Winter adaptations

We're struggling to stay warm and comfortable in the living room (too many large windows). It's not that it's cold in that room, just cool and a little drafty. But then the outside temperature dropped to ten below last night and early this morning. We noticed that as we walked one of the dogs this morning. That's when we saw the super moon, whose eclipse comes tonight, and what we think were Venus and Jupiter stacked low in the Eastern sky. (Astronomy is far from our forte.)

downy woodpecker at suet feeder

Photo by J. Harrington

We've read about the adaptations to the North COuntry's bitter cold that many local birds have made: fluffing feathers, restricting blood flow in their feet, etc. Never-the-less, we are mightily impressed that creatures as small and light as goldfinches, red-breasted nuthatches, and chickadees manage, at least many of them anyhow, to make it through Minnesota Winters. At the moment, a pileated woodpecker (female) has landed on the deck railing and hopped onto the suet feeder. One we refilled half an hour or so ago. When she departs, we expect to see downey, hairy, and red-bellied woodpeckers at one or both suet feeders. We've noticed that, when there's no suet in the feeders, some woodpeckers feed on the ground under the suet holder. It is a bit disconcerting to see a woodpecker hammering on (into?) frozen ground.

ground-feeding pileated woodpecker

Photo by J. Harrington

As we're typing this up, a loaf of artisan sourdough bread is baking, filling the house with wonderful aromas and, with the oven set at 500℉, adding more than a little to the ambient heat level in the kitchen, dining and living rooms. We're discovering that's one of many side benefits of learning to be a baker, especially in the Winter. We just realized that, if we had a wood fired oven, located outside, we'd end up missing both the aromas and the extra heat in Winter. We should have thought of that some time ago, since our last abode in Massachusetts was an apartment converted from an old "Summer kitchen" in one of the original farm houses of the area. Those long ago farmers didn't want extra heat from cooking and baking in the house during the warmer months, but it fit right in during the cold season. We suppose that could be considered a Winter adaptation that some humans evolved to survive more comfortably.

How Is It That the Snow

By Robert Haight

How is it that the snow  

amplifies the silence,  

slathers the black bark on limbs,  

heaps along the brush rows?  

Some deer have stood on their hind legs  

to pull the berries down.  

Now they are ghosts along the path,  

snow flecked with red wine stains.  

This silence in the timbers.  

A woodpecker on one of the trees  

taps out its story,  

stopping now and then in the lapse  

of one white moment into another.

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