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.
Photo by Alan D. Wilson, www.naturespicsonline.com
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