If You Got The Right Teacher

Last night I went to a lecture about how plants and animals survive winter. We had a meeting of our chapter of the Master Naturalist and a naturalist named Dave came to talk to us. He was an awesome teacher. He had a power point presentation that worked really slick. We talked about how humans survive first - huddle, eat more, dress warmer, stay inside, become less active, eat warmer foods, etc. Animals do much of the same. Beavers and snakes and bees huddle together. Squirrels and beavers and birds eat more. We held a summer and a winter raccoon pelt to feel the difference in the fur - the winter pelt was much thicker. Raccoons and ants and squirrels and chipmunks and birds and bear stay inside more but they don't really hibernate. They all will come out on the warmer days to defecate and poke around. Woodchucks do hibernate. You can (but I would advise you not to) pick up a woodchuck in the middle of winter and handle it and it won't wake up. If you disturb a bear in a den in the winter, it will come after you. As part of the presentation, Dave showed a short 2 minute film about a tree frog. Tree frogs create antifreeze in their system. They survive in the woods where their bodies freeze almost solid. The film showed a frozen tree frog put in a warm room on top of some sphagnum moss in fast speed. After 2 hours the frog looks less dead and seems to take a more frog like shape. After 3 hours in the warm room, one eye blinks and respiration starts. After 7 hours an arm moves. After 10 hours, the frog becomes aware of the camera, thinks "What the hell is that?" and dives under the moss. The film was amazing. In nature, it would take the frog even longer to wake up because it is sitting on the frozen ground, not in a warm room. Naturalist Dave had us to an experiment. We were each given a small gladware container of water at 44 degrees Celsius. We were instructed to put our water outside and use any or all of the ways listed to stay warm. I put my container of water with three other containers (huddle) inside a winter cap (dress warm), inside a down jacket, under a blanket, inside a Toyota (stay inside). When we went back to get it after an hour, our water was at 38 degrees which is warmer than any of the other containers. We talked about animals and insects that live at the subnival level - just under the snow but on top of the ground. Mice and voles are common at that level. They can get around without being seen by predators in the sky. The temperature at that level is usually a constant 20 degrees. When the weather outside is 20 below, 20 above can seem very warm and is much easier to survive. Grouse have been known to spend an evening under the snow too. Several people in the group have built snow caves and they reported that they were too hot to sleep in a sleeping bag inside the snow cave. What a fun evening! I learned a lot.