Standing on a small linear glacial ridge out in the peat bog, looking south out into a black spruce peat bog. This ridge is perhaps a hundred feet wide, averages 20-25 feet high, and ran dead straight east-west for what I'd guess to be the larger part of a mile. It is covered mostly with decent size red pine, with some white pines and jack pines, and occasional small brushy, twisted maple trees. Perhaps a birch here and there. I was crossing open swamp for a ways before I picked up the end of this ridge to follow, and it petered back out into even worse swamp. A few more inches of water table and it would be a snake-shaped island instead of a bit of dry land in the swamp.
Red squirrels and some chipmunks often seem to populate these, although that is not always apparent in the winter. Red squirrels do not hibernate, but they are not often seen for most of the winter, coming out only on sunny calm days, and then briefly. Since animals seem to somewhat avoid crossing the bogs to get to these isolated 'islands' the squirrels are relatively freer to eat the pine seeds unbothered, I'd guess. Even in winter if the snow is hard and provides decent support to walk on, tracks of bobcats and other predators elsewhere commonly in evidence are notably rare on these small bog-bound dry ridges that I've noticed.
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