Surviving The Winter

I'm holding a chickadee in my hand.

Last night I went to the North Metro Master Naturalists meeting.  Jim Lane was our speaker.  He teaches biology at a local high school and I've heard him speak before.  He is young and tall and full of unabashed enthusiasm which makes it very entertaining.  Tonight he spoke about how winter is survived.  Some plants, he explained, lose their leaves to save energy and to protect themselves from breaking their limbs holding up the heavy snow.  Other plants keep their leaves or needles to save energy from growing new ones in the fall.  The cells inside the plants have to move the water out of the cells to protect themselves from cell damage.  When water freezes the molecules make sharp points like on snow flakes.  That is why the bark on smooth barked trees like maples may split in the spring.  The sun warms up the bark and the water moves back into the cells.  If the temperature goes down quickly when the sun sets the cells may freeze before they have a chance to move the water out forcing the bark to split.  The birds who stay with us all winter are generalists.  They will eat a variety of foods.  Specialists like warblers who eat only bugs could not survive here so they migrate.  Some insects migrate as well including Monarch butterflies and one kind of green darner dragonflies. Chickadees, he says, are bada$$ birds who tough it through the winter.  They will eat black sunflower seeds if they're available but can survive without them.  They'll eat suet or peck at a deer carcass if available but can survive without them.  Chickadees will search the tree branches for insect eggs which are full of protein.  Daily they'll eat between 10 and 60 of their body weight.  At night their body temperature goes way down and they can loose up to 15% of their body weight. When the sun goes down the chickadees gather in chickadee gangs and hunker down in chickadee dens. In the morning it can be 30 degrees below and the chickadee will come by and say, "Sup?"  They don't even look cold out there.  Turtles survive by hunkering down in the mud at the bottom of bodies of water.  Snapping turtles like to position themselves head down with their rear end pointed toward a spring or rushing water.  And they breathe through their butt!  Some frogs hunker down with the turtles at the bottom of lakes.  That is why when ice anglers open up the belly of a pike they find a meal of fresh frogs.  Other frogs just freeze solid in the woods.  Their entire body, including the heart, freezes.  And even though their hearts are not beating and they're not breathing, they are alive.  Isn't that amazing? When spring comes they thaw, stretch, and start moving.  Mammals vary on how they handle the winter.  Beavers party all winter in their dens eating a supply of branches they have stored in their ponds outside their den.  Some mammals grow thicker fur to stay warm.  Some mammals go into torpor - a long winter nap where metabolism is slower.  Some mammals, like possums and raccoons may not have survived our exceptionally bitter winter this year.  And then we got to the bears.  Jim got to explore a bear den at Camp Ripley at about this time of year in 2013. The sow had a collar so they found her den easily.  They dug into the den and poked her with a sharp stick until she changed position so her shoulder was exposed.  They administered a tranquilizer and removed her two cubs.  A rope was tied around the bear and she was hauled out.  She was measured and weighed (240 pounds) and examined.  She had two sores on her neck because her collar was too tight.  The wounds were cleaned and stitched.  The collar was put back on.  Before a half hour was up they slid her back into her den.  But before that Jim crawled down in there to see if he could fit and to experience being in a bear den.  All six foot five inches of him fit in the den if he curled up.  He had photos.  He said he reeked all the way home.  Her cubs were tucked back into the den with the sow and the den was covered again.  In the spring one of the first things a bear will eat is deer dung.  Deer dung gives the bear the bacteria it will need to digest plants.  The baby bears will smell the mother's breath to learn what plants are edible.  And that happens in the spring which is the season that comes after winter.  We had a great evening.  The speaker was having fun telling his story.  All of us in the audience participated by laughing, asking questions, and adding our 2 cents.  We had a good evening together.