A lovely blue sky this morning, and the winter scene has melted away. A heat wave–50 degree days–replaces yesterday’s cold air blast. Still, my little fireplace warms my feet and disperses the early morning chill.

At lunch yesterday, I drive out to a nearby lake/park. My goal is to walk, enjoy the winter scene, and scout for critter food stashes. Not that I am hungry! I have my winter food stash in the form of frozen, dehydrated, and pickled garden vegetables. I have in my cupboards a winter’s supply of quinoa, polenta, Vitamin/Protein Powder, PB2, herb tea, and oatmeal, which I cannot find in our tiny grocery. I am ready and I want to see if the wild guys are ready too.

The book Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival, by Bernd Heinrich spawns my interest in wild food stashes. He describes how most animals survive the winter, and for some squirrels and birds, living through the season involves creating food stashes, especially in trees. The author pokes around the winter woods in Vermont and Maine looking for winter secrets, and I want to poke around among local trees, too.  I want to see for myself but not disturb anyone’s grub, so I carefully look behind loose bark and along the trunk, where branches intersect and create a protected stash zone. Bingo! A small piece of bark is wedged in a tree branch intersection. I investigat and discover the bark is a roof over a little stash. In the fall, a clever bird or furry quadraped wedges the bark into a tree crotch. Underneath? Seeds! What a find. They would not fill me up, but something small will be quite happy to have this meal come January. I replace the bark/roof and pat it down again. If I had a magnifying glass I could see more clearly what the seeds are — maybe next time.

I continue my search of the wild critter grocery store. I find old spider webs behind loose tree bark. In Winter World,  I learn that ultra-strong spider webs often hold bird nests together. I was perplexed about how a bird finds spider webs in the early spring. True, we have lots of spiders up here, but not until summer. Voila! Surely the birds dig around behind the bark, looking for the fibers from last year. I imagine myself, digging around in my craft bins for the perfect piece of ribbon or an exact color of thread.

As I continue walking, I find the entire wing of a large bird–not just the bones, but the entire wing structure with all the feathers intact. Someone was prey for someone else, who left behind the less tasty bits. My wing looks like this (I brought it home for my bone collection.

Lunch time was over so Tango, our BFF, and I headed back to town. Can’t wait for more winter explorations. And if you like the outdoors in winter or are curious as you sit in your lounge chair down south, I highly recommend Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival. I got some hints for myself, too!