Naturalists, what do you do all winter?

General
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Here’s my summary of the past winter for me.

September 2022 - There are still some warblers around, and I see 3 lifers (sora, stilt sandpiper, & black-crowned night-heron)

October 2022 - At the start of the month the bugs are still around, and i see some cool fish. I try and fail to see a lesser black-backed gull. I go up to my cabin for thanksgiving with my family, I see a cute vole, a ruffed grouse, and a lone yellow-rumped warbler hopping in the yellow leaves of a tree. By the 13th it’s starting to get cold, I dip on two whooper swans at a rural reservoir when it starts getting dark earlier then I expected and I can’t see anything, I go again the next day to try to see it and fail. But I see 3 lifers (ring-necked pheasant, black-bellied plover, and snow goose). By the 16th it is getting pretty cold (still no snow) and I finally see the Lesser black-backed gull at Mallard point as well as the last Gadwall of the year. I have another trip on the 30th but see pretty much nothing

November 2022 - I go birdwatching two times in November. Mostly because of school. The first one was on the 6th at Bebo Grove, even with a huge puffy coat it was absolutely freezing due to the wind. I walked a lot and saw a sharp-shinned hawk for a split second, as I started coming back to the parking lot I started to feel very sick. I throw up in the parking lot. On the 19th a northern shrike lands in my yard and flies away before I can get a good look or a photo. The 20th is better with a trip to Carburn Park. I see a coyote which is awesome because I like coyotes a lot. And I see 6 lifers: Redhead which I am very excited about because I like them, Canvasback, Barrow’s Goldeneye, Cackling Goose, Tundra Swan, and a Lesser scaup x Redhead hybird.

December 2022 - I skip school on my birthday to go drive around the country east of the city to try to see a snowy owl with my mom. We see a snowy owl as well as 2 lifers for me (Horned Lark and Grey Partridge)

January 2023 - I spend new years with my family in a yurt winter camping near Radium in BC. It is very very very cold and I end up getting very sick while there. I think I saw 3 birds during the trip. A chickadee, a junco, and a crossbill. On the 15th I go back to Carburn where it is very cold. I see a brown creeper, the hybrid duck, and a wood duck

February 2023 - on the 5th I go to Griffith Woods, I see the first bohemian waxwings of the year, two early robins and two great horned owls. On the 12th I go to the Fish Creek Boat Launch, it is freezing cold and I see very little other than a merlin and some deer.

March 2023 - On the 4th I go to Carburn where it is very cold, there’s an early robin, and the usual ducks as well as some harlequins and buffleheads, the hybrid duck is gone. On the 12th I go to Elbow Dam where it is really really cold and I see a solitaire and a raven. By the 24th snow is starting to melt, but ice isn’t. I go to try to see a Eurasian wigeon, it isn’t there. But I see a lot of muskrats. I see a mallard trying its best to waddle across an icy pond, but it keeps sliding and falling on its bum. It is sad.
Mid march ‘‘Spring break’’
For “spring” break I go up to my cabin with my family. There’s less snow on the ground but it is still very cold and the lake is still frozen over. I see a lot of bohemian waxwings, some american goldfinches still in their winter plumage, male and female purple finches, and a bunch of usual birds. During spring break I visit the Keephills Cooling Pond which isn’t frozen over, among the ducks and geese braving the early “spring” there are some coots and three ring-billed gulls

April 2023 - It is finally starting to warm up but it’s still a little chilly. There is still ice on lakes and rivers but less snow. The gulls are back (with a rare Glaucous-winged gull among them) and so are some of the migrating ducks like the shovellers. By the 18th most ice and snow is gone in the city and it is spring, though everything is still dead.

I’m hoping to go out as much as I can (when there’s something to see) but I worry that High school is going to make that impossible. But I will try my best to find a way to juggle both.

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I watch too much TV and put on weight. No, I try to get out and focus more on bird and mammal photography (mostly birds).

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My primary interest is micro-organisms and it’s fascinating to see different populations in a given location rise and fall through the seasons. I have a little sampling kit which I take on any walks and always come back with a few drops from a pond, or a little moss scraped from trees.
Even in the dismal depths of a UK winter there is life to be found!

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I’m going to go out and do my best. I have an actual camera now so I’ll probably work on more landscape-style photography. That being said, where I live used to get cold winters but the last few years have been noticeably warmer. Last year we got 0.3 inches of snow. Just a few years ago we averaged 20+ per winter. I’m going to be trying to go out even more this winter to try and document how warming winters are affecting local flora and fauna

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For south Florida, it’s generally better to go out in winter anyway. The temperature is slightly less hot and more comfortable, the mosquitoes aren’t as bad, and some animals are even easier to find. Winter is more like “dry season,” as was mentioned in other posts, and mostly our spike in obs looks like it occurs in around March, while the end of summer and fall are pretty low in observations.

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I’m in Cape Town in South Africa, and our winters are relatively mild, but wet. I personally love the winters here, which is different to the rest of the country as the South-Western Cape is the only region with winter rainfall. What I love about it though is that in-between those horrific North-Westers and rain, you have the most beautiful sunshiny days. The days where you can see right across to the snow-capped mountains across the valley. It also rarely rains all day so I walk and look at all the winter wonders nature offers us.

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Wow I’d love to see those! I am in an area (Philadelphia PA) and we see northern birds here in winter, especially if there’s an irruption. We have been treated in the past to snowy owls, redpolls, and pine siskins. you never know what you’ll find!
But I have other hobbies too that keep me engaged. Keep on keeping on!

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Although there are more interesting insects in the summer, I tend to hide from the heat. I live in a temperate zone, so we don’t get any big winter freezing. I enjoy outdoor outings much more in the fall-winter-spring months when it’s cool and fresh; we have more plant life in the winter when it rains; summer drought makes plants a bit sparse.

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I am unexpectedly finding this discussion more useful than I might have anticipated. While we do not have a winter in the cold sense here, the Peninsula does go through changes. Currently we are in rainy season, which normally would still provide time out-of-doors almost every day, however this year we are experiencing an alarming surge of dengue, so I am especially appreciative of all the indoors ideas in this discussion.

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Go to the ID module, set the region to AU or South America and look at other peolples’ stuff. Or maybe we don’t get winter anymore, who knows (the last few ones were almost nonexistent), unless the AMOC breaks down (then we might get Minnesotan weather in Europe and I’ll have to ask PZMyers what to do, maybe breed tiny spiders ;-) )

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Ducks!

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IDing snowflakes… Seriously, here in mid-to-north Arizona, everything quiets down quite a bit, turns brown, even though we [are supposed to] get rain.

But mostly we sit around talking about how much the weather had changed. Very uplifting. :joy: :joy:

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Yeah I’m in California now too (coming from Massachusetts), and it is quite nice to have the diversity all year round. My 2023 New Year’s resolution was to submit an observation every day, and with 8 months down I’m still on track. I could of course have still done this in a wintry place, but it’s far easier, or at least more interesting, here.

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I love the woods in winter too. I’m in southern New England, and the wet summer we’ve had has made hiking especially trying with the mosquitoes. I love being out all year but there’s something really relaxing to me about being out in the cold when no one else wants to be out. A couple years ago I started learning to ID trees by their bark in the winter. Since I’m particularly interested in finding very old trees, it’s easier to see into the crown in winter.

I’ll also take more walks in my suburban neighborhood where I’m fairly close to a river. I go and watch loons, ducks and harriers. I plan for the coming year’s garden. My fiancé and I go for night walks around the neighborhood even in the cold (although my limit for being out is probably around 15 degrees F). I like to go to the beach to walk and beachcomb. I miss the abundance of my garden and nature in general in spring and summer but there’s much I appreciate about the slower pace in winter.

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I plan to observe lichens. They like to live on the trees, so even deep snow would not cover all of them. I want to learn the “magical” ID-ing of the lichens with the chemicals :) I think it will be a good job for dark evenings.

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I’m in central Connecticut myself. If you’re looking for old trees a great resource to narrow your search down is the 1934 aerial survey of CT, through the state library.
You can find it here:
https://cslib.contentdm.oclc.org/customizations/collection/p4005coll10/pages/indexes/digital_idx_map_state_1934.html
It’ll show where a lot of the open-grown wolf trees and fence rows were back then. A lot of those areas have reverted back to forest, but the original trees are still there in many cases. Just click on a town, then an area within the town.

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As someone who lives in an area with pretty cold winters (Long Island, New York), a lot of the bugs I like to photograph disappear. Last winter I spent my time looking moreso at leaves and trees, as well as indoor insects. I also plan to spend more time IDing stuff since there won’t be as much to see outside.

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Two Research Grade observations so far.

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We have 2,636 cases confirmed in our state, 589 this week alone.

I am hoping not to be able to provide an Observation.

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This is great, thanks for sharing this! Bookmarked it so I can check out areas where older trees are likely to be. I’ve found some trees in Roosevelt Forest in Stratford that have been estimated to be 200-300 years old based on bark characteristics. I’d love to get someone interested in possibly coring a couple of them or checking them out in person but it’s been difficult. There’s more old trees around than one would think…of course, many areas were clearcut for agriculture but small pockets of old trees still persist, I’m fascinated with them.

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