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Published Nov 07, 2025 • 3 minute read
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Toronto’s Birds is an attractive and informative addition to any bird watcher’s collection.Article content
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A new coffee table-style book offers an up-close-and-personal guide to the GTA’s feathered population
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With the GTA’s wide variety of natural habitats – fertile glaciated soil; marshes, fields and woodlands; built-up areas greened by trees, parks and backyard gardens – our region forms one of the country’s most productive biologic zones.
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It also lies directly south of the vast Boreal forests of the north and the Hudson Bay lowlands, putting it directly in the path of major migratory flyways.
Add to that our shoreline and the Toronto islands, which provide a natural stopover for migrant birds before continuing their journey, and you have prime territory for bird life.
In fact, the GTA, along with Point Pelee and the Ottawa Valley, are world-renowned as rich and fertile bird and wildlife habitats. Over 400 different species of birds have been identified in the GTA alone, more than 200 of which are known to live and breed here.
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“Toronto’s Birds” (Lorimer, $35) is a new coffee table-style book that’s aimed at everyone from experienced birders to those who just want to identify the birds they see every day at the bird feeder or on an evening walk.
Author-photographers Mark Peck, Nancy Barrett and Jean Iron are longtime members of the Toronto Ornithological Club, ornithological experts (Peck is the former Collections Specialist in Ornithology at the ROM), and lifelong birders and nature photographers.
The book offers clear and beautifully photographed portraits of more than 100 local birds, taken where they are most commonly found: a yellow warbler swaying on a forsythia branch; a wood duck cruising in a pond; a heron ascending elegantly into a clear blue sky.
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A short paragraph accompanying each species offers useful information about the subject and sometimes tips on identifying them.
Though you could use it to identify unfamiliar species, “Toronto’s Birds” is not primarily intended as a comprehensive field guide. For that, pick up a copy of Roger Tory Petersen’s classic, or download an app like Merlin or iBird.
Instead, the photos and short accompanying texts offer an illustrated showcase of the many familiar and not-so-familiar birds that are around us every day.
The book is divided into six chapters, reflecting the habitat in which its feathered subjects are most likely to be seen: The Neighbourhood; Ravines and Parks; The Outskirts; Wetlands; The Shoreline; and The Lake.
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Each of the pictures is also labelled with the exact location where it was taken, in the process pointing out just how varied and fruitful our area is. (For example, I didn’t know that the cuckoo, more commonly associated with the mid- to southern U.S., has been seen up here – but here’s a picture of it in mid-town Sunnybrook Park.)
Apart from the pleasure of leafing through the pages for their own sake, “Toronto’s Birds” is especially rewarding when you’ve tentatively identified a certain bird and want to verify your guess; the photos present their subjects clearly and close-up, without fuss or gimmickry.
It instantly shows you the difference between a horned grebe and a red-necked grebe, for example. And the bird you saw at Ontario Place, that looks like a Canada goose but with an unusually short neck? It’s actually a separate species known as a cackling goose.
Whether you want to identify the birds that frequent your backyard feeder or spotted on hikes, or simply want to learn more about the wealth of natural riches on the wing in Canada’s largest city and its surroundings, “Toronto’s Birds” is an attractive and informative addition to your collection.
Please feel free to write in with questions, to comment or to share your own city gardening
adventures with Martha. Write to her at marthasgarden07@gmail.com.
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