Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Lakeview Park is part of the remediation plans that are being implemented at the site of the former Lakeview Generating Station.  The park as well, as a new community, will replace the generating station which was demolished in 2006-2007.  The new Lakeview Village is expected to be home to as many as 17,000 residents.  The old industrial site is now a brownfield where the soil is full of toxins.  Lakeview Community Partners are using sunflowers to absorb the toxins as they are phytoremediators which store the toxins in their stems and leaves.  Twenty-five pounds of sunflower seeds were planted in five areas covering 71 acres.  These seeds have produced over 1 million sunflowers which have become a major attraction for pollinators and photographers.  To check it out we parked in the free lot at 800 Hydro Road in Mississauga.

Each sunflower can have between 1,000 and 1,400 florets which, if pollinated, can turn into seeds.  That means there could be over 1 billion sunflower seeds in these fields.

The sunflowers are growing in in random rows and other meadow flowers have sprouted up in between them.  Purple asters, as well as the field thistle in the cover photo, are attracting all kinds of butterflies including Painted Ladies.

The Painted Lady on this sunflower shows how the upper wing pattern differs from the under wing pattern seen in the picture above.

This clouded suphur was one of many we saw in the grasses along the edge of the sunflower fields.

There were lots of butterflies and that provides food for the praying mantis who loves to dine on their larvae.  The mantis will eat almost any caterpillar including the toxic larvae of the monarch butterfly.

The monarch butterfly population in this area looked pretty good except that the ones we saw were almost exclusively female.  The male monarch has a set of spots on the hind wing that represent scent sacs used to attract the females.

The common blue damselfly is just one of the varieties of damselflies and dragonflies that abound in the park.  Damselflies can be distinguished from dragonflies in the position of the wings during rest.  The damselfly will fold its wings up while a dragonfly leaves them extended.

Although there is a loss of honey bees in general there was no shortage of bees in the goldenrod in the park.

We walked down to the lakeshore and along the Waterfront Trail for a short distance.  Several swans were swimming in the lake near the mouth of Cooksville Creek and we noted that they had not been tagged.

The Ridgetown can be seen where it is half sunken at the mouth of the Credit River in Port Credit.  The view across the harbour is nowhere near as attractive at the one behind us in the park.

Lakeview village will be developing over the next few years and it will be interesting to see what the final community looks like.  For now, it is alive with insect life.

Google maps link: Lakeview Park

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