Dispatch From Petrie #165, December 2025

Fortunately the forecast low of -20°C  was a few degrees off, but it was still “cool” enough when I arrived at Petrie before sunrise.

The landscape picks up the rosy colour of the light as sunrise approaches. Thirty  0r s0 minutes later an interesting shaped wavy cloud appeared below a jet trail.

Until the sun got up high enough to spread its warmth, there was lots of frost on the vegetation

And if you find a hole that extends down below the frost line, frosty feathers gather on the vegetation from the rising warm moist air.

The Ottawa River seems well iced-over, although looking west, there seemed to be mist above open water on the Quebec side

Muskrat Bay and the snow covered grounds around it were littered with basswood seeds. The seeds on the ice are wasted, but the many seeds on the ground will likely produce a few new trees

Some of the individual leaf/seed combos were dangling frost covered, others seemingly danced on the top of the snow, or were 90% snow covered

A few seeds were leftover in a “snowbowl” someone had provided earlier. The chickadees and one nuthatch were helping themselves.

The nuthatch posed momentarily while the chickadee, giving me a stern stare, seemed upset that I had no seeds to add to the collection.

A pileated woodpecker had been flying around and calling for much of the morning, but I never saw it land. I settled for a hairy woodpecker. 

A hairy woodpecker is slightly larger than a downy woodpecker (but it is hard to judge without one of each perched side by side). The give-away for the hairy is the bill is proportionately much larger than that of the downy

I know I have talked about the beaver “chewings” before, but they seem to stand out more in the fresh snow

An unidentified plant, an aster caught in seed stage, grass, and fern seed stems. All stick out above the snow

The low rising sun, casts long shadows on the snow

A wind “channel” along the shore of Muskrat Bay

“Old” and fresh coyote tracks  were along the river’s edge at the end of the Bill Holland Trail

The coyote seemed to be testing the snow in a few spots as there were paw prints on top of the snow next to the where it stepped into the snow

I mentioned the vines last month. It had me looking for more this visit

The trail looks much once welcoming once the sun is well up

Carrion-flower berries before the sun rose and after

The bittersweet berries add colour to an otherwise not so colourful landscape

As do the less numerous high bush cranberries. I am not sure what the backstory to the right hand photo is. It seems some animal/bird, gathered a number of high bush cranberries for a feast

Despite the plentiful tracks, only one (shy) red squirrel made an appearance

The benches are not getting much use….

I walk by this bush/tree every time I am at Petrie, but I never really stopped to look at it. It looks like a large branch broke off (but still attached) and lodged itself in the water 8 feet from the tree trunk. Now a whole bunch of small branches are growing out of the middle of the branch

Open water flowed past the culvert. Ice fishermen were out on the main river ice. The “real” fishing huts are out of sight from Tweddle Road