Nature’s Hidden World in Winter
Despite looking and sounding like the off season, winter is anything but for nature. Under, in and on the blanket of snow, life continues, modified from the buzz of summer into a secretive, resilient, calorie-hoarding society. The ecosystem continues to pulse.
Sure, many plants die back, some animals disappear into cozy dens and many birds appear in more southerly places, but a biodiverse group of winter professionals keep up routines of scampering and snacking. (Personally, that sounds like the ideal way to turn the off season back on again.)
Life in the Subnivean Zone
Muffled under layers of fluffy white, a whole realm of buried scurrying exists.
Even when its 30 C below, the subnivean zone hovers around a balmy zero. The undersnow world becomes a highway for voles, mice, shrews, ermine and even some amphibians. The only clues these tunnels exist are tiny chimneys venting moist air, entrance and exit holes, and ridges or depressions showing existing or old collapsed passageways.
Unfortunately for subnivean subway patrons, sound travels farther in the winter. When snow blankets their hunting grounds, many predators switch to acoustic based hunting strategies. Evidence of their presence and nocturnal success: tunnels that end at excavations surrounded by fox tracks, or wing marks left by an owl who dove into powder to snatch a furry snack.
Mini Lives
It’s the tiny, seemingly insignificant things which have their shining moments in the winter, popping off the monochrome landscape and creating ripples of life through the quiet, abandoned woods.
Lichen, a fascinating co-op between algae and fungi, is an incredible winter survivalist and essential source of nutrients for many animals. If the humidity is above 60 percent, even subzero temperatures can’t stop these welcome splashes of colour and texture from photosynthesizing. Low humidity activates survival mode, but what looks dead can often be revived with a dose of moisture.
Insects don’t entirely disappear in the winter either. Future butterflies may overwinter in the soil or under bark as larvae or pupae, and many other six-legged creatures either go dormant or diapause to wait out the cold. Snow fleas, more charmingly known as springtails, however, use glycerol to keep their soup-like insides from turning to slush, and can be found bouncing around on the surface of the snow even below freezing. Keep an eye out for other insects like black stone flies gingerly stepping over drifts in late winter too.
Life on the Wing
The birds that stick around for the freeze are hardy, smart and well insulated. Grouse and ptarmigan waddle on feathered toes, rubber necking at two-legged visitors. Ravens are known to create and remember food caches ahead of the lean season. Canada Jays (aka whiskey jacks or gray jays) wedge perishable foods under bark and lichen with gobs of sticky saliva. These curious birds are true intrepid northerners, defending permanent territories in boreal and subalpine forests. While most of nature is just chilling, they start breeding as early as February. They build their nests huddled next to evergreen tree trunks and will incubate eggs in temperatures as low as -30 C.
Little birds that normally fade into the forest background with their less-than-spectacular plumage and background twitters add endless delight to wintry trail hours. Nuthatches, woodpeckers, snow buntings and chickadees thrive in mixed flocks during the coldest parts of the year, flitting cheerfully in the brush, leaving tiny prints on the snow and livening up the muted landscape. To survive the coldest nights, chickadees save energy by lowering their body temperature.
Leafy Lives
Many of the trees and bushes birds frequent fade from green and gold and go dormant, buds ready and waiting for spring swell. Conifers don’t take the winter off, though. Instead, they keep their needly leaves and employ a variety of coping strategies to continue to harvest solar energy. These winter survival masters increase sugar concentration in their cells as a natural antifreeze. Alongside some membrane restructuring to allow photosystem short-cuts and rerouting of excess electrons, evergreens effectively alter the photosynthetic process to acclimatize, survive and thrive during the coldest months… and that’s all you need to know.
Larger than Life
Lives with nature-approved fur coats can thrive in the chill. Some activities—like the birth of teeny bear cubs—aren’t obvious until spring, but the animals moving through the wintry landscape leave clues of their survival endeavours everywhere. The snow and dormant surroundings canvas a play by play of life during the “off season.”
Porcupines and hares strip and nibble bushes and branches, their teeth scraping the nutritious bark clean off. Moose and deer leave beds in the snow, piles of droppings and clipped twigs. Squirrels snack on their stores, amassing mounds of cone scales below trees and on perches where they watch the white world as they frantically tear the cones apart. Wolves, coyotes, cougars, lynx and bobcats are on the prowl all winter, their prints weaving through the trees and bounding over logs.
If you know where to look, you’ll begin to see winter is an active, vibrant and quietly complex season. But if the thought of getting out and witnessing this season’s hidden side makes you shiver, copying the beavers and hanging out with your family in your cozy lodge, watching flakes float down and nibbling at a stash of food is a legit way to spend the coldest winter days too.
