A Look at the Season's Main Events
By Virginia Barlow
December
The evergreen leaves of goldthread can form a large, dark green carpet, though each plant is quite tiny / The blue-black berries of Virginia creeper are eaten in fall and winter by many songbirds / Once they find suet hanging by the birdfeeder, hairy and downy woodpeckers will come back to it again and again / Larch seeds are not particularly sought out by most birds. Red crossbills are an exception and may be found now, eating the last of this year’s crop
December 13: peak of Geminid meteor shower, one of the finest observable. The new moon makes for perfect observing conditions / Screech owl pairs are conserving heat by roosting in tree cavities during the day. Mice and shrews are important food for them in winter / Nibbled birch polypore fungal conks could be the work of either red squirrels or white-tailed deer / The spore-bearing undersurface of artist’s conk is snow white in summer but by now has aged to tan
December 21: winter solstice, the longest night of the year / Christmas bird counts often find many migratory species still hanging around / Pine siskins commonly form big flocks of 50 100 birds. They chitter in whispers as they feed and prefer the niger in mixed birdseed / Many small, hibernating mammals, such as woodland jumping mice, will not survive until spring. It’s hard for these tiny animals to store enough energy, especially when the winter is severe
Whitetail bucks are shedding their antlers. It will be hard to tell does from bucks until antlers begin to grow in April / An insect’s fat reserves last longer at low temperatures. If winter is warm, the resting metabolic rate is higher, and stored calories are soon exhausted / You can confidently blame the porcupine for any extensive debarking high in a tree / White-breasted nuthatch pairs stay together and defend a territory of 25 acres or more, year-round
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These listing are from observations and reports in our home territory at about 1,000 feet in elevation in central Vermont and are approximate. Events may occur earlier or later, depending on you latitude, elevation - and the weather.
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© 2004 by the author; this article may not be copied or reproduced without the author's consent.
