The winter season’s nearly here in North America. Many species are migrating to warmer climates or preparing to hole up until the Spring. But iNatters don’t hibernate, so I’d love to know: what do you do in the Winter when wildlife might be harder to find? Do you have any favorite winter species or places?
In California, winter is the wet season, even if it doesn’t get all that cold in the Valley or along the coast, which means I start to look for fungi and salamanders. The rough-skinned newts and many others migrate to their breeding ponds in the winter and you can find them by the dozen, and the Redwood forests start to bloom with moss and ferns and mushrooms. Redwood National Park is one of my favorite places to visit in late Fall and Winter. The water drips from the moss and the creek through Fern Canyon rises. The Tall trees grove blooms with dozens of different types of fungi, so much so that you’ll find fungi growing on fungi. There are slime molds in plain sight and you can find salamanders under pretty much any damp, flat piece of wood.
Winter is also migration season for the whales along the coast, and I always look forward to visiting Point Reyes Nat’l Seashore to see the elephant seal pups in February.
In all seriousness there are still birds that come to the feeder in the winter, at least here in PA(just last December I had bluebirds come to the window boxes where I had winterberry springs with berries).
Mostly winter is spent removing invasives on warm days, broadcasting seeds after a snowy day, going on hikes and trying to identify the evergreen club mosses and basal rosettes of perennial plants.
During the winter, I tend to go out in search of more lichens and mosses, which stand out in the snow. Some of the hardier polyporales can also be found. Scat and tracks also stand out better in the snow, so I often see a lot of those.
Winters in Michigan are dependant on many factors, including La Nina and El Nino currents. A few years ago, there was a polar vortex and it was harder to find much of anything. Recently, it’s been just cold and wet in the winter, sometimes with green grass.
Which birds visit you in the winter? Cardinals are one of my favorite winter birds, but we don’t get them in California (It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten to see one). The chickadees stick around, though, and the Steller’s jays. And the crows and ravens like to play in the snow sometimes.
It definitely gets harder. I live a very urban environment and when we used to get cold winters finding a bug or even a non sparrow/starling/pigeon was almost impossible. I pretty much have to focus exclusively on plants and lichens. Snow and even freezing temps have become much rarer so maybe this winter will be different but I’m not sure that’s a good thing
Chickadees (black-capped), tufted titmice, red- and white-breasted nuthatch, downy, hairy, red-bellied, and pileated woodpeckers, blue jays, cardinals, juncos, evening grosbeaks, American goldfinches, purple finches, common grackles, ruffed grouse, wild turkey, white-throated sparrows… the list goes on and on.
Usually I observe mostly lichens in winter. I also do a bit of light microscopy, but the issue is that I get a headache from looking into it for too long and it uses up my entire desk space… Additionally, with my setup I don’t get that many decent quality observations. It is fun though
In the warm seasons I go to the mountains to see plants, insects and other woodland life.
In winter I go to the beach to observe seashells and other washashore.
My country is a narrow peninsula, so everything is easy to reach.
I don’t know that it’s a good picture, but I got my first observation of a pileated woodpecker last weekend on a hike near Lake Tahoe. It was very methodically chipping the bark off a pine tree. I noticed the sound first. One of my hiking buddies noticed when the bark pieces started falling on him from above
Wow, that’s quite a variety, especially in the winter. For me, the vast majority is just corvids (not that I don’t like them, but it’d be nice to have some more diversity).
