. As well as clearing the weeds around it, I should have been building a branch fence!)

Now every day we’re out stewarding, we point out to each other the plants we’ve discovered and released. It keeps us going.

Black Swallowtail butterflies love bergamot aka bee balm

Posts from the Cherry Beach Stewards

Projects with Plants

One day when we were stewarding, I admired Louise’s shirt, and she said she made it. Louise dyed this lovely pattern using leaves and flowers. The dramatic dark one is sumac, and the smaller yellow ones are the flowers and stems of Coreopsis tinctoria from her garden. She lays the leaves and flowers on the shirt, wraps it tightly around a dowel, ties it tightly with string, and then lets it steam over water for an hour. Some fabrics accept dye readily and others need help. I’m so impressed. And, I want to make one! Maybe next summer we’ll persuade her to show us how.

Specialized Police Units at Cherry Beach

Specialized Police Units
by Anna Hoad, November 10

I saw the Canine, Marine and Bomb Units recently. The Canine Unit was training their dogs. There are between 32-35 dogs, though only a few come out to train each time. They’ll take any kind of dog, but many are German Shepherds from eastern Europe, who are bred for police work. Chasing and biting come naturally to dogs, so of course the training was focused on them stopping both on command.

I was attending a water sports safety session at Cherry Beach put on by the Toronto Windsurfing Club. Stacy Kellough, Detective Constable in the Marine Unit, said here’s about 35 people in the unit but only 2-3 boats out on any shift. She congratulated the clubs on ensuring members know how to enjoy water safely. She said the people they rescue tend not to belong to clubs. Aside from the safety gear specific to your sport, she recommends bringing a cell phone in a dry bag. If you call 911 to report people in trouble, your call converts to latitude and longitude within 10 miles of shore. They’ve rescued people that have blown miles offshore that way.

I saw the Bomb Squad cruising by. Love the anarchist drawing on the van. Happy they didn’t need to stop!

Cherry Beach Mid-August post

Cherry Beach August post

Cherry Beach July post

Cherry Beach June post

Cherry Beach Spring post

Gearing up for 2022 Lead Steward training

Incredibly excited for Lead Steward training to start on January 12th, 2022! We have a big group this year – over fifty Lead Stewards are registered. We cannot wait to virtually meet everyone and start talking all things ecological restoration. Ravines here we come!

A friendly reminder that registration for 2022 Lead Steward training is CLOSED. Keep an eye out for a site near you to become a steward in the spring!

Site Stories – Middle Mill Stewards

Stewardship in the Snow

Had a wonderful morning working (playing really) in the snow at our Middle Mill stewardship site in the Don Valley. As it was our last session for the season, we made bush piles from the Buckthorn we’ve been pulling for the last month. Bush piles will provide habitat for the furry little creatures trying to stay warm over the winter.