Dyke Marsh’s Winter Beauty

On January 5 and 6, 2025, Dyke Marsh was blanketed with six to eight inches of snow and became a shimmering, icy landscape riddled with varying shades of white, blue and gray.

The browns of winter’s cattails and other wetland plants offered sharp contrasts with the wetland’s white expanse.  

With temperatures below freezing, ice was all around, but life, some unseen to the human eye, persisted. Some wildlife, like frogs and turtles, had slowed their metabolism and burrowed into the mud in a state of dormancy for the winter. Waterfowl sought ice-free patches. Beavers, animals that never truly hibernate, retreated to their lodges.

All photos by Glenda Booth except where noted

Photo by Cassie Arnold

Photo by Cassie Arnold

Very few people ventured out on the Haul Road Trail.

Beavers have built a very conspicuous lodge in west Dyke Marsh. Canada geese and other waterfowl paddle around and forage in open water. Photo by Deborah Hammer

Bird tracks like these, a mourning dove’s (Zenaida macroura), were easy to spot.

On January 5, National Park Service trucks sprayed a salt brine on the George Washington Memorial Parkway.