Winter Wilderness
Animals in Winter
Animals deal with the cold winter weather in different ways. Some animals hibernate, or sleep through the winter. Other animals migrate, or travel to a place with warmer weather and more food. Some animals, like bats, do both. Yet, some animals stay active all winter long.
Know Snow
Do you know the word "snow" comes from the old English word "snaw" for the same stuff? Do you know that each snowflake starts out as a very small particle of dust or salt that is carried up into the sky by strong winds and then molecules freeze around it? Do you know that no two snowflakes are alike, but they form seven common shapes depending on the temperature and humidity of the air in which that are formed? Can you think of some ways that snow affects the lives of animals outside?
Winter in the Forest Preserves
Deer and rabbits share the same diet during the winter months. They eat mainly twigs and bark in January, but both of them switch to eating poison ivy in February. Why poison ivy? Nobody knows for sure. It may be because the poison ivy somehow becomes more nutritious, or it may be because they run out of other foods they like better. You can tell whether a deer or a rabbit has been chomping on something by the bit marks left behind. Rabbits bite all the way through, while deer bite halfway through and pinch and pull the food off causing an uneven break. That's because rabbits have front teeth on both the top and the bottom, while deer only have front teeth on the bottom.
Most species of animals deal with winter by migrating (traveling to a warmer spot with more food) or hibernating (sleeping the winter away). The animals that stay here for the winter are most active in the afternoon, when the day is at its warmest.
It's challenging for many animals to find enough water to drink during the winter because most of it is frozen in lakes, ponds and puddles. But, animals still need water to survive, so many of them will eat snow as a last resort. Since it takes more energy for animals to melt snow inside their bodies, they prefer to find water from already melted snow or a hole in the ice.
Winter is the best time of year for animal tracking; it's also the time of year that:
Great-horned owls begin to nest. They often use deserted hawk and crow nests, but have also been known to nest in holes found in large trees. Great-horned owls usually lay 2-4 pure-white eggs. If you listen on a quiet night, you might be lucky enough to hear these owls calling, "Who, who?!"
White-tailed deer begin to shed their antlers.
Squirrels are born.
Screech owls begin nesting in late winter.
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