Winter’s Bounty while Winter Vanishes
© Steven Haywood Yaskell
While the largest forms of life are either absent or few in number -especially leaf-bearing plants and grasses- most of the smaller are here and in abundance. It is a fallacy to state that life dies out in the winter (though astute readers of my column know that it is tough for life to survive then). Poetic license aside, you may say more accurately that nature, in some of its manifestations, simply rests or moves more slowly.
One of the main reasons for leaf change out and reduced growing periods in the autumn and winter - merely one phenomenon in the life cycle chain - is the absence, or reduced amount of, sunlight. Nature works on a cycle tied closely to our Sun, and the aspects of its power that are relevant to plant growth significantly effect this as a trigger. These aspects literally switch the growth cycles on and off. For a few months now, it has been on "off mode" in the Northern Hemisphere. Pollen sufferers aside, most of us anxiously await the "on" switch (if only to keep our backsides warm while we await the train or bus). This switch goes "on" up here around the last week in March. Astronomers tie the lengthening of day to the solstice starting March 21st ...the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere (alternately, the first day of autumn in the Southern Hemisphere.)
For months now, nature has been cashing in on the bounty of stored energy the trees, flowers, shrubs and other growing plants have collected. In the winter, many birds, for one, count on what insects have done in and around plants, or the plants themselves carry a bounty of energy carrying minerals and proteins birds and other creatures utilize to sustain themselves in the face of harsh winds and snow. Apparently dead stalks of Goldenrod (Solidago) for instance bear insect larva in its dried and crumpled fronds. Birds like Chipping Sparrows mine these stalks for these insects' eggs and spawn, naturally, a ready protein source (protein is a longer term heat-generator in warm blooded creatures and as such, is in great demand). A little protein can go a long way.
I witnessed a flock of these common wild native American sparrows (true sparrows in the genus Spizella - unlike the English Sparrow, which is actually a finch) raid wind-tossed Goldenrod stalks hunting bug larva after a hunger-causing snow storm. They riffled through the stalks, leaving the snow beneath dotted with seed caps, so strong was their desire for the energy-producing insects inside.
