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Vol 1, No 2 - Wildlife in Winter - The Kansas School Naturalist | Emporia State University
KIDS 4 - 10 yr. The cover picture, taken by Donald S Lacroix of Amherst, Massachusetts, shows a type of snow clue one is not likely to find in Kansas. These tracks were made by a person wearing snowshoes. Douglass, Dixon Smith, H. Second-class mail privileges authorized at Emporia, Kansas. It has been said that only a stranger or a fool tries to guess what Kansas weather will be more than a few minutes ahead. Kansas winters are said to be especially variable. Annual snowfalls as low as two inches and as high as fifty inches have been recorded.
Sometimes the heaviest snow of the winter comes as early as November and sometimes as late as March. If we measure the length of the winter season from the time of the first killing frost in the fall to the last one in the spring, the average winter is about days long in Southeastern Kansas, and about days in Northwestern Kansas.
At Emporia the winter has been as short as days and as long as , with an average of During some winters ponds and lakes scarcely freeze over, while in others a layer of ice a foot thick may cover them for weeks. The water in shallow pools and roadside ditches may in some winters freeze solid. The frozen upper layer of soil may be only a few inches deep one winter and two feet deep the next. If the soil is covered with a thick layer of snow during the coldest weather, it may scarcely freeze even at the surface because the snow acts as a blanket. Keep a daily record of temperature. The thermometer should be placed where the sun will not shine on it.
Read the temperature just before school starts in the morning, at noon, and after school closes in the afternoon. Pupils may wish to read the temperatures at home before and after school and on Saturdays and Sundays. Charts can be made and posted on the school bulletin board. Bring a lump of frozen soil from below the frost line into the schoolroom and keep the samples in a warm place. Do you find any living things in the soil after it has been warm for a few days?
Have you ever thought you would like to crawl into a cozy bed the first freezing night in October and not bother to wake up until the first warm morning in April? If you were a frog, lizard, turtle or snake, you would do just that. All of these animals, as well as many insects, snails, centipedes and others, go into a "winter sleep" known as hibernation. Frogs and other water animals burrow into the mud at the bottom of a pool; lizards dig in under a rock ledge or log; both go down far enough to escape freezing during the cold winter days and nights.
All of these animals are "coldblooded. Like an unheated building they warm up and cool off as the outdoor temperatures go up and down. If cold-blooded animals did not go into protected places, they would freeze to death. Even some warm-blooded animals, such as ground squirrels, woodchucks, and raccoons, hibernate. While they are in their winter burrows, their heart and breathing rates become so slow that they can hardly be measured, their body temperatures fall to a degree or two above that of the surrounding mud or soil, and the fat stored in their bodies during summer and fall is used for food.
Hibernation is only one way of living through the winter. There are many others. Many birds travel great distances to warmer regions, thus escaping winter altogether. A list of such birds is found on page Other birds, and most mammals remain active even in the coldest weather. These must find plenty of food.
The colder the weather is, the more food it takes to keep up the animal's body heat, just as it takes more fuel to keep the schoolroom or home warm in colder weather. If birds and fur bearers can find enough to eat, they can develop enough body heat to live through even the most severe winter. They are likely to suffer more from lack of food than from severe cold. For most animals, food is hard to find in winter. Birds that eat insects in summer must change to something like weed seeds for winter.
But deep snow or icy rain may cover weed seeds, so that birds cannot get them. See page 16 for suggestions for helping birds in winter. In an agricultural state like Kansas we think first about the harm that weeds do. They use soil moisture which crops would otherwise have. Insect pets use them for winter homes and they are nuisances in fields and gardens. However, they also do some good.
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If we were birds, we would probably consider nearly all weeds useful and beneficial. The tops of weeds that stick up through the snow are well supplied with seeds. If a sparrow lights on the top of a pigweed or ragweed, it will shake loose some of the seeds, which will fall on the snow. It would take a deeper snow than occurs in Kansas to cover all weed tops. Wild sunflowers, smartweed, curly dock, pepper grass, mullein, and dozens of other weeds are tall enough to keep their heads above all but the deepest snows.
The seeds of plants provide good animal food. They contain proteins, fats and carbohydrates in compact form. Many of the weeds that are so important to birds do not do much harm even to crops, especially when they grow in out-of-the-way places, along fences, in corners, or in places not being cultivated.
How many different kinds of weeds can you find in your school or home yard? Are the birds using the weeds for food or shelter? The title for this page came from an article on photographing weed tops on a snow background, in the second of the series of educational inserts in Nature Magazine , appearing in December, A blanket of snow on the ground furnishes cover for many animals. A covey of bobwhite spends a much more comfortable winter night in a burrow with a soft snow bank for a blanket than roosting on the exposed branch of a leafless tree.
The burrow not only keeps the bobwhites warm, but also provides a hiding place from hawks, coyotes, and other predators. The snow cover may be both helpful and harmful. The same snow that protects birds is sometimes so deep that it also covers the weed seeds the birds need for food. In the woods, most of the snow stays about where it falls, making a fairly even cover.
In the fields and pastures it may be blown into drifts by the wind. In the open field the snow cover may be very thin, with the drifts piled high along fences and hedge rows, around buildings, and in roadside ditches. Sometimes, when ponds are frozen over, a thick layer of snow on top of the ice shuts off the sunlight so that the pond plants cannot give off oxygen for the fish, and the fish may die. Thus, the same snow cover which helps land animals may sometimes be harmful to water life.
The illustrations below were redrawn from the "Cover" issue Vol. Cockrum, in his book Mammals of Kansas , lists eighty species of native mammals, not counting dogs, cats, horses, and other domesticated animals. Among these eighty are some of the best known species of winter wildlife, such as the opossum, jack rabbit, cottontail, squirrel, muskrat, coyote, raccoon, and skunk. Equipped with perfectly fitted fur coats, they are well protected against winter cold.
The fur bearers are not only interesting forms of wildlife to observe and study, but they are rather useful. For example, during the winter, thousands of skunks, opossums, muskrats and other fur bearers are trapped for their skins, or pelts, which are used to make fur coats, muffs, caps and the like. Many fur bearers, such as coyotes, eat mice, gophers and other rodents which harm our crops. During the winter, when grass, fruits and insects are not available, animals must feed on what is left - weed seeds and grains, bark and dried vegetable matter, rats and mice, garbage and carrion.
Many of the fur bearers hibernate during the worst of the winter weather but are active during the milder days. When they are in hibernation, they do not eat, but while they are active they need enough food to keep up their body heat. Tracks of some of the fur bearers may be found after a snowfall; some of these are pictured on page 9. So you'd like to be a detective? After the first snowfall, your home or school yard will be full of clues for you to practice on. Any animal that walks, runs, crawls or hops about after the snowfall will leave tracks in the snow.
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You can tell from these tracks how big the animal was, whether it was two-or four-footed, and in which direction it was going. What else might you detect? On the opposite page are some snow clues. See the difference between the house sparrow track No. The sparrow hops; the lark walks.
Compare the dog track No. The dog "drags" his feet somewhat and shows his claws; the cat places his hind foot neatly into the track made by the front foot and does not show his claws. Among the most common snow tracks in Kansas are those of the cottontail No. See how he puts down one forefoot, then the other forefoot, then both hind feet in front of and outside of the tracks made by the forefeet.
On the opposite page are some of the other common snow tracks to be found in Kansas. Of course, many of these tracks may also be found in mud, sand or soft earth when no snow is on the ground. Future issues of The Kansas School Naturalist , as now planned: In this table the first column lists 25 common Kansas nesting birds which do not ordinarily stay here in winter; the second column indicates the months in which the birds may usually be seen in Kansas; the third column shows where they are during the winter. The tabular summary of winter birds, pages 12 to 15 , was prepared by H.
The entire December—March period in Chicago was the coldest on record, topping the previous record from —04, even colder than the notoriously cold winters of the late s.
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The state of Iowa went through its ninth-coldest winter in years. Only the winters of —36 and —79 in the last century were colder, with the others being back in the s. March was near-record cold for the Southeastern U. S, where three states—Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia—had their coldest March on record. Despite the abnormally cold winter over sections of North America and much of Russia , most of the globe saw either average or above-average temperatures during the first four months of During the last week of March, meteorologists expected average temperatures to return sometime from April to mid-May.
As of February 27, Winnipeg was experiencing the second-coldest winter in 75 years, the coldest in 35 years and with snowfall total being 50 per cent more than normal.
Saskatoon was experiencing the coldest winter in 18 years; Windsor, Ontario , the coldest winter in 35 years and snowiest winter on record; Toronto, the coldest winter in 20 years; St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador , the coldest winter in 20 years, the snowiest winter in seven years and a record number of stormy days. Vancouver , which is known for its milder weather, was realizing one of its coldest and snowiest Februarys in 25 years. In the U. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The typical polar vortex configuration in November An abnormal polar vortex on January 5, Archived from the original on January 8, Retrieved January 8, Retrieved January 9, Polar vortex brings record temperatures".
Wildlife in Winter
Retrieved January 6, The New York Times. Retrieved January 7, The Christian Science Monitor. Archived from the original on January 7, Historic freeze brings rare danger warning". What was the lowest wind chill ever recorded in Chicago? Retrieved July 31, Simcoe — Delhi — Norfolk — Environment Canada". Archived from the original on January 14, Retrieved January 10, Archived from the original on 5 March Space Science and Engineering Center.
Retrieved January 11, Professional information about meteorological conditions in the world. Retrieved January 30, Good, Could be Better". Retrieved February 7, Retrieved March 1, Frozen aircraft fuel stalling nationwide air travel". Retrieved January 13, American Airlines said Monday that it's so cold in Chicago that airline fuel is freezing and they can't refuel planes.
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Archived from the original on February 11, Retrieved February 12, What you need to know". Retrieved February 28, Deep freeze poses no threat to tree-munching emerald ash borer".
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Retrieved February 4, Modelling the minimum under-bark temperature of ash trees in Canada". Retrieved June 24, Retrieved January 14, Retrieved January 28, Indiana Department of Homeland Security.