A Visit to Ground Zero

I remember many little details of the morning of September 11, 2001. At my 9:00 AM home care visit the TV was on and we watched the fire from the impact of the first airplane crash into the World Trade Centre. At the next home visit I saw the second plane hit the tower. I remember the patient, the address, the weather, and other details that would normally be lost after seven years. I postponed my next visit and rushed home to try and grasp what was happening.

I avoided much of the TV coverage in subsequent days due to the horror of the images that were played over and over again. I haven't necessarily agreed with the wars and American policies that have followed as a consequence of this event. I don't watch the memorial services or listen to the roll call of names that is read each year on this date. But I do think of the personal loss of life and the bravery of many who died that day.


We visited Ground Zero this June during our trip to New York City. The mood was sombre and people were silent as they looked through the fenced off area. I was surprised at how narrow the streets seemed and the number of nearby buildings still scorched with fire. It was impossible to imagine the bedlam that would have been present in the financial district of the city on that fateful day. We stopped at the nearby fire station, Ladder Co. 10 and viewed the memorial and pictures of the men from this location who died trying to rescue others.

One morning I walked along 10th Avenue behind a group of uniformed NYFD firemen. I was impressed with the open respect shown to them from people passing by. I sensed a respect for policemen as well that is not usually seen in big cities. New York City was changed by the 9/11 attack but emerged with pride and resilience.

As a Canadian I give tribute to those affected personally by this tragedy and pray for peace and the end of conflicts that have arisen in its wake.

Swan Song

Mute Swans

Mute Swans are a common sight in urban parks and their graceful beauty is admired. I have witnessed an altercation between a swan and a Canada Goose and the goose was not a winner. The swan was not mute but could only hiss and grunt. This species does lack a distinctive call and there is an old legend that before death the Mute Swan sings a beautiful song.
Here is an excerpt of Alfred Tennyson's poem, The Dying Swan...

The wild swan's death-hymn took the soul

Of that waste place with joy

Hidden in sorrow: at first to the ear

The warble was low, and full and clear; ...

But anon her awful jubilant voice,

With a music strange and manifold,

Flow’d forth on a carol free and bold;

As when a mighty people rejoice

With shawms, and with cymbals, and harps of gold...

The term 'Swan Song' has also come to represent a final glorious work of a performer or composer before their retirement or death.

None of the Mute Swans pictured here were singing or dying. The resting swan swam around with its head tucked in its wing, raising its head only when it needed to change direction. The cygnets were almost as large as the adult swans but lacked the white feathers and orange bill.

Trumpeter Swan

Year old Trumpeter Swans have stayed over the summer at Burlington Bay in Lake Ontario. Most of the flock flew north for the breeding season but will be returning soon. These swans are not mute and sound to me like a car horn when they honk. Their erect necks, black bills and call make them easy to identify amongst the Mute Swans in the harbour.

Beautiful birds indeed!

Thanks to Donna and Mare for recommending E. B. White's book, "The Trumpet of the Swan". I borrowed it this weekend and found it to be delightful!

Just for the fun of it !

Play keeps us vital and alive.
It gives us an enthusiasm for life that is irreplaceable.
Without it, life just doesn't taste good.

Lucia Capocchione

We were at a soccer tournament this weekend for a ladies' league in which our eldest daughter plays. The day was beautiful for sitting in a park and even the dog loved the outing. Several games were going on simultaneously and if one got restless, there was a walking trail along the nearby Thames River.

I took a little walk in the late afternoon and came across a young brother and sister at play. They were gifted with gymnastic ability and scurried up an unused soccer goal post and started to creep along the cross bar until they met head to head. It was great fun watching them carefully inch toward each other in their own game.


Their mother's team mate was warming up on the crossbar during the soccer match. I can hardly remember the last time I saw children climbing trees or being involved in their own creative play. The Becka visited her favourite childhood playground recently and was unhappy to see that the old climbing poles and the little elevated play house had been removed to make way for safer, plastic slides and swings. I think it is a fear of liability more than a concern for children's safety that has made cities "dumb down" their creative play areas. Children are barely allowed to take risks at all and play time has become very organized for most.

These youngsters made my day, and our daughter's team won their game as well as the pool in their tournament.

Life does taste good!

Nature's Odds

Monarch Chrysalis -Day 7

The wings of the developing butterfly are clearly seen through the green chrysalis as it enters its second week in this stage. By next week a new butterfly should be feeding on nectar and beginning its flight south for the winter. The inborn knowledge of this simple creature is astounding. Three developing butterflies hang from a screen in the shelter of a lilac tree that grows near our deck. Two remaining caterpillars have been protected in a container from the rains that have drenched our area as the remnants of the last two hurricanes have passed through.

In a graveyard near our home, four of my husband's father's siblings are buried, all of them deceased in their first year. In that family four of eight children survived to adulthood. His father, the youngest in the family was born in August 1918 just weeks before the great influenza pandemic swept the continent. Many people young and old died in this community. Medical knowledge, the development of drugs, and life saving interventions have decreased infant mortality and increased life expectancies dramatically. Flu vaccines keep the frail elderly alive in our nursing homes long past the time nature would have taken its course. My doctor Grandma always told me pneumonia was an old person's friend. I thought that was an awful thing to say, but now know what she meant. Babies born with congenital conditions incompatible with life are sustained with artificial feedings. It is no longer just "survival of the fittest". We are seldom confronted with the natural cycles of life and death and survival, especially as our society has moved largely from rural to urban centres.

Two of our five caterpillars will not become butterflies. This is a 40% failure rate on nature's part. One of the caterpillars was exceptionally small and instead of attaching only its tail end to the leaf with silk, attached the entire side of its body. It was unable to hang upside down and shrivelled up. Today, I watched as our last caterpillar started to shed its skin. But the process was not completed. One band did not split and it could not free itself of the outer covering. I tried to help gently with a pair of tweezers but could not save it.

These are nature's odds. They are compounded by man made risks. Driving on the highway yesterday, a Monarch butterfly crashed into my windshield and did not survive the blow. Our newspaper featured a recent report about this year's decline in Monarch populations, mainly due to pesticide use and loss of habitat.

I visited a natural area an hour west of home yesterday and saw many varieties of butterflies including Monarchs feeding among the wildflowers. Some will survive and reproduce successfully ensuring a new generation. Nature's balance is fragile but the odds are not impossible. But human alteration of the environment has brought more than one species to extinction. We have the knowledge and resources to protect and extend human life. We also understand the impact of our actions on the environment but the economic will to change is not always present.

Friday Flowers: Whites

White can be a most challenging colour to capture on a camera. Reflected light can quickly overexpose the object obliterating detail and shadow. Over the past couple of weeks I have purposefully looked for white and here are a few of the images.



Have you ever seen a moon garden? These gardens are designed to be enjoyed in the dim light of dusk and night time. White flowers are ideal for moon gardens. Popular annuals like petunias, impatiens and sweet alyssum can be used in borders or in pots. Many shrubs and perennial have white flowers that bloom at various times in the growing season. Some flowers close when the sun sets but night blooming flowers are often fragrant in order to attract moths and other insects.


There are many white wildflowers, the most abundant in our area being Queen Anne's Lace. It blooms throughout the summer months and attracts a variety of insects and butterflies.


The most common butterfly in local fields and gardens is the Cabbage White. It never stays in one place for long as it flits from flower to flower.


The mute swan was swimming in the waters of Lake Ontario. This bird often symbolizes purity, goodness and transformation in stories and folklore.

The following poem was written by a contemporary Indian writer from Bombay, John P. Matthew. His work is reproduced here through a creative commons license.

Is White a Color?

White, pristine, unblemished
They say it is not a color
I love white mists, clouds
Lingering on blue mountains.

White, no shades
No off white, cream
Pure as snow on shimmering peaks
Is my favorite sight.

Nurses, priests, politicians
Are bound, chained to white
White nebulous clouds
evoke deep nostalgic thoughts.

They swaddled my father in white
As he lay in the black coffin
His best shirt was white
His loin cloth was white.

The paper I write is white
White is holy, pure
They say light is white
Because it combines all colors.

So white is the mother of all colors
The churning of all yellow, blue, green
Colors sacrifice their egos
To the eternal white.

They say they are "white"
The purest of all races
I think they aren't white
But pink, beige and red.

Why can't colors of people
Merge and become white
Would people called "white"
Allow their color to merge?

Is white a color?
The matriarch of all colors
The fountain of all extent colors
Yes, king white reigns supreme!

John Matthew

Unlikely Find in an Urban Park: Part Two

Here is the boat house at the Victoria Park lake. At one time you could rent a canoe or paddle boat by the hour at the dock. Over the past three quarters of a century or more the park has attracted large numbers of people on weekends and evenings. In the winter there used to be skating and the boat house was used for warming up cold fingers and toes or to sit and drink a cup of hot cocoa. But the boats are gone and most recent winters have been too mild for skating.

Groups of people still meet here, many of them recent immigrants to Canada. These men of African origin gather in the evening to play a game on the picnic tables. Near the boat house Mallard ducks approach people on the bank and look for free food scraps. There are signs asking visitors not to feed the birds, but there are always a few who do so regardless.


This is the first male Mallard I have noticed this season with new green head feathers. I used to wonder where all the male ducks went in the summer time until I learned that they lose their bright colours after breeding and do not gain them again until September. I was watching the Mallards as a small boy threw cracker pieces into the water when a smaller duck with an unusual swimming stroke approached.


A male Wood Duck, also coming into his breeding plumage, started scrapping with the Mallards for his share of the food. I have never been close to a Wood Duck and have found them to be very skittish at the swamp. I saw the Wood Duck around the boat house three days in a row on the weekend and it looks as if he has made his home here for now with a group of Mallards.


I hope he stays around until his plumage is fully eclipsed. Right now he hardly stands out in the crowd from a distance. You can bet I will be hanging around the boat house more often in the next few weeks.

Unlikely Find in an Urban Park: Part One

A small park is located in our city centre where a creek is dammed for flood control and also to create a small lake. A couple of islands are in the centre of the lake and three picturesque bridges, perfect for playing Pooh sticks, span the water. One island has no access for the public. When our girls were small we went there every week in the summer for a picnic. They loved the "ducks and geese", the usual Canada geese and Mallard ducks that populate all urban parks and golf courses.

I worked in the city core as a visiting therapist full time for five years and walked the park every day. It is favourite place for children, families, the elderly, for weddings, for people of all types. It is not what I would consider a great birding location though.

In the past few weeks, several juvenile Black-crowned Night Herons have been seen at our local swamp. I have looked in vain for them, standing in mosquito-infested weeds and looking at logs and bushes in the swamp. This would be a life bird for me.


Well, these herons have decided to stop over in the city. Imagine my surprise to see this juvenile standing statue still like a piece of wood at the edge of the water. It was almost invisible. This heron is larger than a Green Heron and smaller than a Great Blue Heron.


I then detected the slight movement of another bird in the brush and snapped some pictures in the general direction. I couldn't see any details until I downloaded the shots at home.

Note the two decorative feathers on the back of the head

There were two adult Night-crowned Black Herons, just as silent and still, in the trees above the juvenile. Is this an exceptional birding year at the park? I think not. The hundreds of common birds detract one's attention from the unusual and silent visitors in the naturalized island's brush. I was happy to see a new bird in an unexpected place and at much closer range than at the swamp. I will be paying closer attention to this area in the future.

Monarch Transformation

One chrysalis, two caterpillars

The four Monarch butterfly caterpillars I brought home last week have done well and one of them changed to the chrysalis form a couple of days ago. Two others assumed the hanging position yesterday afternoon and one smaller one is still eating milkweed leaves.

A couple of years ago, Bev of Burning Silo posted a movie of a caterpillar turning into a chrysalis. I was hoping to see this happen today, Labour Day, as I am not working. The caterpillars appeared to be hanging still, but if you looked at them closely, they were working hard. There were rhythmic contractions of their bodies, not unlike labour contractions of birth.

Brand new chrysalis, still in development

I waited on the deck for about ninety minutes today which was not hard because it is gorgeous out there. All of a sudden, one of the caterpillars straightened out and started vigorously shedding its skin. I was able to catch it on a video recording with my camera. The clip is about five minutes long. About half an hour later the other caterpillar did the same and this time The Becka got to see it. Now I have three beautiful green gems hanging from the screen.

Once again, I hope to see one of them emerge as a butterfly in about two weeks or so.