Dispatch From Petire #166, January 2026

An afternoon visit on a heavily overcast day with small snow flurries hanging in the air (that later turned into 2-3 cm of snow).  “They” say winter photography is often “sticks and snow”. Today they were right, but some sticks and snow are interesting. Early afternoon is not a good time to find birds or other animals as they rest mid-day. But a few birds put in an appearance towards the end of the long walk.

Turtle Pond was a white void surrounded by trees

The woodies had been working on a long-since dead tree. A pileated woodpecker was calling, but I never saw it.

While I couldn’t hear any snoring, the beaver was busy hibernating in his/her lodge with overhead Manitoba maple trees ready to pop their buds a few weeks after he/her stirs.

The beaver’s annual trimming of some trees had them looking like insects with long feelers (left) or maybe a dog’s head (right) 😊

Once again the carrion-flower berries caught my eye

Buckthorn berries were in abundance

If you look quickly at the bark on a young buckthorn tree, you might possibly think it was a birch

Here I go again with bittersweet berries, but they are really the only thing with colour. The cranberries seemed to be all gone.

It looked like I was the first human down the trail since the last snowfall, but a rabbit had used the pathway as its highway. 

Photographing tracks in the poor light of day is difficult but I hope the tracks show up enough

The tracks on the left are of a tiny mouse who had ventured out. The tracks are perhaps 1-1.5″ wide. On the right, a larger animal had been moving around a grassy outgrowth.

The trail itself had wind blown snow banks in their favourite places. A snowshoer kindly packed the trail for me when I was three quarters of the way to the end. 

The top of a small fern showing above the snow and a stump, 30-40 times larger than the fern, in the snow

The grass in the snow sets one to imagining things. A cranefly walking gingerly on the left, and a preying mantis on the right?

The burdock by Muskrat Bay lasts long into the winter

An aster, bowing under the weight of the snow

A few leaves were feeling the effect of the snow as well

There are still basswood seeds falling from trees. The one on the right also reminded me slightly of a preying mantis.🙄

A large basswood tree branch had fallen off last fall. It is still hosting lots of seeds

With no leaves, the many tentacles of the small vines are in the open. (The one of the right looks like a cat?)

There are a few spots along the trail where chickadees and nuthatches frequently appear. None were around until I was almost at the end of the trail, when a single nuthatch and 3-4 chickadees showed up. While filming the nuthatch the chickadees photobombed me, including one landing on my camera lens.

Near the start of the Basswood Trail, there is an improvised bird feeder. By late afternoon a few chickadees and a female downy woodpecker were enjoying the seeds during heavier snow “flurries”

The Quebec side of the Ottawa River was disappearing into the snow

A few frost flakes/crystals 

Not many people had been using the picnic tables nor the benches overlooking the river