The Leslie Street Spit is North America’s most remarkable public urban wilderness. It is a 5-kilometre long peninsula, built by lakefilling, that juts into Lake Ontario close to downtown Toronto. Started well over 40 years ago, it was intended to be a breakwater for harbour expansion, which was not needed due to a decrease in lake shipping. Now, the Spit – as it is lovingly called by the people of Toronto – has been transformed by nature into an extraordinary wildlife reserve, where humans can find a car-free refuge from the hustle and bustle of the city and enjoy a quiet time amid unmanicured vegetation.
Plants (Plant Checklist)
Close to 400 plant species have been identified on the Spit, many of which are nationally and provincially rare. They include Prickly Pear Cactus, Ladies’ Tresses, Bog Twayblade, Asters, and numerous species of grasses.
Plant Communities of the Leslie Street Spit: A Beginners Guide (Click here)
Published in 1992 as a joint effort of Friends of the Spit and the Botany Conservation Group, Department of Botany, University of Toronto, this book, authored by Verna J. Higgins, Susan Denzel, and Nancy Fazari, established Friends of the Spit as a steward of the Public Urban Wilderness known as The Spit. We have included it with these checklists as so much of the book is still relevant and valuable. In addition, it documents what is now a historical record of the plant communities of the Leslie Street Spit. Enjoy!
Birds (Bird Checklist)
As of January 2024, 333 bird species have been sighted at The Spit. The linked 2024 Checklist has been prepared by Friends of the Spit and reflects this current total.
One further species, seen in 2022- Townsend’s Warbler – has now been reviewed and accepted by the Ontario Bird Records Committee. The Spit total is now 334.
Bird Checklist with Seasonal Abundance Codes (Bird Checklist)
A checklist with seasonal abundance codes has now been published by the TRCA. This checklist was prepared by five volunteers, with three TRCA staff. Two of the five were Friends of the Spit members, another two were volunteer naturalists, while the fifth was a TRCA staff member. The checklist relies on earlier Friends’ checklists and TRCA lists, plus the added information of the park volunteers’ work.
Reptiles and Amphibians
Many kinds of herpetiles reside on the Spit. They include the Melanistic (black) Garter Snake, a rare mutation of the common garter snake, turtles and several species of frogs.
Mammals (Mammals Checklist)
As of 2024, 22 species of mammals have been observed on The Spit and Baselands. The annotated checklist is attached.
Butterflies (Butterfly Checklist)
The Spit is a terrific place to view butterflies in season. Over fifty species have been spotted on The Spit and Baselands alone. From the very common cabbage white, orange sulphur, and clouded sulphur through to very rare species, a late spring, summer, or early fall day will reward an observer with many sightings. In particular, in late August and early September, the Spit is used as a staging area for thousands of Monarch butterflies. Depending on the year and the weather conditions, these Monarchs mass through the low shrubbery on the Spit, turning trees into brightly decorated plantings!
Some of the rarer sightings on the Spit have been Wild Indigo Duskywing, Sachem, Pipevine Swallowtail, Orange-barred Sulphur, Checkered White, Little Yellow, Harvester, White M Hairstreak and Variegated Fritillary.
Most recently (September, 2021) the European Common Blue butterfly was located and photographed. This European butterfly became established in Quebec, near the Mirabel airport, in the mid-2000’s, and has expanded its range ever since, taking a large jump to Vaughan in 2018. From there, it has rapidly colonized south into Toronto. Look for it whenever you see birdsfoot trefoil.
All exceptional sightings should be reported to the Conservation Authority, or to Friends of the Spit through this website.
Odonata Checklist for the Leslie Street Spit (Odonata Checklist)
Fossil records for the insect order Odonata extend all the way back to the Permian Period, about 250 million years ago, or well before the appearance of the dinosaurs. In geological terms, Toronto’s Leslie Street Spit is still in its infancy, since it only began to take shape in the 1950s as a municipal landfill and breakwater. It’s partly this juxtaposition of an ancient life form with a habitat created just yesterday that makes the pursuit of dragonflies on The Spit such a fascinating pastime.
Dragonflies, and their smaller cousins the damselflies, are aquatic insects. They lay their eggs either directly into the water or in vegetation, such as reeds or rotting wood, that stands in water. Since it is surrounded on three sides by Lake Ontario and contains several ponds of varying size and depth, The Spit is an aquatic habitat par excellence. For more than 50 years, it has served as one of the most attractive refuges along the Toronto lakeshore for certain species of dragonflies and damselflies.
The question has always been: What species, exactly? Although checklists have long been available for the birds, butterflies, and plants of The Spit, until now there hasn’t been anything similar for the odonata. The very fact that it’s taken so long to produce this list might prompt one to question its usefulness. What can the enquiring naturalist hope to learn by examining it?
First, the list contains a quite respectable total of 40 species. This suggests that on any given day during the season, the dragonfly enthusiast who visits The Spit can hope to see an impressive variety of species. Second, even the quickest glance at the list will reveal what species one is not likely to find there. Although The Spit is a reliable source of damselflies in general and of the specific types of dragonflies known as darners and skimmers, it’s probably not the best place to go if you’re looking for clubtails, spiketails, cruisers, or emeralds.
This checklist, then, is meant to serve primarily as a reference point. Not only will it tell you what species to expect on The Spit, it will also let you know if you’ve found something new or unusual. In this respect, it’s worth noting that the species total listed here will probably expand significantly over the next several years. For one, a number of species that have not been recorded on The Spit, including Powdered Dancer and Northern Spreadwing, have been photographed right next door, at Ashbridges Bay. Also, thanks to the inexorable advance of global warming, we will undoubtedly start to see more southern migrants like the rare Striped Saddlebags that appeared on The Spit in the autumn of 2021.
We sincerely hope that in addition to its status as a reference point, the checklist will also serve as a springboard to encourage more of the amateur naturalists who frequent The Spit to take up dragonflying (for want of a better word) and to report their sightings on that highly useful platform known as iNaturalist. Not only will this help to increase our knowledge of these fascinating insects, but it will also intensify the pleasure that people take in exploring The Spit. As anyone knows who has focussed their binoculars on the iridescent wings of a Painted Skimmer or on the impossibly long, green-ringed abdomen of a Swamp Darner, there are few wildlife discoveries more gratifying than the sight of a dragonfly at rest in the sun of a summer’s day.