Common plantain, with its thin, cylindrical seed stalk, is also called rattail. Mice and birds eat the seeds / If black ice forms on ponds, look for life below: painted turtles, snapping turtles, tadpoles, newts, and insects / Most snowshoe hare have changed into their white winter coats / Bog cranberries withstand frost and can be eaten right off the plant / Christmas ferns stay green and add to the beauty of the forest floor, until they are buried by snow

Dec. 13-14. The Geminids, the most reliable meteors of the year, are noted for being colorful: 65 percent are white, 26 percent yellow, and the remaining 9 percent are blue, red, and green / A frozen apple stuffed in the crotch of a tree is the work of a red squirrel. It will reclaim its cache when snow covers the ground / Most birds do not seek out larch seeds. Red crossbills are an exception and may now be found eating the last of this season’s crop

By now, cattail colonies are bleached and pale, with weathered clumps of fluff and seeds still attached to the stalks / Otters can fish in near darkness beneath a mantle of ice and snow / Hemlock cones open in dry, cold weather, releasing their winged seeds to the wind / Many small hibernating mammals, such as woodland jumping mice, will not survive until spring. It’s hard for these tiny animals to store sufficient energy, especially when the winter is severe

Snowshoe hare must eat throughout the winter. They can’t accumulate fat since they may need speed to escape predators / Fishers can, indeed, eat porcupines, but the quilled rodents make up only about 20 percent of the fisher’s diet / Pine grosbeaks and crossbills move south to northern New England when the spruce and fir in Canada have low seed production / Once settled in their dens, bears will live off their fat for several months, not eating until plants green up in spring