After the Big Snow - UPDATE December 16, 2024
Bald Eagle
Snow on Trygg Road
Snow on Trygg Road
With over eight inches of snow covering the ground and trees, things were different. Few visitors. Then came cold, blowing winds with temperatures in the minus twenties F. Everyone needed calories. The eagle resumed his swoops with as many as eight in a day. I wanted to prove that with a picture, but the swoops come quietly with no warning. By the time I can click, he is some distance away as he was in this snow flurry.
Raven
Raven
A raven spent a lot of time watching what was available and sometimes hovered over it, but it was only in the last couple days that it dared to snatch a piece without landing. Ravens are among the shyest birds here, unlike the ravens in Ely that are more accustomed to people.
For this female hairy woodpecker to get food, she had to remember where it was (or smell it?), lie in the snow, and probe beyond what she can see. Does she feel or taste the sunflower seeds with her tongue? Could she really reach them? I couldn’t tell.
Hairy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
The fisher came in early morning for some beef fat and later intensively sniffed where snow covered a chipmunk hole where lots of peanuts and sunflower seeds are stored to be eaten over winter as it periodically arouses. The hole is too small and the ground too frozen for the fisher to dig in.
Fisher male
Fisher male
Deer arrived to find no peanuts available. They nibbled some woody branchlets where they were standing. Something got the interest of the two fawns as I walked out onto the second floor deck, but the mother knew what was important. She looked at what I was doing and hurried over to get some of the peanuts I dropped. The fawns quickly followed. I took a close picture of the mother’s face as she was checking something off to the side. Later, a deer that had been nibbling woody twigs lay down in the snow to chew her cud. Snow can actually be insulating and warmer than the area when temperature is far below zero and the snow is closer to ground temperature.
Deer family
Deer Family
Deer lying in snow
Deer lying in snow
Deer face
Deer face
The snow on the beaver lodge across the lake is getting deep enough to provide insulation as we get into temperatures common in Minnesota winters, but I suspect the beavers are in their new nearby lodge where they made an underwater food cache for this winter.
Flying Squirrel
Flying Squirrel
At this moment, a pair of flying squirrels are eating their share of sunflower seeds out the window with an unwelcome third squirrel that is being attacked and chased away a lot. We’re about to put a pile where the third one can eat in peace.
Thank you for all you do,
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center
