Long Point, Lake Erie. In summer, this stretch of beach is crowded with hundreds of sun seekers, but in mid winter it looks more like unexplored arctic coastline.
Photo: Mark Conboy
As ice begins to coat even the wavy waters of the Great Lakes, most waterfowl migrate away, but wherever there is even a little open water, there is sure to be some hardy stragglers, like this Redhead (Aythya americana).
Photo: Mark Conboy
Broad-leaved Cattails (Typha latifolia) after an eastern Ontario ice storm. Ice storms are a fact of life in southern Canada. They make for dangerous driving conditions and often lead to extensive blackouts, but they also transform nature into something unspeakably beautiful.
Photo: Mark Conboy
Sharp-tailed Grouse (Tympanuchus phasianellus) forage in a shallow coulee towards the end of a frigid day in southern Saskatchewan.
Photo: Mark Conboy
Saskatchewan's Grassland's National Park has a herd of free roaming Plains Bison (Bison bison bison). These massive bovids endure near ceaseless wind and extreme cold all winter long.
Photo: Mark Conboy
Normally a crepuscular hunter, this Short-eared Owl (Asio flammeus) was hunting Meadow Voles (Microtus pennsylvanicus) in broad daylight. Perhaps it was driven to hunt during the day by hunger, a constant fact of life for most wildlife that stays active during a Canadian winter.
Photo: Mark Conboy
A January Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus) sunrise. Spending the night sleeping outside in winter is an acquired taste (and requires acquiring a certain skill set too), but it means you almost never miss a sunrise. There's no sight more pleasant than the rising sun after a long night of restless sleep in the deep freeze. But, as any winter camper will tell you, often the coldest part of the night is the hour right around sunrise. That's because the sun takes a while to heat the air and bring the temperature up. The sun is a welcome sight, but its warmth can be a long time coming.
Photo: Mark Conboy
A glacial erratic at rest on the algid shore of Amherst Island, Lake Ontario.
Photo: Mark Conboy
Periodic irruptions of Great Grey Owls (Strix nebulosa) into southern Canada offer the potential for turning a sometimes dismal season into something far more spectacular. Sometimes though, certain owls are repeatedly visited and even harassed by photographers, especially birds who set up winter quarters in or close to urban centres. Irruptions that bring owls south is a nice treat, but the real pleasure in finding a Great Grey Owl takes place deep in the wilderness of the boreal or montane forests, such as with this bird, which was photographed in northern Alberta.
Photo: Mark Conboy
Lichens provide winter-wary naturalists with a source of study, when most other organism are dead, absent or in hibernation.
Photo: Mark Conboy
Bohemian Waxwings (Bombycilla garrulus) are a fixture of prairie cities in winter, where upon leaving their boreal nesting grounds, they indulge in the often generous bounty of mountain-ash and other planted fruit trees found in cities. When I was a urbanite in Calgary, Alberta, my neighbourhood supported enormous flocks of waxwings, sometimes numbering in the thousands.
Photo: Mark Conboy
Ice. Living right on the Great Lakes means that fascinating ice formations are always present in winter. They never last long though; these petrified works of art are as ephemeral as anything in nature, forming and melting sometimes within the course of hours.
Photo: Mark Conboy
After an hour or so of following tracks through wonderfully deep snow, I was rewarded with a small flock of White-tailed Ptarmigan (Lagopus leucura) above Bow Summit in Banff National Park. Somehow ptarmigan had eluded me for the entire preceding summer, even though I transversed a few hundred kilometers of mountain terrain.
Photo: Mark Conboy
Forest Shadows in the mixed forests of the Frontenac Arch, one of Canada's most biologically rich regions.
Photo: Mark Conboy
Except for when they vocalize in late winter and early spring, Boreal Owls (Aegolius funereus) can be difficult to find. In some years boreals move into southern Canada, but in most years, this species remains in the boreal forest, eking out a living in the deep snow and suffocating cold.
Photo: Mark Conboy
A rare massive dump of snow in California's Mojave Desert.
Photo: Mark Conboy
Mudpuppies (Necturus maculosus) are the only amphibians that remain active in Ontario's winter. Indeed, they are at their most active during the coldest months, foraging on sluggish and sleepy prey such as aquatic insects and frogs.
Photo: Philina English
Facing the Pacific Ocean head on, Vancouver Island's west coast is renowned for its tremendous winter storms, which thrash and seethe along forested shores, like this one near Ucluelet.
Photo: Mark Conboy
British Columbia's temperate rainforests are world famous. But at higher elevations those forests might best be called snow forests. In the Coast Mountains, tremendous amounts of snow fall in most winters, with accumulations sometimes exceeding five metres, and the snow remaining on the ground into summer.
Photo: Mark Conboy
Snowy Owl (Bubo scandiacus), as true a winter bird as any other.
Photo: Mark Conboy
A gnarled and sagely Arbutus (Arbutus menziesii) stands up to an uncommon snowstorm on southern Vancouver Island.
Photo: Philina English
Frost-clothed greenery.
Photo: Mark Conboy
Western Red Cedars and Sitka Spruces become Christmas trees.
Photo: Mark Conboy
Grey Wolves (Canis lupus) can still be found in decent numbers throughout the boreal forest, where packs hunt Moose (Alces alces), Caribou (Rangifer tarandus) and Wood Bison (Bison bison athabascae), utilizing their superior endurance in deep snow to exhaust their enormous prey before closing in for the final kill.
Photo: Mark Conboy
A Northern Pitcher-Plant (Sarracenia purpurea) decorated with the winter's first frost.
Photo: Philina English
After a desperate night's sleep along the coast of Pukaskwa National Park, the day breaks bright and clear, but still senselessly cold.
Photo: Mark Conboy
