We get our first nighttime temperatures in the 30s and we dig out the winter coats from the closet, put our gloves in the car, find the winter hats and make sure the thermostats are working.
We rush out to the bird feeders, fill them quickly, no lingering there watching for the first birds to return. Heck, we can watch them through the window from our warm abodes.
Mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and insects living in these colder parts of North America have to adapt to the colder weather, less food or no food at all.
Many of our birds simply migrate to where it is warmer. Some migrate to our area from areas much farther north, where it is colder still.
Bats, mammals of course, can find a hibernaculum and cling to the ceiling and hibernate. Unfortunately, most of those cave bats are gone, and others, like big brown bats, can migrate to where it is warmer. But bigger mammals can’t fly. (Except some snowbirds heading to the warmth of Florida for the winter.)
Woodchucks, about the end of October, line a den with dry grasses, curl up and hibernate. With body temperatures about 40, they appear comatose.
Chipmunks about this time of the year have just crawled into their underground tunnels, where they have stored their cache of seeds and nuts. They’ll become very inactive, rousing now and then to eat and then “snooze” again.
Black bears, supposedly hibernators but not like the woodchucks, curl up under a log, in some rock crevices, or under the deck of a vacation home. No eating, no defecation, no urination, But they remain semi-alert. (Their body temperature drops very little.)
How about insects?
A banded woolly bear caterpillar finds a spot out of the harmful, drying winter winds and survives curled up while freezing and thawing.
Honey bees do it differently. I spoke to my honey bee expert Ed Knittle to refresh me on what happens in a hive when it gets cold. Honey and pollen have been diligently stored there by the workers and that is their food.
While in the hive they constantly buzz their wings to generate a bit of heat, they clump into a dense ball of bees while rotating from the warmer middle to the outside and back again. There is no love for the useless male drones, they get tossed out in the cold.
Ed, and other beekeepers, may need to add some sugar water and pollen cakes to supplement the hive if the winter is particularly colder.
Zip up your jackets, dress warmly and take a nature walk to see some of those better adapted for the cold. I’ll use the remainder of the column highlighting some ways our local “critters” make it through the next tough winter months.
Test Your Outdoor Knowledge: Ed also reminded me that if a January or February day’s temperature rises above 50, some honey bees will venture from the hive. True or False: They do this so that they don’t have to leave all their excrement in the hive.
Last Week’s Trivia Answer: Red-headed woodpeckers, occasionally seen in our area, won’t be found here in the winter months.
Email Barry Reed at breed71@gmail.com
One of the most amazing animals to survive winter is the wood frog. Unlike most other amphibians that burrow into a muddy pond bottom, the wood frog simply crawls under the leafy forest floor. It is able to survive completely frozen for many months and is usually the first to emerge in spring. While in the woods in Franklin Township this week, I heard a hardy one still vocalizing on a 40-degree day. BARRY REED/SPECIAL TO THE TIMES NEWS
The woodchuck (groundhog) has already denned for the winter. They fatten up through mid-October and eventually curl up in their dens. Their stored fat maintains their slow respirations, heartbeat and body temperature of about 40 degrees.
The eastern chipmunk may still be seen at your feeders, but most have retreated to their underground tunnels, where they have stored food. They remain mostly dormant, but can rouse themselves on a warm winter day and venture out for a few hours. They are not hibernators.
That nonstop bundle of energy, the red squirrel, has gathered pine seeds, acorns, your sunflower seeds, etc., and cached them away in anticipation of the difficulty of finding food beneath the deep snow. They can be seen all winter, but sometimes in winter’s brutal stretches they’ll curl up in a hollow tree, almost like a long siesta of a week or two and conserve energy.
The banded woolly bear caterpillar overwinters by curling up under a rotting branch, tree trunk or even just leaf litter. It is another amazing animal that can survive freezing and thawing throughout the winter. They’ll eventually emerge in spring.
Yellow jackets that invade your Labor Day picnics die before winter. Only a fertilized queen will survive, finding a sheltered spot under bark or tucked away somewhere out of the wind. She also survives being frozen.
Covered with dense downy feathers under the heavier body feathers, wild turkeys can survive through long cold spells. Light snows pose no problem because they can scratch it away while seeking acorns and other mast. A heavy snowfall that lingers for a long time on the ground may cause them to stay in trees longer, feeding on buds there. But sometimes mortality does occur with too much snow cover.
Our black bears do hibernate eventually. However, unlike a woodchuck, their body temperature drops little. This is so important for a denning female who gives birth to two to four cubs in January and must nurse them and keep them warm. Most bears den by mid-December; however, about 10 years ago, with a milder winter, one of my trail cameras captured a bear still foraging on Jan. 21.
Skunks, opossums and raccoons, as these shown here, do not hibernate. However, as the temperature drops into the teens at night it triggers them to find a den, maybe even under your backyard shed, where they curl up and conserve energy. This semi-sleep for weeks on end is called torpor. They will rouse themselves occasionally to venture out to drink and possibly find some food.
White-tailed deer remain active all winter. They adapt by shedding their reddish colored summer fur with a winter coat of long, hollow hairs. As winter approaches they try to add some insulating fat to help them through the lean winter months. Unless we have very deep snow cover for a long period of time, they will move about to find browse to sustain them.
Honey bee workers toil tirelessly in the warm months to store honey in the honey supers of a hive. Here workers store the honey in the six-sided cells to have it available for them and their queen throughout the winter.
One smaller mammal that doesn’t use hibernation or enter a torpor state over the winter is the cottontail rabbit. They feed on bark, green briar shoots, or any grasses that are exposed by the winter winds. They do often seek shelter in a woodchuck burrow or under your backyard shed. (Informal survey: It appears to me that the rabbit population has dropped markedly. Has anyone else noted the decline the past few years?)
I’m utterly amazed that the diminutive golden-crowned kinglet is able to survive winter temperatures sometimes going below zero. These tiny birds, weighing less than a nickel, need to eat something every few hours and must consume their weight in insects, spiders and insect eggs each day. They never seem to stop moving, either.