Even if you don’t have a feeder at home — and, why not? — you can watch birds living their best winter lives online. Many nature centers have a live feed from a feeding station. These are New Yorker birds at Cornell University.
In Appalachia, we finally have plenty of snow — and enough cold to keep it around for a while. Hooray!!
But, it is dark and very mid-wintry — something that does wear many (probably most) of us down. Here is a story I just did about how wild things cope with winter and what we can learn from them.
The short take: Dress for the weather, get outside and active when the weather is even remotely decent, hunker down when it’s not. And, do what you can to make survival easier for someone (or something) else as you can. Hello, bird seed! 🙂
This park naturalist perks up the winter by starting a new species count each Jan. 1. When we spoke last week, she had already spotted 22 species. In 2021, she reached a total of 162. (That’s more than I know — way more! But, my husband and one daughter could keep pace. They are both volunteer counters for the National Audubon Society.)
After a long career writing for local newspapers — and, on rare occasions, for publications such as The Washington Post — Nora's word life is now focused on blogging and occasional writing projects of special interest. Also the author of several books, Nora lives in Appalachia with her husband and a goodish dog named Finn, who is delighted whenever the family's two adult daughters are home from college.
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13 thoughts on “Winter weary? Take cue from wild things”
Loved the article. Hope all is well with you and your family. I also like the snow.
It’s good to see a new post from you, Nora! We saw a red fox meandering around our yard just the other day. Speaking of bears, peoplr in our area are advised not to put out bird feeders, because they attract bears, particularly in the spring.
I’m glad to see a new post from me, too! I’ve been pretty buried in free-lance work, which is a good thing.
Ooo, you have bears and foxes! We live in the city, but we briefly had a country home and a bear stomped our suet feeder flat to get to the good stuff. I didn’t take the trash out in the dark after that.
I love how Check’s looks to the animals for cues on how to respond to the weather. What a healthy outlook. During the winter my Dad and I enjoy swapping bird feeder counts and unusual shows. Being 2 states apart it’s fun to hear the differences. Like today a Phoebe bird showed up on our deck. He should have moved further south weeks ago. I think the weather (70 degrees to winter storm) has him just as confused as the humans. Hopefully he’ll find some insects to munch on than head south again.
Birds are pretty amazing, aren’t they? They’re so little but so competent. 🙂 Our neighborhood chickadees “talk” to my husband all the time to remind him to fill the feeder. A few times, they’ve followed us on a walk.
Nora Edinger -- JOY Journal 
Loved the article. Hope all is well with you and your family. I also like the snow.
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Hey, Terry! Thanks! 🙂 Doing OK here. Everyone was home yesterday given the weather. Lots of soup was made. Hope you guys are also well!
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Good advice! Even when it is frigid out, if the sun is shining, that makes it all right.
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🙂 Yes, it does! Soup helps, too!
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It’s good to see a new post from you, Nora! We saw a red fox meandering around our yard just the other day. Speaking of bears, peoplr in our area are advised not to put out bird feeders, because they attract bears, particularly in the spring.
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I’m glad to see a new post from me, too! I’ve been pretty buried in free-lance work, which is a good thing.
Ooo, you have bears and foxes! We live in the city, but we briefly had a country home and a bear stomped our suet feeder flat to get to the good stuff. I didn’t take the trash out in the dark after that.
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We have deer, too. Beautiful creatures hatefully eating my hostas. Ah, well, we did steal their habitat.
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🙂 We, sadly, have deer, too. Once, I saw a pair of them strolling down the sidewalk under the street lights. We fenced in our hostas.
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Ha ha!
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I love how Check’s looks to the animals for cues on how to respond to the weather. What a healthy outlook. During the winter my Dad and I enjoy swapping bird feeder counts and unusual shows. Being 2 states apart it’s fun to hear the differences. Like today a Phoebe bird showed up on our deck. He should have moved further south weeks ago. I think the weather (70 degrees to winter storm) has him just as confused as the humans. Hopefully he’ll find some insects to munch on than head south again.
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Birds are pretty amazing, aren’t they? They’re so little but so competent. 🙂 Our neighborhood chickadees “talk” to my husband all the time to remind him to fill the feeder. A few times, they’ve followed us on a walk.
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That sounds like a wonderful story line for a children’s book.
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I like that idea!!
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