Uncategorized – Dave Greschner Outdoor Journal

A February fray

On the last day of January, I remembered a mental note I made on the first day of January. It was a resolution of sorts, seemingly simple but bound to take time: find a pileated woodpecker’s nesting cavity.

So there I was in the woods of mid-winter, a mild day in early February. The temperature hovered at melting point as sunshine took aim through bare trees on the settling snow covering—not by much—the leaves.

Bare ground was still in hiding, but it was making its bid in all the usual places—on the south side of tree trunks, under evergreens, in wind-swept fields, and where deer had worn paths. A lone crow flew over the woods and landed in the field, where corn stubble poked through the thin white cover, like pegs on a cribbage board.

The crow’s flight cued me back to the pileated pursuit at hand. I have watched pileated woodpeckers in this woodlot while gathering firewood and hunting. I have marveled at the large bird’s deep vertical excavations in dead trees where carpenter ants intended to ride out the winter sheltered. From my tree stand, I once heard a pileated’s wings whooshing as it passed eye-opening close in undulating flight on a two-foot span.

On this day, I would see no pileated woodpeckers nor large holes that would be nesting candidates. What I did see were two downy woodpeckers chasing each other up and down and across tree trunks and branches. They would spar, wings flailing, then pause to stare at each other, only to pick up the silent skirmish once again, sometimes only a few yards above me. They paid no mind to me.

At first, I thought it was an early mating ritual. But as they came closer and lower in the tree, I could see they were both females (no red head patch). It was a mystery, this aggressive behavior by the downies, until I researched the nesting habits of these small woodpeckers I so often watch at the suet feeder.

Downy woodpeckers claim suitable nesting cavities in February and March, their quest for the best territory often pitting males against males, and females against females. And, it’s the females who have final say on the nesting site, explaining their intensity I was witnessing.

Female downies are said to feed, and thus spar for nesting rights, in branches lower than the males. Sure enough, as I watched the females not far above me, a male downy was pecking at bark higher in the next tree, seemingly oblivious to the females carrying on below.

I watched this territorial quarrel for several minutes, long enough to burn my neck muscles as I pointed the camera upward. The two birds would circle the trunk like young squirrels, at times flapping and fanning their wings in combative postures. At one point the fight took flight, the birds coming within inches of my head as they swooped downward, somewhat out of control. So it seemed.

The mild winter’s day indeed had the feel of a new nesting season. I had not heard or seen the largest of woodpeckers—the mustached pileated. But I had observed the smallest of woodpeckers—the six-inch downies—carrying on, preparing to move on to their next calling.

Note: My book, “Soul of the Outdoors,” is available through me, at bookstores, and from online sellers. For a personally-signed book, email davegreschner@icloud.com or text or call me at 715-651-1638. The book is available at bookstores in Rice Lake (Old Bookshop), Eau Claire (Dotters), Menomonie (Dragon Tail), Hudson (Chapter2Books), Spooner (Northwinds), Three Lakes (Mind Chimes), and Bayfield (Honest Dog), and in Duluth, Minn., at The Bookstore at Fitger’s.

Of fur and feathers

This is not my rabbit, this oblong figure of fur plump on the snow where the ground slides off into a gully of scraggly alders, dogwood, and honeysuckle. I’m a mile from home, too far from the rabbit’s home range of only an acre or so. So, no, this is not the rabbit under my birdfeeder every night.

It has, however, been eating well. It is a big cottontail, and it doesn’t seem too concerned about moving that big body—perhaps 4 pounds—just for me. I guess we’re friends; this encounter has been happening day after day when I trek the trail on snowshoes.

The rabbit just sits there like a watermelon with ears, sometimes sideways to me, other times facing me, only yards away.Sometimes it stands as if to query me. I bid for a reaction with inane questions: Have you brushed and flossed your incisors today? Have you combed your fur? Wanna carrot? No response, just a cautious stare from large brown eyes, processing if I’m a curious visitor or lurking danger.

Oh, those large eyes, “soft, dark, and brown,” like the line from a Lovin’ Spoonful song. A rabbit’s eyes are placed high atop the sides of its head, providing a 320-degree field of vision, the only blind spots directly behind and for a few inches in front. The big cottontail I’m watching has no trouble seeing me even when it’s not facing me.

I move to the foot bridge above a dry creek. With blobs of snow on the bed rocks, I’m looking down on a mosaic of white, gray and black. Keeping with the color scheme, a chickadee flits below me from one branch to another, climbing as it might be, up the steep bank.

The chickadee comes close, all five inches and half-ounce of it. “Fee-bee, fee-bee.” It is just below eye level, on a branch about six feet away. I study it, and take photos. The black-capped chickadee wears a black cap, of course, on its roundish head with a black throat. Its cheeks are white, as is its nape, from which a little white spills raggedly onto its gray back. Wing feathers have distinct stripes of white, gray and black.

From this vantage point of a chickadee’s back, I see only a rim of its belly extending beyond the wings. The creamy belly down I can see has hints of rust. The black, rounded split tail is trimmed with gray.

A cottontail and a chickadee. Ordinary sightings, for sure, but the closer one gets, the more beautiful are our winter neighbors. That includes the blue jay at the bird feeder. Though sometimes scorned for raucous behavior, the blue jay wears an attractive palette of blue, much like a da Vinci landscape rolling across the canvas in endless blues.

The blue jay’s back is ultramarine blue, some say, but others see it as indigo blue. Its wing feathers are Berlin blue, and secondary hues, trimmed in black and white, include the blues China, azure and flax-flower. So pretty, the jay can chase away the winter blues.

From my walk’s close encounters came the inspiration for a new year’s resolution: I will ease even closer to wildlife, recording the astounding details of birds and critters. A year of fur and feathers.

Soft and peaceful the night

Introduction: During this season of glitter and gifts, family and friends, and reflections and resolutions, I’m sharing excerpts from my book, “Soul of the Outdoors.” For the book reader/nature lover on your gift list, signed books are available through me (see price and contact information below). The book is also available at local bookstores and online. Here‘s the third and final excerpt, a February journal under a winter’s full moon.

Winter affords one, maybe two, opportunities to snowshoe or ski comfortably by the light of a full moon. The necessary trifecta is mild temperature, a mostly clear sky and, that big sphere, full or nearly so. In the last week of February it all came together under the Full Snow Moon.

So off I went, a couple of hours after sunset, the moon three hours into its night ride and already halfway up the eastern sky. The temperature had dipped below the freezing mark when I strapped on snowshoes and slapped them to the trail. I hoped to see animals moving in the moonlit meadow or the large field as I shuffled toward the narrow path in the forest. But the melting and freezing of previous days left a crust. Crunch, crunch, crunch spoke my snowshoes. I would not be sneaking up on anything.

The full moon was behind me, my shadow waltzed in front of me. I crossed the field, the wide expanse allowing me to study the sky—Orion the Hunter and Sirius the Dog Star high in the south, the Big Dipper balancing on its handle in the northeast, and that big orb Full Snow, 225,000 miles away but seemingly riding on my shoulders.

The dark, jagged form of the hilly forest was a half-mile away. It wasn’t that dark when I got there. My path was easily visible, a white ribbon tinged in blue, though always trailing into a dark curve. I’d reach the bend and see the next stretch of ribbon. I paused to listen for an owl, perhaps a coyote, but heard only the sifting of moonlight through the bare branches and pine boughs.

I headed for home, my shadow tagging behind to the jogging rhythm of my snowshoes. For a moment, it was nature’s night song, on the wings of a Canada goose, in the gurgle of a creek, on the cadence of an owl’s call. Sirius was my guide, high and straight ahead, with the moon towering to my left. Soft and peaceful was the night.

Note: “Soul of the Outdoors” is available through me at the special holiday price of $17. For a personally-signed book, email davegreschner@icloud.com or text or call me at 715-651-1638. The book is also available through online book sellers, and bookstores in Rice Lake (Old Bookshop), Eau Claire (Dotters), Menomonie (Dragon Tail), Hudson (Chapter2Books), Spooner (Northwinds), Three Lakes (Mind Chimes), and Bayfield (Honest Dog), and in Duluth, Minn., at The Bookstore at Fitger’s.

Solstice, and serenity, of winter

Introduction: During this season of glitter and gifts, family and friends, and reflections and resolutions, I’m sharing excerpts from my book, “Soul of the Outdoors.” For the book reader/nature lover on your gift list, signed books are available through me (see price and contact information below). The book is also available online and at local bookstores. Here‘s a short journal from the book’s December section.

Winter arrives on the calendar this week. So what should I expect from winter? The worst, I suppose, if I so choose to look at it that way.

But what if I expect the best of winter, of the gems to come, found in the serenity of snow and cold? These gems will surely turn my head even as I turn my collar to the wind.

It’s already happening. I see the wide flowerheads of faded, bronzed sedum dressed up in white hats. Chimney smoke curls into the frigid night air, softly illuminated by holiday lights as the wisps tease the crescent moon.

There’s more to come. I’ll see swirls and whirls of frost on the window panes of an old shed. An icicle will hang in the bushes, changing colors as it catches sunset’s golden rays. The same rays will find their way through a south window, warming a nook for reading a book.

I’ll study tracks in the snow, discovering a rabbit’s night moves to and from the seeds below the bird feeder. I’ll see deer tracks sharing my snowshoe path. A cardinal will appear among the first fat snowflakes of an approaching storm, flashing its red feathers as a warning to all birds to feed and take shelter.

Winter is bright red high-bush cranberries against a backdrop of pine boughs laden with snowy fingers, dogs bouncing in the fluffy whiteness with hints of fun on their noses, lake ice booming in the darkness, the lonesome hoots of an owl at midnight, and geese shrouded in the rising steam as river water meets a morning of zero degrees.

Perhaps I’ll approach a feeding chickadee, so close I can feel the energy of its dime-weight body vibrating for warmth. Yes, warmth, what we all seek now. I’ll carry an armful of warmth from the wood pile for the late afternoon’s repose, the serenity slipping into a cozy evening. Then, a quiet morning indoors, warmed by the wood heat and hot coffee.

It’s winter. Sometimes the best of times.

Ghosts of the Woodlot

Introduction: During this season of glitter and gifts, family and friends, and reflections and resolutions, I’m sharing excerpts from my book, “Soul of the Outdoors.” For the book reader/nature lover on your gift list, signed books are available through me at a special price of $17 this holiday season (see contact information below). The book is also available online and at local bookstores, including The Old Bookshop in Rice Lake at its new location at 318 S. Main St. Here‘s a short journal from the book’s November-December section.

There were white ghosts and black ghosts, dancing away in the fading glow of the full moon an hour before sunrise. The ghosts were racing for cover before the light of dawn.

Was it their past the ghosts sought after they took a harrowing heated escape up the chimney on this bone-chilling morning? It was obvious, however, that the ghosts had no bones. They leaped from the chimney with dizzying fluidity, whirling and swirling, rising and falling and rising again as if eluding invisible obstacles.

They were wood stove ghosts. I wondered if their release from the hot coals sent them looking for the forest where they once lived in maple, oak and ash trees. Would they spend the rest of their days hidden high in the branches, wisps of the past witnessing secrets of the present?

I stared at a snow-covered backyard lit dimly by the Full Cold Moon, now high in the west behind me and casting shadows from all the familiar characters—the birdhouse, the trellis, the deck posts. The smoke ghosts were not as serene and steady. They were white against the cold predawn sky as they escaped in waves from the chimney. But their flickering shadows were dark on the snow below, their forms changing with the whims of any slight breeze.

The ghosts were hard to follow. I watched some race through the herb garden, bounce off the yard shed, climb the shed’s roof and disappear in the branches beyond. They were free, no longer standing in the forest, stacked in a pile or trapped in a stove. Now the ghosts danced in the branches. A cold winter dance.

Note: Thr0ugh the holiday season, “Soul of the Outdoors” is available through me at the special price of $17. For a personally-signed book, email davegreschner@icloud.com or text or call me at 715-651-1638. The book is also available through online book sellers, and bookstores in Rice Lake (Old Bookshop), Eau Claire (Dotters), Menomonie (Dragon Tail), Hudson (Chapter2Books), Spooner (Northwinds), Three Lakes (Mind Chimes), and Bayfield (Honest Dog), and in Duluth, Minn., at The Bookstore at Fitger’s.

Reading into summer

I normally come late to books, as in 10 to 30 or more years late. In the past year I’ve read, and enjoyed thoroughly, “Paddling to Winter” by Julie Buckles (published 2013), “What the River Knows” by Wayne Field (1996), and “Reading the River: A Voyage Down the Yukon” by John Hildebrand (1988). So when it comes to recommending summer reading, I’m probably offering something you’ve long since consumed.

But I’ll add a title I’m reading right now, fresh off the press. That would be Cornerstone Press at UW-Stevens Point. “You Shoulda Been Here Last Week” is a collection of fishing stories by Ted Rulseh, just in time for the fishing season and vacations at the lake.

In down-home fashion, Rulseh spins fishing tales from his childhood in Two Rivers to his present home base on Birch Lake in northeast Wisconsin’s Oneida County. Rulseh recounts a “lifetime of angling’s joys, thrills and failures,” as the book cover puts it, with “moments of wonder, and treasured times with friends and family.”

I’ve been reeled in by Rulseh’s talent for description: “The evening wind is fading on Eagle Spring Lake, the water smoothing out so I can clearly see, in the sky’s bright reflection, the small circles of freshly sprouted lily pads floating on slender stalks. A red sun is setting into purplish haze …”

Rulseh recounts fishing for suckers as a boy, when sucker fishing was its own season, which was fleeting, lasting only a week or so, recalls the author. “When it was over, we stowed Uncle Dick’s net in the garage rafters, forgot about it, and turned to other pursuits, chiefly baseball behind the tavern.”

This isn’t a how-to fishing guide, or bragfest about fish caught, but instead it’s of everyday fishing stories with plenty of self-deprecating humor and confessions. “I had never caught a carp,” writes Rulseh. “Of all my failings as a twelve-year old, none weighed heavier than that. Being skinny and a bit of a weakling, being the last boy in the neighborhood to learn to swim, I could bear those burdens … But not having caught a carp—that wore on me.”

There is also the issue with the wife over live bait in the refrigerator—”You get those worms out of this house and keep them out”—and about the origin of the book’s title—”I can’t understand it,” the resort owner says. “The group before you was getting northerns right off the pier.”

There are the tender moments, including recounting fishing outings with his father when he was a kid. Rulseh writes of returning the favor so many years later, when “life’s circle swung around,” and the author and his three brothers took their aging and legally-blind dad fishing.

Writes Rulseh, “Before getting into the car for the trip home, Dad shook hands with each of us in turn. ‘This has been fun,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’ In truth, the debt of gratitude was all ours. Dad didn’t teach us much about how to catch fish, but he did teach us to love fishing. It was and is enough.”

Introspection keeps showing up in Rulseh’s book, of how fast summers are consumed by house and yard chores, and weddings and reunions, while fishing keeps getting postponed. But with his children grown and retirement around the corner, Rulseh daydreams about when he can write three words in big, red letters on a sheet of paper and tape it to the front door. I’ll let you read what those words are.

If you enjoy fishing, if you enjoy the water and the Northwoods mindset, this book is for your summer reading. It surely is a part of mine. The book is available in bookstores in Northern Wisconsin, through online sites such as Amazon, and from Cornerstone Press. For a personally autographed copy, order through Rulseh’s website https://thelakeguy.net.

Rulseh is also the author of “A Lakeside Companion,” and “Ripple Effects: How We’re Loving Our Lakes to Death.”

Switching gears, I was invited to participate in a poetry hike last month, even though my poetry efforts have been limited. The hike took place at the 125-acre Union Conservancy, a wooded gem of eight trails in the Town of Union just west of Eau Claire. Some hiking paths rise high above the Chippewa River for stunning overlooks.

About two dozen people hiked through the early spring woodlands, following trails rising and falling along the river and into valleys, starting and ending at a campfire in the spacious parking lot. Along the hike, four readers took turns reading their piece of poetry and from their books. Ken Szymanski read a humorous piece about flying a kite with his son (a tree eventually ends up flying the kite); Elan Mcccallum read four of her introspective poems; Jessi Peterson read several nature-themed poems; and I read my “To the Creek” poem, along with a couple of excerpts from my book.

One of Jessi’s poems gives thought to the mortality of fawns, and how we can protect the raptors taking advantage of that mortality. Here’s Jessi’s “Roadkill” poem, from her chapbook “Century Farm,” available at Dotters Books and The Local Store, both in Eau Claire.

Roadkill

Fawn, only just past spots, spewing still-wet bloody foam from its nose

and mouth, maybe warm, I don’t know.

Can’t bear to notice too much.

Belly already breached, flies

have congregated on the stench,

the spilt raveling of gut.

From the stop sign half a mile away

I saw the wheeling wings, the great settling,

then ungainly upheaval into oncoming traffic.

It’s a quiet road, but not that quiet.

I could have turned off, driven south

And done no harm, but no good either.

So I drove on, past it, made a u-turn, put on my flashers.

Walking back, I stretched a stray sock onto my hand,

maybe to breathe through, but mostly to drag that

lost life off to nestle in the ditch full of daylilies.

Safe from being struck again and again by wheels,

safe for an eagle to land on and feast.

So that’s the blog, taking a bit different direction this time. Happy summer reading.

Book author Ken Szymanski reads a short story from his phone on the Poetry Hike at Union Conservancy near Eau Claire in May.

Note: My book, “Soul of the Outdoors,” is available by contacting me at davegreschner@icloud.com or 715-651-1638. The book is also available through online book sellers, and at Wisconsin bookstores in Rice Lake (Old Bookshop), Eau Claire (Dotters), Menomonie (Dragon Tale), Hudson (Chapter2Books), Spooner (Northwinds), Three Lakes (Mind Chimes), Cable (Redbery Books),and Bayfield (Honest Dog), and in Duluth, Minn., at The Bookstore at Fitger’s.

Crystal blue persuasion

At least once a winter I go ice fishing to remind myself why I don’t go ice fishing a couple dozen times a winter. Nothing against shacks and waxies, teardrops and tip-ups, or cold beer on a cold lake. It’s just that I prefer my fishing days on soft water when I can hear the plop of the bobber.

That once-a-winter came up on the last day of February, initiated with the text, “You wanna go fishing today?” That would be my brother-in-law’s thumbs typing. I replied in haste, “Yeh!”

Why not? The day promised thawing temperatures, blue sky, and a chickadee breeze, not a hawkish wind that is the bane of the shackless. There we were the next day, on a white canvas dotted with shanties of retreat and heat, gloveless in our pursuit of hooking on waxies to hook up bluegills.

With the sun, the calm, and temperature above freezing, my only other requirements were safe ice—I was assured 30 inches was safe—and someone to power drill holes through those 30 inches; my hand auger has become garage art. Bro-in-law has a gas auger to spit, lickety-split, ice from holes 10 inches across.

Then I settled in, or I should say settled on, for I sat on the mandatory 5-gallon pail turned upside down. Later, the pail would be used to carry 5 gallons of fish. I hoped. For the time being it was my front row seat to watch a tiny bobber for anything resembling a nibble. I stared at the hole, assuming the ice fishing pose.

Anticipation went down the hole and nothing came up the hole for the first hour. Yet, I was entertained by the lake’s Saturday-in-the-park atmosphere among the ice anglers with nothing much on their mind but enjoying the expansive getaway. Music wafted across the whiteness. We loaded and lowered our waxes to the Doobie Brothers’ “Only A Fool Believes,” followed by Three Dog Night’s “Mama Told Me Not to Come.” Not exactly tunes to build fishing confidence.

Whatever confidence we brought to the lake began to wane. No amount of angling finagling could bring the fish to light. So out came my brother-in-law’s drone. And beer. A drone went up, a beer went down.

“You hear that jet?” bro-in-law asked, as if testing my hearing, which indeed could use some testing. Yes, I heard it, and I saw its contrail bubbling behind. He played with his phone. Suspense heightened to the crystal blue sky before he said confidently, “Vancouver to Toronto.”

I inquired about the app, the app I now want to track flight routes of passing jets. Why I don’t know. Then something happened that brought our attention back to lake level—the fish turned on. Ah, crystal blue persuasion.

For an hour we caught bluegills, though many of them were shirt-pocket size. I was hungry for fish, however, so even the borderline catches made the cut. On cue, a real fisherman came by to check our meager catches and let us know he had 15 pounds of fish in his freezer at home. Well, la-di-da came to mind but not to my lips.

He went on to inform me that my bobber was not sensitive enough to catch bluegills. I wanted to say that I didn’t want sensitive bluegills, just the uncomplicated ones that take big gulps. He must have noticed me biting my tongue, assuring me that it wasn’t a good catching day for anyone. So that ended well; misery loves company.

Then the fish quit biting. Just like that. No big deal, for the day was mild and pleasing, the lake a whole different vista than the dirty, melting snowbanks at home. A small jet went over. “Iron Mountain to Minneapolis.” And then the sky was peaceful again, as was the lake, except for vehicles going to shacks. One or two people would disappear into the mystery of the shanty, sometimes with a dog.

If I go ice fishing only once this winter, this was the day, a good day—one beer, nine bluegills, one new app to explore, and zero cold fingers.

Note: For more essays like this, my book, “Soul of the Outdoors,” is available by contacting me at davegreschner@icloud.com or 715-651-1638. The book is also available through online book sellers, and at Wisconsin bookstores in Rice Lake (Old Bookshop), Eau Claire (Dotters), Menomonie (Dragon Tale), Hudson (Chapter2Books), Spooner (Northwinds), Three Lakes (Mind Chimes), Cable (Redbery Books),and Bayfield (Honest Dog), and in Duluth, Minn., at The Bookstore at Fitger’s.

The ride of Sol

There sits the camper, 30 feet of summer fun covered with 3 feet of winter. Well, not quite 3 feet, but enough snow atop it to worry me as I beg Sol to send melting rays the camper’s way. Icicles cascading down the camper’s nose tells me the sun—the goddess Sol’s personification in Norse mythology—is trying.

There’s a pine tree in Sol’s way for most of the afternoon as she guides her chariot, pulling the sun across the sky with horses Arvakr and Alsvior in the lead. The chariot was believed to be formed from glowing embers of the sun.

Back in the real world of winter, melting matters are about to improve. Heading deeper into February, the sun angles higher, obscured less and less by the pine tree’s boughs. We feel the glow.

The higher arc of the sun will soon lighten my mood and also my guilt of subjecting the vehicle of exploration and relaxation to the cold wilds of winter. I long for the calm whims of summer. I watch the camper’s corner spouts to see snowmelt dripping from the roof. Drip, drip, drip … dripping toward spring.

By three or four minutes every 24 hours, daylight now lengthens between sunrise and sunset. Like coins into a jar, the minutes add up, and soon it’s half an hour, and then an hour, and then it’s, if I dare say, the vernal equinox in March.

The sun’s rising angle melts our winter weariness. Sunlight is reaching us now from about 30 degrees above the horizon compared to 21 degrees two months ago on the winter solstice. It will be at 68 degrees on the summer solstice in June, obviously closer to overhead when we may choose to hide from the sun.

From here it gets tricky, at least for me, having to do with the earth’s axis tilt, declination, right ascension, sine and azimuth, all of which make my head hurt. So I try to simplify, satisfied to learn that on the first day of winter, because of its shallow angle, a mile-wide ray of sun shines on twice as much earth than on the first day of summer.

Spreading that much sunlight over twice as much ground weakens the sun’s energy to half the power in December than during its more direct beam in late June. The halfway point, of course, is the vernal equinox on March 21. Right now, we are well into our winter journey from the solstice to the equinox. So that’s a good thing, right?

For now, quite simply, we know the sun is climbing higher in the southern sky, amping up power to slowly subdue snowbanks, white roofs, and snowy fields where corn’s stubborn stubble is reappearing, having never given up its ground.

So here comes the sun, and I say it’s alright, as did George Harrison when he wrote song lyrics in a garden in the spring of 1969. Yes, I’m rushing the season a bit. But we are angling toward spring. And gardens. One degree at a time on Sol’s ride. Drip by drip becomes quite the might. It’s alright.

Numbers for February

A pair of river otters watched me stop and point the camera their way. One slid off the snow-covered ice shelf, disappeared under a swirl of blue, resurfacing within seconds. Then, with acute inquisitiveness, the otters stared at me from their spit of open water.

The diving otter could have stayed under for 8 minutes. Had both otters decided to escape atop the ice they could have bumped and bobbed, picking up momentum to slide, covering 22 feet per slide on the slippery snowpack; otters prefer slide-travel in winter.

Eight minutes, 22 feet. Numbers to ponder on a day in February, the temperature struggling to reach double digits. It can’t, despite some sunshine. It’s 5˚ after last night’s minus 7˚. Numbing numbers. The numbers of winter.

On this fourth day of February, the sun sinks behind bare trees 44 minutes later than on the first day of this year. Tomorrow, the sun rises one minute earlier than today. We’ve gained 71 minutes of daylight since the winter solstice 45 days ago.

Winter’s numbers tell of a struggle to survive. The fisher of 30-mph speed punctures the snow with leaping tracks up to 16 feet apart, pursuing rabbits and other prey over 10 square miles of range. Rabbits can dash 18 mph. Beneath 20 inches of ice, 32-inch northern pike cruise for 5-inch perch and bluegills.

Ruffed grouse roosting in 12 inches of snow stay up to 35˚ warmer than if they perched in a pine tree. Whitetail deer trail past the grouse in the night. The does carrying fawns are halfway through their 200-day gestation period.

Birds of 15 species work over the five feeders outside my window—chickadees, juncos, mourning doves, cardinals, pine siskins, blue jays, and two varieties of nuthatches, three of woodpeckers and four of finches. The chickadees weigh four-tenths of an ounce. They will eat about 60% of their body weight this cold day, only to shiver the added fat off tonight to stay warm while they lower their body temperature 15˚ to conserve shivering energy. Fourteen hours to dawn.

Those same feeders will be visited in the light of the moon by flying squirrels, gliding in at 15 mph from a nearby tree up to 150 feet away. Standing 24 inches tall, a male great horned owl hoots in the dark, declaring its territory and attracting a mate as nesting season begins. The females lay up to four round, dull white eggs, and incubate them for 33 days in the dead of winter.

Chipmunks, curled in a burrow, slash their heart beats from 350 per minute to five. Thousands—make that millions—of mosquitoes are buried beneath the snow, waiting for a day three months away. Far above, a hawk sees light eight times better than humans, picking out a meadow mouse 1,000 feet below.

Sleepy bear sows in dark dens give birth to two or three 8-inch cubs. They weigh 5 ounces, and won’t open their eyes for 6 weeks. I look at the calendar. There are 45 days until the vernal equinox. The cubs’ eyes will be wide open for spring. So will ours.

Note: For more essays like this, my book, “Soul of the Outdoors,” is available by contacting me at davegreschner@icloud.com or 715-651-1638. The book is also available through online book sellers, and at these fine bookstores in Wisconsin: Rice Lake (Old Bookshop), Eau Claire (Dotters), Menomonie (Dragon Tale), Hudson (Chapter2Books), Spooner (Northwinds), Three Lakes (Mind Chimes), Cable (Redbery Books),and Bayfield (Honest Dog), and in Duluth, Minn., at The Bookstore at Fitger’s.

Clarity of January

The common redpolls have found the common tansies. On a gray January day, where the meadow meets the field, these small finches feed on the minuscule seeds of the dried wildflower five months past its bloom of yellow buttons.

The redpolls balance on the flowerheads, now faded to olive-brown. Some of the birds are on the ground, in scant snow, pecking at tiny black seeds that have been shaken loose by the birds, or the wind, speckling the snow like a shake of pepper. Somewhat alarmed by my approach, the redpolls lift as one, whirl and wheel away, like my fleeting thoughts on a winter’s day.

But they whirl their way back, following their hunger in this last half of January. Perhaps not the last half of winter, but a milestone toward spring nonetheless. January is often too long, too cold, too burdensome.

I’ve tried to do more than just “hang in there” this month. I strive to stay upbeat and find the brights spots on cloudy days, some warmth through frigid waves, and a good trail to follow out of the wind in most my ways. I trace what January offers in the plus column.

It has worked, evidenced by the dizzying yet pleasing sight of hundreds of redpolls, with some other finch species probably interspersed, feeding and fleeing in the chilled air. I have looked up at a barred owl on silent watch for cottontails which should also be looking up. I have found melted ovals on matted leaves where deer curled with shelter at their backs and sunshine slanting from the south to warm their thick coats.

And yet, January is not conducive to stay and play all day. I return home to let the wood stove heat warm my feet in the calm of the late afternoon. No different than deer, I let the sun find me, the sun that will be hanging around 38 minutes longer by the end of January than on New Year’s Day; we’re making progress in the light department.

I also let the quiet of winter surround me, content in this state of repose and reflection, and clarity too, if we’re fortunate. Naturalist writer Annie Dillard observed, “I bloom indoors in the winter … I read and write, and things I have never understood become clear.”

It’s clear that January has its place. I just have to find the tiny seeds it feeds me before I wheel away, like the redpolls, to the next chapter of the season.

Note: Want to read more nature essays such as this? My book, “Soul of the Outdoors” is available through me at the special price of $18. For a personally-signed book, email davegreschner@icloud.com or text or call me at 715-651-1638. The book is also available at regular prices through online book sellers, and at Wisconsin bookstores in Rice Lake (Old Bookshop), Eau Claire (Dotters), Menomonie (Dragon Tale), Hudson (Chapter2Books), Spooner (Northwinds), Three Lakes (Mind Chimes), Cable (Redbery Books),and Bayfield (Honest Dog), and in Duluth, Minn., at The Bookstore at Fitger’s.