Outdoors: Wildlife won't let snowstorms, winter stop their routines

A full day before this past week's snowstorm, the wildlife of Northeast Ohio were busy feeding in anticipation of a long layover.

The wildlife were fattening up in preparation of hunkering down, a well-documented but little understood natural history phenomena, said wildlife biologists.

Deer, especially, on Christmas Day, were mowing the grass, eating succulent twigs and still-forming buds off trees, or rooting around the earth in search of fat- and protein-rich acorns.

"That's always been the thought, that wildlife can tell when there's a weather change, especially when something major is brewing," said Jeff Westerfield, a wildlife biologist for the Ohio Division of Wildlife's District Three (Northeast Ohio) office in Akron.

"Just this morning one of our guys here in the office remarked that his trail camera was going 'pop,' 'pop,' 'pop,' showing all kinds of activity from deer as the animals fed."

The obvious question is: How do these animals know when a storm is approaching?

"I asked that of the deer once," Westerfield said with a laugh. "Not really, but it's just the same as it is for how waterfowl know when and where to migrate. Mother Nature has given them the ability to know."

Westerfield also said perhaps the senses of human beings have just gotten "soft," no longer being able to gauge when a storm is on the warpath.

Yet even without fully understanding the physiological dynamics of why deer, wild turkeys, songbirds, waterfowl and the like can sense a storm's approach, the process remains a fascinating scientific area of study, Westerfield said.

"Oh, yeah, that what makes my job so interesting," he said. "We can't just say that 'x' equals 'y' when it comes to wildlife. Maybe in the end we won't figure everything out, but we have to keep working on it."

When asked how soon after a storm event will critters begin to stir and move about, Westerfield said wildlife won't waste any time.

"I suspect it will come pretty quickly," Westerfield said. "They'll know when it's over and time to feed."

Until then, the wildlife will live off their reserves, their bodies burning up stored body fat.

Deer can easily go 72 hours before refueling with whatever the woods and fields can provide. The same is true for wild turkeys and almost any other wild animal, as each is entering the winter mode of conserving energy, Westerfield said.

"We can go without food, too, for a while, though who wants to go without hot chocolate and cookies this time of year?" Westerfield said.

Then again, some wildlife species actually begin using winter to prepare themselves for the spring breeding season.

In fact, American bald eagles have already used the period October through this month to perform courtship rituals and set up nest building.

Eggs will be laid anywhere from mid-February to late March.

Meanwhile, if you hear the eerie and mournful "hoo-hoo-hooo!" call of the great-horned owl, chances are one owl is calling to its mate.

Great-horned owls don't waste a winter day, the species' peak breeding period being from late January through mid-March with their offspring hatching anywhere from late February to early April.

The same is true for the great-horned owl's woodland neighbor, the barred owl.

"There's actually a lot of activity during the winter, weather depending," said John Pogacnik, John, Lake Metroparks' biologist. "You just have to look a little harder and a little more closely than you do in the summer. I believe that a lot of people think that once winter comes there isn't much activity."

Even some salamander species -- as well as crickets -- can stir on unusually warm winter days, Pogacnik said.

"I was on Kelleys Island a couple of weekends ago, and I saw garter snakes," Pogacnik said. "Even a few bats were out."