A Photo Essay of Toronto in November

Each month I share photos from one of the parks in Toronto to show my readers what our landscape looks like throughout the year. This is the tenth instalment of this series and will be a bit longer than usual.an autumn tree covered in bright yellow leaves

Click on February, MarchAprilMayJune July, August, September, and October to read the earlier posts.

Welcome to November in Toronto! It was between 16 Celsius (60 Fahrenheit) and 20 Celsius (68 Fahrenheit) on my visits this month. Temperatures are traditionally supposed to reach highs of 7 Celsius (45 Fahrenheit) at most now, so these numbers are quite out of the ordinary for us. Climate change is quickly altering our seasonal weather patterns.

This month is generally one of our rainiest ones. Nearly half of the days in the average November are rainy ones here. Sometimes it snows, too, although such early snow melts within a day or two.

The sunshine you’ll see in most of these photos is unusual, too. Our more typically overcast days were also pretty stormy this month, or I would have included examples of them as well.

Landscape photograph of a World War I memorial at an urban park.

It was raining heavily when the leaves were at their peak, but the rain luckily stopped in time for me to get some nice shots of the autumn foliage.

Close-up photo of World War I monument at a park. the monument is on a series of stone steps and surrounded by evergreen bushes.

The evergreen bushes are still looking good. They must not go dormant until December or January. I’ll check back again with them then.

Snapshot of a yellow autumn tree next to a dirt running trail at a park.

The running trail always shows signs of recent rainfall now, but it’s still firm enough to jog or walk on. This particular tree has such a nice rustle of leaves when you pass it. I wish I could stand there all day and listen to it’s melodic little song.

A canopy of autumn leaves still clinging to their trees.

We saw the canopy of leaves thin last month, and that pattern continues this month. There are still green leaves to see if you look closely.

A friendly hole in the trunk of a tree.

Who will nestle up here this winter, I wonder? It looks cozy.

A mostly green autumn tree a reddish yellow autumn tree, and a bare tree.

These are the three faces of November. Some trees are mostly to partially still green. Most trees are at or just past their peak of colour. Some trees have lost most to all of their leaves and are prepared for winter.

Lower half of a person standing in a pile of autumn leaves. Their shoes are totally covered with leaves.

And these are the two legs of November.

It’s a marvellous feeling to walk through so many leaves that you can no longer see your feet. Every step makes delightful crunching noises. I always have to fight the urge to dive into the leaves and do whatever the equivalent to swimming in them might be.

A tree who had lost half of its branches and part of its trunk during a winter storm. It is now covered in autumn leaves.

Our tree friend who lost half of its branches in that storm last winter is quickly shedding leaves.

A photo of a tree that lost a third of its branches in a storm last winter. It's leaves are quickly turning colours and falling off.

As is our tree friend who lost about a third of its branches and has been droopy and strangely damp in its trunk this autumn.

The trunk of this one looks a little less damp now, but I see no other obvious changes in it for better or for worse. May both of these trees do well this winter.

A tree filled with yellow autumn leaves that are glowing in the sunlight as they slowly drop to the ground.

It’s hard to know when to stop sharing photos with you. The landscape is filled with beauty now in every direction you look. This tree looked like it was glowing when I snapped a photo of it.

Trees filled with gorgeous red autumn leaves.

Don’t you want to go run into the centre of the park and twirl around with joy? I sure do.

There’s something remarkable about being surrounded by so many picturesque scenes.

A large, bare autumn tree flanked by trees that still have some leaves attached to them.

As hinted above, November is one of those months that changes rapidly. Some trees are bare while the ones next to them still have some to most of their leaves attached.

A shot of a plaza in a park that is lined by trees who have lost about half of their leaves.

I don’t know about all of you, but I still find beauty in trees that are past their peak autumn colours.

There’s something marvellous about watching autumn leaves dance on the ground when a stiff breeze hits them, too. I tried to film them to share on social media, but they stopped every time I hit the record button on my phone.

Mostly bare autumn tree with three birds nests in it

We’re also just begun to reach the time of year when the trees reveal their secrets.

I hope to share more photos like this next month. It’s fascinating to see where the bird nests were last summer when you couldn’t directly see the nests for yourself.

If we were walking through this park together, I’d stop and show you many nests like these. I think we should admire the birds’ hard work over the summer. The park, and the ecosystem in general, wouldn’t be the same without them. My ears sure appreciate their songs as well.

A cobbled path in a park that is lined by bright yellow trees in their full autumn splendour.

As always, I’ll end this post with the famous bench-lined walkway in the park. Isn’t it beautiful in autumn?

Stay safe, friends. Winter is right around the corner.

6 Comments

Filed under Personal Life

6 Responses to A Photo Essay of Toronto in November

  1. Lydia,

    I love your photos. Please post as many of them as you like.

    I didn’t realize that autumn lingered so long in Toronto. Here, the deciduous trees are bare, but I also like to see the skeletons of the trees in winter. They have a peculiar grace all their own, a quiet drama that comes from the starkness of the limbs against the skies. Winter trees always make me think of the opening to Theodore Roethke’s poem, “I Knew A Woman”:

    I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
    When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
    Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one…*

    Lovely in their bones: that’s what trees are in winter.

    But your trees are still blazes of glory laying down crunching carpets. Your description of walking through the leaves reminds me of my father’s reminiscences of Autumn in New Jersey and walking through drifts of coloured leaves and listening to the swish and crumble his feet made as he plowed his way through.

    Great perspective in the photo of the tree with nests. The nests for which I always look are those of the hummingbirds. I never suspect they’re there in summer. One year, all the trees in the meridian along a well-trafficked corridor turned out to be full of hummingbird nests.I have no idea why the hummers congregated in that long line of trees in the middle of heavy traffic, but they did.

    Thank you for all these bright pictures!

    Ruth

    *https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43331/i-knew-a-woman

    • You’re welcome, Ruth.

      Most of our trees have lost their leaves now, but they do tend to hold onto them for much of this month.

      What do hummingbird nests look like? I can only imagine they’re pretty small. 🙂

      And what a beautiful poem that is.

  2. Such a beautiful area. Our cottonwoods and aspens are beautiful, but they are done by mid-November. The brown leaves on cottonwoods will stay on until Spring. It takes the new buds to dislodge them. Thanks for you kind words today.

  3. Those are absolutely lovely photos!

  4. 16-20 Celsius?? Wow! That’s almost summery. Honestly, if it wasn’t for the colours of the leaves, the photos look like they could have been taken in the summer.

    Fingers crossed the 2 trees survive the winter.

    I especially love the photo of the tree you said looked like it was glowing, sumptuously gorgeous!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *