Walk In The Park

Join us for a Walk In The Park this April... stay tuned for details. Also look at our events page for our first clean up of the year!

Times and attractions of Humber Bay Park

The Friends Of Humber Bay Park Association was formed in 2015 by a dedicated group of people who wanted to ensure the Park was Protected, Preserved and Enhanced.

HISTORY: 

Humber Bay Park, is an expansive parkland & engaging wildlife oasis, created from landfill in 1984 on the northern shores of Lake Ontario in Toronto’s Humber Bay Shores district.  

RED NECKED GREBES:   

Each spring, a few pairs of colourful and beloved Red Necked Grebes migrate from southern climes to Humber Bay Park, making their home and nesting grounds in the Park ponds throughout the breeding season and into the summer months.

 Complex courtship displays begin even before their spring arrival – with loud calls heard from afar, as the Grebes vocalize their distinctive, staccato, mating cackle . They perform ritual mating dances with the pairs facing each other chest to chest, rising partly out of the water while turning their heads from side to side.

Once paired,   both male and female Grebes participate in building a nest of floating water vegetation anchored to standing plants,  or a man-made  platform.                                      

Both sexes incubate eggs to hatching  for 20-23 days.  Both parents feed the young, who often ride on the parents' backs, although the young are able to swim shortly after hatching.                         

                                                         


In the summer of 2015, on an interior pond in Humber Bay Park, a female Red Necked Grebe with a day-old chick on her back was fleeing an attempted capture to remove fishline caught in her beak, when tragically, the hatchling fell from her back and drowned.  

Concerned citizens who witnessed the prolonged and difficult scene then petitioned the city of Toronto to prohibit fishing in the ponds so that the the breeding grounds of the Grebes would be protected.  Irene Jardine, a long-time resident of Humber Bay Shores, later convened a citizen’s meeting to hear the response to that petition from the City officials. 

The request was denied.

Consequently, out of this tragedy, The Friends Of Humber Bay Park Association was formed in 2015, by a dedicated group of people who wanted to ensure the Park was Protected, Preserved and Enhanced.   At the first meeting of this nascent group, the name “Friends of Humber Bay Park” (FOHBP) was selected and became official on September 1, 2015.

The motto of the organization is:  Protect, Preserve, Enhance.  

The Red Necked Grebe was adopted as the symbol of FOHBP at the time of the organization’s founding.

      MISSION STATEMENT :

Protect,  Preserve, and Enhance Humber Bay Park. 

To do this, and as stewards of the park, we will: 

Map and Links to Park Information