It’s hard to believe that just four weeks ago it was -18°F in Madison, with a wind chill hovering near -40°F, and this Friday is forecast to reach the 60s. What a wild winter it’s been! I’m not putting away my winter coat and mittens just yet, though. I have a feeling this warm week is just a tease, hinting at an early spring that may not quite be here to stay.
Now that it’s no longer painfully cold, I hope you’ll join me outside to see what nature is up to!
Blue snow created by an Eastern cottontail
The blue snow has returned! Well, it had returned, until the recent warm weather melted it away. Thankfully, I was able to spot a few more patches out on the trail before they disappeared. I first discovered these odd colorful patches of blue snow while on a hike a couple years ago. I did a little research and found out that rabbits were the ones causing it, not Smurfs.
Throughout the winter, Eastern cottontails feed on the nutrient-rich stems of shrubs and young trees. One of their favorites is buckthorn, which contains a phytochemical that can turn rabbit urine blue after it’s exposed to sunlight. So tell your kids it’s not just yellow snow they need to watch out for!
Rodent tunnels in the snow
| As the snow began to melt, I noticed these small interconnected lines. I’ve seen intricate cracks on the surface of frozen lakes, but this was different. I soon realized that these lines were actually tunnels created by rodents. Before the snow melted, these mouse highways would have been completely hidden from view.
In the photo above, there are small patches of bare ground where the snow has completely melted. These tunnels all lead to those patches, which makes me think those could be living spaces, or areas where the mice would congregate. |
A tree that survived girdling
While walking through a local park in my neighborhood, I noticed a natural area that was being managed. Sometimes when managing a woodland, undesirable trees are cut down and removed. Other times, they are girdled like the one in the photo above, and left standing. Leaving a dead tree standing might not sound like the best idea, but it can create excellent habitat for all sorts of wildlife, like woodpeckers and insects.
These deep chainsaw cuts are intended to restrict the flow of water and nutrients throughout the tree, ultimately leading to its death. This one, however, seemed to be doing just fine. If the cuts aren’t deep enough, a tree can sometimes seal over the wounds and recover. It may not survive in the long run, but it was remarkable to see just how resilient it was—especially seeing it covered in buds ready to sprout in spring.
A squirrel gnawing on an ice chunk
Lastly, I’ll leave you with this squirrel that I saw the other day, which was doing something that I thought was quite strange. I watched the squirrel climb down from a tree, break off a piece of ice from a nearby frozen puddle, then carry the ice back up into the tree, where it began eating it. The squirrel did this a couple of times before scurrying away.
I had never really given much thought to how animals stay hydrated when their usual water sources are frozen. Like us, they need water to survive. When I saw this, the solution suddenly seemed so obvious—yet it also felt a little strange, simply because I had never witnessed it before.
Well, I hope you enjoyed this month’s virtual tour of nature as it’s happening. See you next month!