Mother Nature's Winter Wonders

                It’s truly winter, now. All of our song birds and water fowl have fled to the South. The bunnies are around, but they don’t come out too much. And the local pond is still and silent, its surface a thick layer of solid ice. Rows of bulrushes which, not that very long ago, were vibrating with ducklings and Red-Winged Blackbirds, now sit brown, still and silent, their heads drooping under the weight of the most recent snowfall. All traces of Mother Nature’s critters have been silenced for another winter.

                Or not.

                Look again, out across the pond’s surface. Take a moment to scan the entire area. Go on. It’s not too big. What do you see?

                A layer of snow on top if the ice, for one thing. The ice is cold enough that the snow won’t melt anytime soon. Meanwhile, it creates a little bit of a map. There are trails of footprints zig-zagging here and there, back and forth, from one shore to the other.

                But what kind of footprints can they possibly be? Certainly not human! Even if it seems certain that the ice is completely solid, who would be foolish enough to take the chance? No, these foot prints are too small for that. Take a closer look. They could be from neighborhood dogs. Certainly I’ve seen that kind of print on the surface of the river down in the valley where the coyotes live. That alone has given me reason to pause and think.

                But there are no coyotes here at the pond. And the footprints aren’t really canine-shaped, anyway. These ones near the shore are very skinny and three-toed. Magpies, perhaps. They’re around all year. Maybe gulls. They like the water.

Out there, toward the center of the pond are trails that bear that distinctive pattern of the local jackrabbits. They may not come out often when I’m around, but clearly they’ve been practicing their figure-skating routines down here.

So there are some animals small enough to dare to skitter across the surface of the frozen wetland. But they’re not alone.

Look over there, toward the rushes, and up there near the far shore and over hear near the other edge. Do you see them out there on the open ice? In various spots around the pond are little holes about the girth of the average adult’s leg. From each, trails of footprints lead off in several directions. Remember that family of muskrats we’ve been watching all summer as they paddled back and forth? It seems that they haven’t gone anywhere.

In the summer months they built their homes hidden from view on the pond’s edge somewhere among those reeds. I’ve actually seen them come in and out of the reeds in a spot not far from where you see that first hole, now. Just beneath those reeds, a snug little lodge rests on the bottom of the pond.

When the water freezes over, they have a cozy little home to live in, but they still want to go out adventuring every now and then.  And that’s where those ice holes come from. Although they spend a lot of time in their homes or foraging food from the pond bottom, they still, occasionally, want to come up to surface-level and run around a bit. So they make these holes so they can come and go as they please.

Now, I don’t know about you, but the thought of swimming around in winter is giving me the chills. But think about this. When they find a spot to make a hole, they create the opening using the only tool at their disposal: their teeth! They actually hunker down and chew that hole in the ice with their teeth!

So, winter has settled in for awhile, and things are still and quiet out there. But don’t be mistaken. It’s anything but deserted. Mother Nature’s creatures are alive and well and living a full life.

And, really, they’re never that far away.
 
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Photo by Alan D. Wilson, www.naturespicsonline.com

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