Animals at Christmas

The Winter Solstice is a week from tomorrow. With luck, the impending storm will be over by then. My smartphone’s weather app forecasts high temperatures in the single digits come the astronomical beginning of winter. The rain--snow mix for several days, followed by rapidly dropping temperatures down around zero, will be annoying and aggravating for many of us humans. It may well be life-threatening for local wildlife. We’ll keep the feeder filled and the suet looks good for at least a few days.

female and male cardinal

Photo by J. Harrington

You probably know that snow has insulating qualities that freezing rain doesn’t. The critters that are in various forms of hibernation will probably be less troubled by the unseasonable precipitation pattern than those that are active year round. For example, I’m set up to blow snow but not to melt an ice-covered driveway. Maybe it’s not too late to ask Santa for a flamethrower for Christmas.

In the 25 years plus that we’ve lived here, this is the first winter I’ve seen pocket gopher mounds develop in December and emerge through the snow cover. Climate change? Probably. I just can’t work up the energy to dig through mostly frozen ground to set traps though.

Meanwhile, the pileated woodpecker we mentioned the other day is back. This time s/he (haven’t got a good look yet) perched on the deck railing and leaned toward the feeder ports. It looked like this might have been a successful tactic, but s/he still hasn’t tried the suet feeder. I don’t get it!

If you remember the biblical stories of the first Christmas, animals, mostly domestic, played their own roles. Later, the reindeer helped Santa get around to deliver presents. And how many animals are mentioned in the Twelve Days of Christmas?

The Oxen

By Thomas Hardy

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.

“Now they are all on their knees,”

An elder said as we sat in a flock

By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where

They dwelt in their strawy pen,

Nor did it occur to one of us there

To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave

In these years! Yet, I feel,

If someone said on Christmas Eve,

“Come; see the oxen kneel,

“In the lonely barton by yonder coomb

Our childhood used to know,”

I should go with him in the gloom,

Hoping it might be so.

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