Welcome to the Valley of Birds in the Falaise St Jacques


 

  Hello, my name is Malcolm McRae and I mange this blog.  During the Covid-19 pandemic, like many other people, I took up bird watching, spending much of my time at the Falaise St Jacques in Montreal.  This eco-territory in Montreal has for decades been ignored by the city, fenced off and allowed to deteriorate by the dumping of tires and garbage upon it.  Due to the efforts led by Lisa Mintz of Sauvons la Falaise it has started to recover.  Walking paths going the length of the Falaise have been cut by volunteers, interesting art sculpture has started to appear and bird feeders placed in what we now call the Valley of Birds.  This website devoted to what is happening for the birds in the Valley and along the Falaise in general.

  I have been stopping by the Valley of Birds every few days to fill up the feeders, take some photographs of the birds and just to get outside. The photographs are organized into a spreadsheet that is open for anyone to view.  It can be seen here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15oVtFxXjbagb8RUVguGfbJUPbjeoZOMBi6pTUbp7ZFM/edit#gid=0


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

22 April 2023 Falaise St Jacques Garbage Picking under the Rona Hardware

Image
 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...
Read more

Alma Auto Tyre Collection

Image
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.  
Read more

Action Shots of Snow / Garbage dumping at Sean Automotive into the Falaise

Image
 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...
Read more