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Whose foot is this? Notice the fringes on the edges of the toes.

A ruffed grouse’s foot with their winter snowshoes! 

In the fall these pectinations (latin for comb-like structures) begin growing on the sides of grouse toes. Like a snowshoe, these fringes increase the surface area of the feet. With the bird’s weight more distributed, grouse are able to walk across the snow without sinking in as much. Pectinations are thought to help the grouse grip onto icy branches when feeding on their winter diet of buds and twigs as well. 

Grouse also grow gaiters on their legs (feathers) and a balaclava for their face (nostril feathers that slightly warm the air they breathe). In the spring, grouse shed their winter adaptive “gear.” 

As snow blankets New England, how do voles, mice, and shrews stay warm? They burrow under the snow, into a hidden world of tunnels and rooms – the subnivean zone. 

Named from the Latin “sub” (under) and “nives” (snow), the subnivean zone is a space that forms between the ground and the bottom of the snowpack in two ways. With the first snowfalls of the season, vegetation and rocks act like umbrellas, blocking snow from piling up underneath. The snowpack also holds in the earth’s heat like a blanket, heating up the snow that does make it to the ground and transforming it directly into water vapor (a process called sublimation). The warm water vapor rises and freezes onto the bottom layer of the snowpack like a ceiling. The subnivean zone offers shelter from cold and wind, and provides access to food caches stored in the fall. With eight inches of snowpack, the subnivean zone stays right around 32 degrees Fahrenheit, regardless of air temperature. 

Subnivean-dwellers dig a series of long, narrow tunnels under the snow, connecting known sources of food to chambers for sleeping, eating, food caching, and defecating. Most tunnels begin at a bush, tree trunk, or large rock, and these entrances double as ventilation shafts.

While small rodents in the subnivean zone are hidden from view, they are not safe from predators. The ermine’s slim build allows them to follow prey right down into their tunnels, sometimes napping in their victim’s tunnel before moving on to the next meal. Fox can hear their prey under the snow – tilting their head to triangulate the sounds (and perhaps tuning into the Earth’s magnetic field), leaping and pouncing head first into the snow. Owls are also tuned into the subnivean sounds, plunging into the snow talons-first.

Winters of repeated thawing and freezing can be difficult for subnivean-dwellers. Their winter homes can be flooded by abrupt snow melt. Sudden ice formation or snowpack collapse can trap animals in their tunnels and lead to suffocation. The hard ice layer that accumulates on top of snow during repeated freeze-thaw cycles makes hunting challenging for subnivean predators. Overall a thinner snowblanket is less insulating, and requires animals in the subnivean zone to eat more food in order to maintain their body temperature.   

See our previous blog post about making a snow cave, or “quinzee,” to have your own experience of getting cozy under the snow!

This Sunday, 12/21/2025, the winter solstice marks the first day of winter, the day with the shortest amount of daylight in the northern hemisphere. The sun rises on the solstice at 7:22am and sets at 4:14pm (in Montpelier, VT). This Monday the days will begin to get longer (up until the summer solstice where we’ll have 6 hours and 40 minutes more day length!). Enjoy this transition point in the year, from darkness to light, with some books: 

While barred owls are common in New England, and we often hear their “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?” hoots in the dark, actually spotting these nocturnal predators in the daylight is a delightful surprise. Barred owls are named for their horizontal throat and chest barring with vertical stripes below. You will also notice their large round head lacking ear tufts, pale facial disc, and those wonderful dark brown, forward-facing eyes.

With these big eyes, owls can see in very dim light, but they are also quite capable of seeing in broad daylight. Owl eyes, like ours, have both cone-shaped and rod-shaped photoreceptor cells. The cone-shaped cells help with color vision while the rod-shaped cells are important for seeing in dim light. Barred owls have lots more rods than cones, some 30 times more, assisting them to see at night when their prey tends to be most active. However, in daylight, owls’ pupils can adjust to allow less light in. They might also partially close their eyes to block some sun, making it appear as if they are snoozing even though they are fully alert.

Their typical habitat is mature mixed deciduous and coniferous woods, often near water, where they can roost camouflaged in the dense trees. So what would cause an owl to be active during the day? Perhaps the owl was spotted sleeping by some crows who chased the owl away from a quiet roost. Perhaps the hungry owl wasn’t successful hunting for food last night and is still on the prowl. Or, depending on the time of year, perhaps the owl was awake defending territory, searching for a mate, or protecting young. 

How good is YOUR eyesight? Can you spot the barred owl in this photo? 

Who left their tracks in the snow?

A raven! Ravens are perching birds, passerines, and have feet quite well designed to hold on to branches. In this toe arrangement (anisodactyl), three toes face forward and one faces backward. Ravens and crows have middle toes closer to their inner toe than their outer toe, which allows us to tell just looking at their track which foot is which. Ravens generally have tracks over 3.5 inches long, while crows’ tracks are under 3.5 inches long. These tracks were about 4 inches long, helping identify raven as the track-maker.

Ravens are active all winter. Given their large size, they have a slower rate of heat loss than other passerines. Still, they need lots of food to keep themselves warm on cold days. Due to their high energy needs, they often need to feed on large carcasses. They also enjoy rolling in fresh snow and even sledding! 

With the chill of winter descending in New England, what happens to the insects that once filled the warm months with a hubbub of humming, fluttering, chirping, drumming, and buzzing? While they may not be as numerous, or as loud, they are often safely tucked away, patiently awaiting the arrival of spring. And, if you know what to look for, you may spy quite a few insects (and other arthropods) in winter!

Insects have myriad strategies for surviving the winter. Some species, like preying mantids, most grasshoppers, and many crickets, overwinter as eggs. 

Praying mantis ootheca (protective egg case)

Others overwinter as larvae (young of insects that undergo complete metamorphosis). They use a protective cover of leaf litter, soil, tree bark, or a specialized structure like a gall to avoid exposure. 

The woolly bear caterpillar, the larval stage of the Isabella tiger moth, often shelters in leaf litter.

Some insects overwinter as nymphs (young of insects that undergo incomplete metamorphosis), like some dragonflies, mayflies, damselflies, and stoneflies who live in ponds or streams. They are active and feed even under the ice. 

Dragonfly larvae

Some insects overwinter as pupae (resting stage between larvae and adult). For example, cecropia moths’ large cocoons are attached along their length to a twig, luna moths’ leaf-covered oblong cocoons are camouflaged in the leaf litter, and black swallowtail butterflies’ chrysalises are held upright with silk.

Cecropia moth cocoon

Some insects overwinter as adults. You can often find wasp species or the Asian lady beetle venturing indoors to seek warm nooks. The mourning cloak butterfly overwinters as a winged adult, tucked behind tree bark or other shelter, carpenter ants hibernate in dead or dying trees, and bald-faced hornet queens hunker down in rotting logs. 

Mourning cloak butterfly

Honeybees are one of the few insects that remain active through the winter. They form a large queen-protecting cluster– eating stored honey to give them energy to vibrate their wings and generate heat. The colder it gets, the tighter they huddle, with worker bees cycling in and out of the warm center.

Some insects migrate. The most popular example is the monarch butterfly, the eastern population flies south in the later summer and early fall to overwintering sites in Mexico. Common green darners and other dragonflies also migrate. 

Check out our Arthropods in Winter Bingo for insects and other arthropods to keep an eye out for when you’re enjoying wintry walks. 

Here are some children’s books about insects in winter:

With most of the deciduous leaves dropped, flowers gone to seed, and snow intermittently covering the landscape – it can be a fun challenge to search out the remaining interesting textures and colors of the November rainbow to create a seasonal bouquet. 

Here are some things to keep an eye out for in the November landscape to add to your bouquet:

1 – Seedpods of milkweed releasing their last seeds on silky white floss.

2 – Silvery pinecone willow galls.

3 – Black beadlike clusters of sensitive fern’s fertile fronds.

4 – Fuzzy magenta of staghorn sumac fruit.

5 + 9 – Green patches of evergreen ferns.  

6 – Golden glow of goldenrod ball galls.

7 – Thimbleweed’s thimble-like seed heads, some still with cottony tufted seeds. 

8 – Crimson and highbush cranberry fruits, a last resort for wildlife because of their acidity.

10 – Flower-like goldenrod bunch galls.

11- Bird’s nest-like seed heads of queen anne’s lace.

12 – Spiky husk remains of wild cucumber fruit that drape from their vines.

What shades and textures will you combine to make your own bouquet?!

“Let’s go on an adventure. All you have to do is run outside and find a stick. Choose it with care and it can be anything you want it to be: a sword with which to fight off fierce dragons in the forest, a tracking stick to help you creep after secretive creatures, a wand to cast magic spells or a broomstick to transport you to other worlds.The stick is perhaps the best-loved toy of all time, the starting point for endless adventures for generations of children all over the world. Sticks are easy to find, natural and, best of all, totally free. So, if you haven’t got your own special stick, what are you waiting for?”

– The Stick Book: Loads of Things You Can Make or Do with a Stick by Jo Schofield and Fiona Danks 

Celebrate stick season with some stick play! Four Winds has developed a guide to creating an open-ended outdoor play space anywhere with sticks, including materials to have on hand, adult role, benefits, and books. Check it out here. What will you do with a stick!?

Here are some of our favorite stick children’s books:

What are these paper-mache-like hexagonal cells doing on the ground?

These are the remains of a bald-faced hornet nest! These large black and white yellowjackets create their papery nests by combining saliva with chewed wood. Legend has that they inspired paper making in China. The inside of the nest is made up of horizontal tiers of brood comb, the paper cells in which eggs are laid and young are raised. The outer nest is an insulating multi-layered paper ball with an entrance/exit hole at the bottom. The different colored stripes are from different kinds of wood, and each stripe represents a single hornet’s contribution. 

So why is the nest on the ground at this time of year? In the fall, the queen lays her last eggs as fertile males and females (new queens). These offspring disperse and mate, and the males die soon after. This is the end of the functioning colony, and the ruling queen and workers also die (mid-September through late November depending on the size of the nest). The nest is then abandoned (if there are any dead larvae inside they might be eaten by gorging bears or Bohemian Waxwings). The newly fertilized queens spend the winter dormant in crevices, under bark, or rotting logs and emerge in the spring to begin their own nests. 

In New England, after a few hard frosts is the time of year to go for a nest search and dissect one!

On late autumn days, you may still see turtles and snakes sunning on warm rocks or grass, taking advantage of the lingering warmth. But when temperatures drop consistently below freezing, what do reptiles do? 

They brumate! Brumation is a state of dormancy similar to hibernation. Both are states of reduced metabolic activity. But unlike a hibernating mammal, a brumating reptile or amphibian may wake from time to time, bask, and drink water.

Because reptiles can’t regulate their own temperature (ectothermic), they seek out hollow logs, mammal burrows, caves or other sheltered spots to brumate. For aquatic reptiles that is often the mud at the bottom of ponds. 

Pond turtles, like the eastern painted turtle, have an especially fascinating strategy for winter survival. In order to avoid acidosis – the life-threatening buildup of lactic acid due to metabolizing in low-oxygen environments – they use their shell! Made of alkaline carbonates, they release these buffering compounds from their shell and bones into their blood to counteract acid buildup. 

During the long, cold winter, it can be comforting to picture turtles or frogs tucked into pond mud, or snakes coiled up together in a hibernaculum, brumating the days away.

Snapping turtle emerging from brumation.