Falaise St Jacques Birder's Blog

      The full moon walk on the Falaise St Jacques was great with a perfectly clear sky.  The bowling alley parking lot though was a wickedly dire place with freezing wind gusts but once we were on the eastern hiking path there was not a trace of wind, very pleasant.  The trail had a dusting of snow, very little ice.         We were four.   Very soon we saw that there was no need of headlamps.  Chris gave us a running description of nearly every feature as we made our way in the moonlight.   Luiza let us know of her interest in astronomical photography and how she would take Jason on long evenings to different telescopes.  Emma and Roger traded stories of winter camping.          We decided at the eastern pavilion not to do the return by the Bande Verte because we found a stiff wind against us.   Instead we returned by the same hiking trail and found a good l...

 Saturday 22 April 2023, about 20-25 volunteers gathered to clean up garbage from under the 5890 St Jacques Rona Hardware store.  As with most Falaise clean ups, they started from the Valley of the Birds near the Rose Bowl then walked  Eastwards along the  Hiking Path.  At first the hillside was clear of garbage as it had been that had been cleaned by many of the same volunteers in years past.  However the area under  Rona hardware was an different,  this section was covered by new garbage.  After scaling the cliff, the volunteers gathered about 20-30 bags of garbage.  In addition the took down bigger items such as 20 sheets of insulation, the usual assortment of metal and pipes, a few tires , a deck umbrella and a chaise-longe.      The bags of garbage were hauled over to the Eastern Access road.  However the large loose items were left by the path.  Another group of volunteers will have to be organized rem...

It was  a beautiful April Spring day in the Woods, and five Falaisians set out to remove new garbage that was dumped over the Winter below Alma Auto.   Heading east from the Valley of the Birds, we replaced a bird feeder that that had fallen near the Growth Art Installation. Soon we were at the new garbage area that had been thoroughly cleaned last fall.     First, we sought the recently discovered special  gem of the Falaise, a massive truck tyre that had been dumped over the winter. ( See the discovery photos 31 March 2022 ) Unfortunately, the tyre ran away from us downhill.  Oh well, we can pick it up along the Bande Verte later.  After that we collected some misc garbage, and about a dozen car tyres along the Eastern Trail as well as lower down near the Bande Verte.  

 I went today on a regular walk in the Falaise, filling up the bird feeders, taking some bird photos, and reporting to eBird. On the way back from the Falaisosaur I picked up some garbage that was left near the Fat Tire and added this to the collection at the Central Access Road. Passing through the Skateboard Park I wasn't sure if we should consider the orange traffic cones as garbage or not.  I decided to leave them for now. Continuing East I took a current photo of the New Hillside Garbage Dump that someone created in Nov 2021.   A more interesting installation, entitled "Growth" is just a little further along the path.  It was done just this past winter. However I was in luck!!!  Immediately above the Growth Art Installation I could see a new work in progress.   Hurrying back uphill to see who was doing this I found the front end loader parked at the new dump site location behind Sean Automotive. I spoke to someone at Sean Automotive, who refuse...