In cold weather we just throw another log on the fire, turn up the thermostat of the furnace, put on long underwear or cook a hot meal.
But when the snow, ice and bitter cold of winter comes, fish and wildlife species resort to a variety of behaviors and adaptations to survive the extreme conditions.
Fish feed heavily in the fall, storing up energy to tide them over until spring. During winter, their metabolism slows as the water temperature declines, and they eventually become lethargic. They move to the deepest water, which is warmer by a few degrees, and feed only when the opportunity arises — without expending energy to chase prey.
Wildlife species have many ways of conserving warmth and regulating body temperature.
White-tailed deer and wild turkeys try to conserve body heat when it’s cold, feeding on high calorie foods, moving as little as possible, and expending energy only during the warmest parts of the day (Photo Provided)
Mammals grow heavy coats of fur and store body fat. Coldwater fish have special proteins called glycoproteins that prevent ice crystals from forming in their blood.
The broad-winged hawk, which nests in Kentucky, vacations south of the border, spending the winter in sunny climes of Central and South America. While most species of hawks in Kentucky never leave their territories, they modify their behavior. It’s harder for birds of prey to find food so they may gather on south-facing slopes, where the snow has melted away.
Hawks and owls can get very creative in where they take shelter from the cold, often roosting in barns, or sleeping in cedar or pine thickets overnight.
Red-tailed hawks stay here during the cold weather months, but there’s a big push of migrant birds from the Great Lakes Region, mostly Wisconsin and Michigan. There are a lot more hawks in Kentucky during the winter months, and they are much more visible.
Temperate nesting geese, so-called resident Canada geese, who spend the spring and summer raising their young on farm ponds, small lakes and streams across Kentucky, gravitate to open water when their home waters ice over.
Geese re-locate to ice-free major rivers and reservoirs, flying out daily to feed in nearby farm fields. In cold weather geese also like to hang around steam plants which have warm water discharges, so surrounding waters don’t freeze up as easily.
But, as soon as temperatures moderate, these geese scatter out and go back to smaller bodies of water.
Black bears spend the winter in dens.
They enter a state of torpor, during which their metabolism slows markedly, but they can move around and may even leave their dens. They live off their body fat, and don’t eat or drink.
Sows give birth in their dens and nurse their cubs all winter, emerging in March or April, with the little ones in tow. A bear den may be in a rock crevice, the root wad of a fallen tree, or inside a standing hollow tree.
Woodchucks simply go underground and sleep it off, spending the winter in hibernation. In October they go underground for the season, to a dead-end nest chamber sealed off with dirt, to prevent rabbits and other wildlife from disturbing their slumber.
The woodchuck’s body temperature drops, and its heart rate slows to as few as four beats per minute. They don’t emerge until the first warm days of February.
Other species of Kentucky wildlife hunker down.
Pond turtles such as the common map turtle, or red-eared slider, sit on the bottom of a pond, or on the bottom of the river in a backwater area, breathing dissolved oxygen through their skin. On sunny days in February, they might crawl up on a log to get some warmth.
The rat snake spends the winter in a small mammal burrow, below the frost line. Imagine being a chipmunk and having to share your home with a big snake four months out of the year.
For more outdoors news and information, see Art Lander’s Outdoors on KyForward.
Toads burrow down in leaf litter and loose topsoil. Tree frogs might spend the winter in a rotten log or in a hole in a tree. The tiny cricket frog spends the summer in ponds and wet areas at lower elevations, then moves to upland woods for the winter.
Box turtles dig down in the ground as cold weather approaches. The colder it gets, they deeper they dig.
For game animals such as rabbits, quail, squirrels, deer and wild turkey, the importance of quality habitat and adequate food, is a matter of life and death.
White-tailed deer and wild turkeys try to conserve body heat when it’s cold, feeding on high calorie foods, moving as little as possible, and expending energy only during the warmest parts of the day. Cedar thickets, interspersed with stands of hardwoods and fields of brush, are necessary to survival.
Rabbits, and especially quail, need thick cover to survive snow and cold winds. Rabbits can go underground to escape the harshest conditions, but quail need thick grasslands for shelter.
Squirrels need den trees, large trees with crevices and holes, to escape the cold. They stash and bury mast (nuts) throughout the fall, to eat in winter. If it’s a poor mast crop and they don’t have enough food to last throughout the winter, they may die of starvation.
We spend the cold weather months in the comfort of our heated homes, for wildlife cold weather is stressful and often life threatening.
Art Lander Jr. is outdoors editor for NKyTribune and KyForward. He is a native Kentuckian, a graduate of Western Kentucky University and a life-long hunter, angler, gardener and nature enthusiast. He has worked as a newspaper columnist, magazine journalist and author and is a former staff writer for Kentucky Afield Magazine, editor of the annual Kentucky Hunting & Trapping Guide and Kentucky Spring Hunting Guide, and co-writer of the Kentucky Afield Outdoors newspaper column.
