On one of the first days of February, Blue (our husky mix), my camera and I took a morning drive in Northern Lehigh County. Destination: Germansville.

The truck thermometer registered 18 degrees, with probably at least a foot or more of snow covering the fields and woodlots. This part of the county still has ample farmland, and I was hoping on my travels to find some wildlife out and about coping with the elements.

Across the landscape of farm fields, it all looked rather barren. But I hoped I might find a few rare snow buntings, and more likely, some horned larks braving the winter winds. A few days earlier I watched a small flock of larks moving from weed stalk to weed stalk with apparently no regards for the cold, blustery winds that day.

Horned larks are birds of the meadows. Many do remain here all year. They are hardy birds, often nesting in the baking summer sun with only some grasses to shade them, their eggs, and later, their young. But it isn’t the heat that they are facing now; in fact, just the opposite. They spend the frigid nights tucked into the snow, and we’ve had a few below-zero nights with wind chills well below that. Even the daytime temps were rather brutal.

The elements didn’t seem to phase them at all. Not all the plants are completely covered in snow, and they fly from field to field looking for a few weed stalks to grab any seeds they can find. Tough birds!

As Blue and I drove farther, I noticed field after field where nighttime foraging deer had pawed spots clear of snow to find unharvested soybeans, corn or grasses. At two places I saw solitary antlerless deer (does) casting away the usual caution and searching for food at 9:30 in the morning.

One woodlot was alive with squirrel activity, and I watched three gray squirrels chasing each other, apparently trying to claim a small section of the woods to themselves.

Near my destination I saw a road-killed squirrel. A single crow did, too, and was trying to eat some of the frozen body. One half-hour later, passing by that spot again, there were now at least a dozen crows trying to claim a bit for themselves.

The horned larks weren’t the only birds I saw. Two song sparrows sat in some underbrush, feathers fluffed up to retain heat, and facing into the bright February sun. I also saw cardinals, a mockingbird and some dark-eyed juncos doing the same on my drive back home.

Something notable also: I saw a small kettle of vultures circling (five black vultures and two turkey vultures) and I wondered how much carrion can they possibly find that isn’t frozen hard as a rock. All winter l see a vulture or two almost daily here in the northern part of Lehigh County.

When I lived near Ashfield, I seldom would see a vulture north of the Blue Mountain until about the first week of March when we started to get some days above freezing. My drive on this errand became an excuse to find a way to get “out there” without freezing. Give it a try.

Test Your Outdoor Knowledge: True or False: Hunters know that these extremely cold temperatures we’ve experienced for a long time cause white-tailed bucks to shed their antlers.

Last Week’s Trivia Answer: The house mouse inadvertently traveled along with the European settlers as they arrived here in North America.

Email Barry Reed at breed71@gmail.com