Lake News — Winter With a Vengeance
I must have been lamenting too loud about winter for it did return with a vengeance. We woke up to -18 today. My house is making noises that I’ve never heard it make before. Despite the cold, I did make it out to walk. If it hadn’t been sunny, it might have been a dismal day. Yet, the birds were still fluttering about and it looked almost cheerful outside. Just like my house, the trail was noisy too, the snow pack reluctantly giving way to my weight. Nobody else was on the trail naturally. I proceeded alone that day.
Near the middle of the trail, I came across what was left of a deer, just the spine, one hind leg, and its skull. A victim of the winter? A deer that had been hit yet managed to make its way from the road? Hard to say because this animal wasn’t here yesterday. A coyote or one of the farm dogs must have dragged it here. I felt a little sad for the deer who struggled to make a living. Judging by its teeth, it was an adult deer in its prime. A little farther down the trail there was another skeleton only this one was of a very small deer. Perhaps the adult was a pregnant doe who met her end last fall in which case the summer could have been the culprit.
How well an animal is going to fare the winter depends upon how well it has eaten in the summer and into the fall, building up the stores that will be needed to carry an animal through the harsh winter months. Perhaps things were a bit scarce for this particular deer. There was only one fawn, at least only one that I found. Deer will have twins or even triplets if conditions are well and she has enough stores to accommodate an additional fetus developing. If not, the extra fetus is reabsorbed into the doe’s body and only one fawn is born. If anything is for certain, the area surrounding the trail has a large deer population if the number of tracks are any indication. However, there will be two less deer this spring when the snow and ice give away to the verdure.
The sun was still shining bright as I turned to head back on the trail. I wondered how the other animals I’ve seen on the trail were doing this cold, cold day. Hopefully Nature had equipped them well enough to get through this latest cold streak. Photo by law_keven
Beautifully written blog. Thank you, I miss nature these days. Winter, City, and cabin fever… Thank you for the post.
Hollis’s last blog post..We are off to more adventures!
January 16th, 2009 at 1:41 pmThank you, Hollis. Cabin fever runs high here to when the weather is to cold to get out.
January 19th, 2009 at 1:39 pm