At Winding Pathways we often sit in cozy warmth created by our furnace and wood stove and watch tiny birds outdoors struggle in subzero wind and deep snow. Just how do tiny chickadees, juncos, and other animals survive?
Every animal has an energy budget similar to a family checking account. When possible they eat as much as they can and put on a layer of fat or store seeds in the nooks and crannies of nearby trees. Fat and stored food is their cash cushion that tides them over should bitter cold or long blizzards make foraging impossible.
With people, maintaining a cash cushion in a checking account lets a family occasionally spend more in a given month than it takes in. As long as the trend doesn’t persist and funds are restored checks won’t bounce. It’s almost the same with wildlife. If a tiny bird, deer, or squirrel has a cash cushion in the form of body fat or stored food it can simply wait out severe weather in a sheltered place. Winter warm spells enable foraging to replenish reserves.
Deep snow makes it hard for animals to find food and intense cold requires burning additional fat to stay warm. If severe weather persists for weeks, as it has in recent winters, many animals simply reach the bottom of their checking account….their energy reserve…. and starve. It’s a sad fate but one of nature’s ways of trimming wildlife populations.
Although human skiers and snowshoers relish deep snow it presents an extreme challenge for many species of wildlife. They must carefully monitor their energy balance to make sure there is enough fat or stored food to tide them over until spring.
