Dispatches from Petrie Island

If you'd care to put down a few words about your experiences at Petrie Island, in English or in French, don't hesitate to send them here and they may be included in a future dispatch, as appropriate. We are always glad to hear about people's experiences at Petrie Island.

Si vous voulez écrire quelques mots à propos de vos expériences aux îles Petrie, en anglais ou en français, n'hésitez pas à les adresser ici, et cela fera peut-être partie d'un parution future. Nous sommes toujours heureux de connaître vos expériences des îles Petrie.

24 April 2008 (Paul Le Fort)

A Fine Day at Petrie Island - To be specific, April 24 2008

It’s a beautiful spring day, and the shrinking expanses of clean beach at Petrie Island are the domain of a dozen bewildered (don’t ask how we know) and likely homeless muskrats, along with a dozen Canada geese, who patrol the access road and the vicinity of the municipal storage shed. The beavers have had unlimited swimming access, and it shows.

Birds are everywhere, but appear to be in smaller numbers given the lack of solid ground to forage. Some scurry along the floating rafts of reeds and branches, finding nesting material and neat stuff for a bird.

What is everywhere, is water, water. And not a drop to drink.

 Today, Al “Swamp Rat” Tweddle and Paul “Ocean” Le Fort set out to explore the depths (pun intended) of the Ottawa River’s invasion.The Chairman chose his trusty kayak as transportation, a vessel only a few centimeters longer than he is. The Secretary, ever prudent, chose to park the Subaru at the water’s edge and walk in with waders. Let’s get one thing out of the way first: waders will get a person no further than about 100 meters short of the curve on the road, due to the depth of water, current and water temperature, and the fact that the road surface at that point is a little soft. Two kind fishermen graciously provided the Secretary with a boat ride to the beach and brought him back later.  Photos were taken for posterity, and just for fun.

 Meanwhile, avoiding the narrows where the 6,400 cubic-meter-per-second Ottawa creates visible excitement, the Chair paddled around to the Interpretive Center and cottage area, ascertaining that no serious damage was done. At one point, atempts to paddle through floatin debris resulted in Al showering himself with dripping weeds as he lifted the paddle, making him look like the Brown Navy camouflaged platoons of the Indochina war.

The Chair entered the cottage and found nothing unusual there (no fish..).  Outside, the easternmost Turtle Trail bench is damaged, others upright for now. It appears that the clever vertical tubing system put in place to allow the Amphibian Pond bridge to rise to the occasion has been working.  The Bill Holland gate structures seem intact and level as well.  The FOPI fleet is untouched and not in danger of moving up the side of Ararat, while the new shed, though moated, remains dry. The threat, of course, is that a strong northeaster would bring large waves (and possibly debris) to bear on the front verandah of the Interpretive Center, now awash. The paddlers’ launch dock has been moved north about 20 meters from its winter storage site and is stuck between the trees.

The permanent human residents have fled upland, leaving their house to sump pumps, with water lapping centimeters below the foundation, truck parked in driveway, wet tires glistening.

It is possible at this time to drive a large pickup or SUV as far as the marina property, and the owners have been doing so. Going further would be foolish without a serious offroad vehicle. 

So the Island rests, takes a cool bath, and awaits the return of its best Friends.

Al and I will go on another tour next week, using two kayaks this time, and will report further. Volunteers with canoes, kayaks and other floating things are welcome. No air mattresses, please.

9 September 2007 (David Villeneuve)

This summer the water quality at Petrie Beach was markedly improved over the previous year.  In 2007, the beach was closed for only 6 days, compared with 45 days in 2006.  In comparison, Westboro beach was closed 22 times in 2007.

It seems that 2006 was an anomaly, as Petrie's water quality was better in the years before and after.  See our statistics here.  Some suspect that illegal dumping of sewage was responsible.

1 September 2007 (Richard Burnford)

Photos of the newest member of FOPI are attached. Arrived at about 10am Saturday, 1 September, 2007. Weight - unknown, probably less than 1 ounce. Size- about the size of a loonie. Welcomed into this world by at least seven brothers and sisters, not counting those that had already completed the 300 foot trip to the beach or ended up as a gull's breakfast. Last seen - swimming towards the middle of the Ottawa River. Unlikely to be back in time for FOPI's 10th anniversary in September, but may be back in town for the 20th. Will probably be big enough to eat the hat when next seen.

4 August 2007 (Bill Bower)

July was a pretty good month for finding butterflies around Petrie Island. At least it was for me anyway.

Our current list of butterfly species at Petrie Island shows a total of twenty-two. By comparison, the list of butterfly species for the Ottawa District (50 km radius centered on the Peace Tower) shows just over one hundred (103 as of 2006) and the list for the Fletcher Wildlife Garden tops out at thirty-eight.

I'm no expert so if I can find six or eight in a day I'm doing well. The most common sightings at Petrie Island this July seemed to be the Monarch (everyone's favourite), Eastern Comma, Mourning Cloak, Red Admiral and Eyed Brown. You don't have to look very hard to find a couple others on your travels around the islands. Some smaller ones like the Summer Azure we tend to overlook.

So what are the chances of finding a butterfly that could be considered a rare sighting for the Ottawa District? Not good you're probably thinking. I would tend to agree except that I did find one such butterfly in early July, and before the month had ended I had found no less than twelve of them.

This butterfly is called the Hackberry Emperor and the first confirmed record for the Ottawa District was back in July of 2006. I certainly never saw any in my travels (that I know of). This is a very beautiful butterfly and a member of the Brushfooted Butterfly Family. Males are about 1.8 inches and females go up to 2.1 inches. You guessed it, the eggs are laid on and the larvae feed on hackberry trees. And yes, Petrie Island has quite a number of mature and juvenile hackberry trees.

I found the first one on July 3rd. and not being certain of what I had photographed I sent some shots to Christine Hanrahan and to Ross Layberry to be identified. They both came back positive with encouraging comments so now I was hooked. Were there others around the islands or was this just a lucky encounter? Over the next three weeks I made another six trips down and found at least one Hackberry Emperor on each outing. There were three locations where I recorded sightings and all were along the north side of the Bill Holland Trail and mostly at the far end near the covered bench.

I soon learned that these butterflies are extremely fast and very erratic flyers. I lost more than one when my eyes simply couldn't follow the butterfly in the air to see where it landed. When I did find one that had landed (usually quite high up) it could sit for an hour or more and not move. My patience only paid off once when one of these flew down out of a maple tree and landed on some bladder campion plants.

Using the correct bait in a good location was the key. I soon learned that ripe bananas work quite well while old grapes were great for attracting the local chipmunks who then promptly stole them. Old fruit soon ferments in the hot sun and gives off an inviting scent. After the "mash" reaches that point, most anything that can be called an insect will likely show up.

My best day was on Saturday, July 21st. I must have had just the right banana. I was going to say the right ripe banana but rotten banana would be more like it. A half dozen butterfly species showed up in the heat including a nice Hackberry Emperor. I photographed butterflies from all possible angles over the next hour or so. With the heat rising quickly and having no banana of my own, I headed out. But, I ran into three enthusiastic looking "butterfly people", complete with nets, looking for the elusive Hackberry Emperor. Someone (Ross Layberry) had passed on word to them of the early July sightings by someone named Bill Bower. The three were Christina Lewis, Bob Bracken and Mike Tate. I introduced myself and back out the trail we headed. They were optimistic for sure but I could see no chance at all of finding another Hackberry Emperor. I tried to distract them by pointing out and talking about the turtles of Petrie Island but they would have none of it. So it was off to the "banana tree" to see what had flown in since I had left the area. A quick check of the "herd" with field glasses revealed a few Eastern Commas and Question Marks, a Mourning Cloak, a Red Admiral and one beautiful looking Hackberry Emperor butterfly. That brought smiles to everyone's face, especially mine. Someone that knows a great deal about butterflies (actually all three of them do) had now seen a Hackberry Emperor at Petrie Island. The moment was captured on film (make that a compactflash card) and when we decided to leave some thirty minutes later that particular butterfly was still there. I could later confirm that it was a different specimen than the one I had photographed earlier in the day on the same log.

Incidentally, my sightings were all made between 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. on very warm days, which doesn't mean anything except that I was, by then, hot and tired and figured it was time to leave the islands to the swimmers and sunbathers.

The question now is - Do we have a viable colony of Hackberry Emperor butterflies living on Petrie Island? I guess it will be up to the experts to decide how many sightings over how many years it takes to confirm that a colony does exist. For my part, I had a great experience this summer, learned a lot more than I knew previously about butterflies and can't wait for next July to see if I can find and photograph more of these interesting butterflies at Petrie Island.

I guess we can add one more species to the listing in our Handbook and I think it is fair to say that our list will grow even further as other interested people travel the islands and report on their butterfly sightings. Adding another ten species is probably not out of the question. I'll be looking for sure.

23 April 2007 (Al Tweddle)

What a difference a week makes: last week there was 6" of snow and the parking lots were empty. On Sunday, there were 102 cars and people were out in shorts, one person even went in the water. Over 20 turtles were out along the shore line on Turtle Bay, a couple of Muskrats were also feeding along the shoreline. The Maple trees are blooming and the Bill Holland trail has been open and in use since Wednesday last week. The construction along the road has limited access in spots, the pipes for the water and sewers are being installed.

Our annual spring clean up day to clear away twigs, and other debris will be held Sat., May 12 from 9 - 12 noon. Extra rakes and gloves, if possible, should be brought, we have garbage bags and some equipment. Please come if you can.

9 February 2007 (Bill Bower)

Talk about having the place to yourself. I was down at 9:30 and headed out to check the thirteen Wood Duck nesting boxes located around the islands. I made sure I had my hot coffee and hand warmers with me. The temperature inside the "hilton" was -15 degrees when I stopped in to pick up the extension ladder. The high winds outside made it feel much colder and there was blowing snow coming in off the river.

Checking the boxes is always interesting and this year was no exception. The overall results were very good with eleven of the thirteen boxes having been used by Wood Ducks (spring 2006). A total of 163 eggs were laid and of those 90 hatched. A number of nests were abandoned and you are never quite sure of the reason(s) for this loss. It could be that the female was killed somewhere or juvenile females that didn't stick around until the eggs hatched. Two of the successful nests were actually on top of starling nests, which is always good to see. The starlings start nesting first and then the ducks arrive. Sometimes the ducks get discouraged, when faced with a an ever enlarging starling nest, and leave, and sometimes they are persistent and win out, as appears to be the case this past year.

I wasn't totally alone during my four hour hike. I had a visit from a female Northern Shrike as I was checking one box. She landed on a limb very close to me. On two other occasions while I was checking the boxes towards the west, she arrived but stayed further away. Not sure what it was that attracted her.

Squirrels also like the boxes but usually don't start to move into the boxes until the fall months. One box was occupied by a red squirrel. The box hadn't been used by a Wood Duck so I put in more shavings on top of the nest. An old squirrel nest won't stop the ducks from nesting in a few months. Another box had a large squirrel nest in it, complete with two black squirrels. I had to clean this box out as there were rotten duck eggs on the bottom. I put in extra shavings in case the squirrels returned. They did, but weren't happy with shavings only. As I left they were busy gathering up "their" nesting material on the ground and returning it to the nest box.

Surprisingly, I hit slush in a number of places which made the going more difficult. I was wondering why the toboggan was getting heavier but then realized it was covered in slush, which , by then, was frozen solid and I couldn't remove it.

The only other bird activity was a flock of Snow Buntings.

When I finally got back to the "hilton" it was well past lunch time. Inside it was now a balmy -5 degrees. I took off my coat, got out my hot coffee, frozen sandwich, pulled up the smaller bench and ate, in comfort, at the recently constructed "work bench". All I needed was a mattress and a sleeping bag and I could easily have fallen asleep. Outside the wind was howling as more snow was blowing in off the river.

All in all, an enjoyable outing. Nothing got wet, frozen or broken. Tired, maybe.