2019 FOSS Christmas Bird Count in Colonel Sam Smith Park

How it’s done?
See the park map below and Winter Bird Count List for Colonel Sam Smith Park. Print them if you can. Go out in the park on December 26 and look for birds (Boxing Day). Keep track of the time of day you visited the park, all the bird species you saw in the park or on the water as well as how many of each species you found. Send a list along to FOSS so we can add them to the overall Christmas Bird Count. If the weather is poor on the 26th then use the 27th for your count.
Send a photo or two. We will try to place some of the photos on the FOSS website (no faces please).
Send your Bird Count to:
Brian Keaveney, President of FOSS. mastersATsympatico.ca by Dec.31.
You can scan your list and send the scan by email or just include the data in the body of the email. Results will be posted on the FOSS website.
Note: Bring a colour bird book with you to help identify birds or ask another birder that day.
Stay warm.

Brian Keaveney
President FOSS

Click on the image above for a larger pdf version.

April 30, 2019

Volunteers Wanted!

CCFEW is looking for volunteers to help at the Tenth Annual Colonel Samuel Smith Park Bird Festival, on Saturday, May 25!

The actual Bird Festival runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., but volunteers are  needed as early as 8:30 a.m. to help with putting up signs, flags,  setting out tables and chairs for participating groups, and helping  participants unload their items as quickly as possible from their  vehicles.

We could also use volunteers from 10 a.m.- 2 p.m. (or part of this  time)- to help with "Children's activities", and at the end of the  Festival, at 2 p.m., to take down signs and help pack up.

Any help is appreciated- no experience necessary! Please consider  volunteering for an hour or two before the Festival to help make it a  great success again this year. If you can help, please contact Barbara  Keaveney at Barbara.keaveney@sympatico.ca, and let us know when you can come- e.g. 8:00 a.m., 8:30 a.m., or 9:00 a.m.

Hoping to hear from some of you!

February 25, 2019

The Humber Bay Park Master Plan has been published!

You can visit the City’s web page here, or go directly to the report (pdf) here.

We haven’t read all 148 pages yet, but it appears to reflect what we saw at the various public consultations. How will it all roll out? Skip to page 140 to see an outline. The plan has been broken into small, medium, and large scale projects. Some of the small scale projects have already been completed, and some of the medium scale projects have a chance of being implemented in the next few years. The only large scale project that is funded is the building, but it needs to happen concurrently with the rehabilitation of the ponds, which is not currently funded.

Does that mean that nothing will happen? We’ll see. The urgency, or lack thereof, will be a political decision. There should be no shortage of development charges and new tax revenue in the area to draw from.

September 20, 2018

After years of delays, the Sherway Trail is almost complete. The plans were finished in 2009, City council gave its approval in 2016, and this year, construction finally started.

If it had been built on the original schedule, we would have had nearly 10 years of use from the whole trail. As it is, MTO is finally almost ready to start widening the QEW, so we will lose access under the QEW for a while.

Here are some photos of the trail as it looked on September 20, moving from its southern end at the QEW, north to Sherway Drive:

August 28, 2018

NEW CONSERVATION AREA TO BE NAMED IN MEMORY OF JIM TOVEY

The new waterfront conservation area under construction in southeast Mississauga, right beside Marie Curtis Park, will be named in memory of Jim Tovey. He was the driving force behind the creation of this conservation area. His enthusiasm, drive and energy will be missed on both sides of the municipal border. Click here to learn more about Jim and the conservation area that will bear his name.

May 4, 2018

Volunteers Wanted!

CCFEW is looking for volunteers to help at the Ninth Annual Colonel Samuel Smith Park Bird Festival, on Sat., May 26!  The actual Bird Festival runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., but volunteers are needed as early as 8 a.m. or 8:30 a.m. to help with putting up signs, flags, setting out tables and chairs for participating groups, and helping participants unload their items as quickly as possible from their vehicles.

Any help is appreciated- no experience necessary!  Please consider volunteering for an hour or two before the Festival to help make it a great success again this year.  If you can help, please contact Barbara Keaveney at Barbara.keaveney@sympatico.ca, and let us know when you can come- e.g. 8:00 a.m., 8:30 a.m., or 9:00 a.m.

We also can use a couple of people at the end of the Festival, at 2 p.m., to take down signs.

Hoping to hear from some of you!

November 18, 2017

A large portion of Humber Bay Park East is fenced off for shoreline rehabilitation. click on the image below to see a high resolution drawing of the plan for this section of shoreline.

November 6, 2017

The City has embarked on a major project to rejuvenate and redesign of the Humber Bay Parks. The most recent development was a public meeting on October 30th. Although we are generally pleased with most aspects of the plans, we are concerned that the planned building in Humber Bay Park East is still too big, with no clear rationale for all the space it contains.

Click on the image below to see the display panels. More information on the whole project is on the project website.

CCFEW submitted the following comments on the most recent plans:

The building looks great, but it's too big. The economics don't work for putting staff in a small building with two multi-purpose rooms. No one will be able to afford to rent them. I was told that you have people interested, but you need to put a price on them and see if anyone is still interested. It shouldn't be hard to figure out roughly what the rental rate will be. Also, this smacks of a "community centre lite". We need a real community centre, not some halfway measure stuck in the middle of a park. Mimico has needed a community centre for years, and the rapidly increasing population in the Humber Bay area is exacerbating the deficiency. The key thing we hear over and over is the desire for year round public washrooms. We don’t see a compelling reason to build more than that. Without a sound business case for the inclusion of the multi-purpose rooms, they risk turning the whole building into a “white elephant”€�.

It struck me that such a (potentially) beautiful building would be an ideal place to have a small display highlighting some cultural or natural history aspect of the area. If there was buy-in from the City and/or TRCA to manage rotating displays, it might be quite effective, but it would require about as much space as is currently dedicated to the lobby.

Integration of the building into the existing berm and using the roof as a lookout platform are both good ideas. Having a place to shelter from inclement weather would be a valuable feature, but enclosing it creates a host of security and maintenance concerns.

CCFEW supports the suggestion of the Friends of Humber Bay Parks (FOHBP) to include some limited, externally accessible storage space for volunteer community groups actively working to enhance the park through stewardship, education or animation.

We haven’t seen a breakdown of paved area versus parking spaces created, but the parking configuration illustrated in panel 4B doesn’t look as efficient or functional as the one proposed in the master plan presentation last year.

A final observation is that the presentation materials from the October 30th meeting are not easy to find. If one navigates to the main page at http://www.toronto.ca/humberbayparks, it still (on November 6th) lists:

Upcoming Meetings

Humber Bay Park East - Architectural Project: Public Information Meeting

• Date: Monday, October 30th, 2017
• Time:
• 3:30 to 5:30p.m. (open house)
• 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. (open house)
• Location: Mimico Centennial - Public Library 47 Station Road, Lower Floor Auditorium

Based on that, it would be a reasonable assumption that the display panels, etc. are not yet available. There is no clear or intuitive path to the page with the presentation material from that meeting. This has almost certainly reduced public feedback.

February 1, 2017

Park Lawn / Lake Shore Area Transportation Master Plan

The City has embarked on a transportation study of the Lake Shore Blvd and Park Lawn area. This is a subject of great interest to everyone who lives near or travels through that area regularly. For CCFEW, or primary interest is ensuring that there is no further encroachment of transportation infrastructure into our parks. A few years ago, the plans for this area had the Mimico Loop relocating into Humber Bay Park East. The loop may be moved, but putting it in the park now appears much less likely.

Public meetings were held last year. All of the display panels, maps, and comment summaries are available on the project website.