Nature Walk: The year without a winter

22.05.12

So how do people feel about this year without a winter? As you may have found by schmoozing around, most people love it.

But what about non-human life forms that stay outside most of the time? Consider mice and voles and moles. Winter snow is the roof over their heads and more — the building space for their infrastructure of tunnels and nest chambers built of grasses and sticks, and stuffed with a harvest of nuts and fruit and dormant insects. These insects may be more or less accessible depending on snow depth. Deep snow may protect cocoons and other overwintering invertebrates to some depth below the snow line where rodents can’t easily forage, reducing available food. Little rodents are prime meals for owls and foxes, but these predators successfully hunt their quarry in the snow.

Among winter-active herbivores, squirrels stash nuts and seeds all over the woods, and dig these morsels out of deep snow with ease. Deer and rabbits are hampered by deep snow and slick ice, but snow-free they readily find green basal leaves of ground herbs, and tender shoots of shrubs. Their consumption of greens may leave less for hibernating vegetarians that need fresh leaves, such as the woodchuck. The porcupine fares well in any weather, consuming woody stuff, even spruce and hemlock branches.

Source: Woodstock Times