At over 100 pounds, this year’s male bear cubs have well outgrown the females / The brown, fertile fronds of sensitive fern will release spores in spring. Gray fronds are two years old, and their spores are already gone / Chipping sparrows have big appetites: each one will eat 160 times its weight in seeds over the course of a winter / Bullfrogs and green frogs spend the winter in ponds, insulated against freezing by the layer of ice on top of the pond

Dec. 14: Geminid meteor shower – one of the most reliable. The waxing moon will set, and, if skies are clear, meteor viewing will be good / Mice will move indoors after a heavy snow. Considering their size, they make a lot of noise / Until snow covers them, blueberry bushes will be browsed by deer / The glossy, toothed leaves of pipsissewa, or prince’s pine, stay green all winter. Its botanical name, Chimaphila, is from the Greek and means “to love winter”

Red-breasted nuthatches are territorial in winter; a pair will defend about 10 acres / Look for evergreen wood fern and Christmas fern in the woods and for rock polypody on rocky outcrops before the snow gets deep. These ferns stay green all winter / Noisy flocks of pine grosbeaks (chee-chip or chee-chip-chip) will leave the hulls of white ash seeds on the ground after feeding on the seeds / Roadkill may account for an increase in the winter crow population

Dec. 23: peak of Ursid meteor shower, which originates in the Big Dipper / Sweet everlasting lasts well into winter, as does its fragrance, a bit like new mown hay / Hibernating woodchucks warm up every few days to urinate, raising their temperatures from about 40°F to over 94°F / New seed catalogs arrive in the mail. Time to plan next year’s garden / Snow usually does not deter moose: their long, skinny legs can plow through 30 inches of it without a problem