Winter Wildlife Detectives

December 31, 2025

Perfect end to 2025 this morning – joining the Winter Wildlife Detectives walk at Presqu’ile Provincial Park!

Park Naturalist Kristen led our group of intrepid explorers to find sign of all kinds in the woods of Presqu’ile. Y’all know I love my tracks and signs walks! 🐾 While I’m a pretty good sleuth when I’m flying solo, it’s always great to get outside with more eyes and ears and noses(!), more thinkers and imaginers and scientific inquirers.

Tracking is a beautiful medley of science and art and storytelling, and it’s a skill you can practice anywhere! But if you have the chance, Presqu’ile is a wonderful place to explore. If the cost of a day pass is not within your budget right now, check with your local library. Quinte West residents can borrow a park pass for a week for free from the library 👍

(As a household, Neil and I choose one big treat each year as our holiday present, and this year we chose 🥁 an Ontario Parks Pass! 🎉)

The tracks pictured here are fisher (❤️) tracks we spotted this morning. I’ve enhanced them a little here to make them pop, but even in person these might be the clearest fisher tracks I’ve found yet! Even in these clear tracks, it’s hard-to-impossible to see the small 5th toe on the inside of the foot. Sneaky toeses…

This morning’s walk yielded sign of fishers, long-tailed weasel, turkeys, deer, squirrels, mice and more. A bold flock of chickadees and nuthatches kept us company, and hairy woodpeckers kept the beat. Can’t think of a finer way to appreciate everything beautiful about the world as one year winds down, and another spins to life.

More tracking coming soon! Presqu’ile has more free winter activities on their docket. And I’ll be leading a tracking walk for @willowbeachfieldnaturalists in mid-January, with even more tracking and sleuthing coming with @northumberlandlandtrust in the new year! Team Winter Is Awesome… Assemble! ❄️

Happy New Year folks! See you in 2026 💚