The winter meadow is a
snowed-in no-man's-land.
But kick a boot through
the icing and there it is: life


By LORI HALL STEELE
Who stands in a meadow in the dead of winter? We walk its edges, we cut through, but it is never a destination. We, like all good uprights, avoid the unprotected wide-opens of winter. There is little reason to go there. And we know instinctively—just as red foxes and coyotes know—that in these jejune flats, we are most vulnerable to winter’s deadliness. That this is the place where arctic winds come to play hard, and they take no prisoners. That the warm-blooded can freeze to death here.
      And yet, here I am standing in the middle of a meadow in the heart of winter. If it were any colder, even gravity would freeze, and all these snowflakes would be suspended in mid-air, like some surreal starry night. It is that cold. Here, there is no thermal shelter. And because of that, there is no life.
      Or at least that’s how it appears.
      To the eye, the winter meadow is snowed in, whited out and wind blasted. A hushed tundra where last year’s happy asters and blowsy horsemint are browned sticks and skeletons. But kick a snowboot through the crystallized icing and there it is: life, waiting for the sun.
      Beneath the snow, beneath a browned bracken fern, a red seedling is matted and twisted, starting to reawaken. That bracken fern, which looks lost to the world, is sending out root shoots, growing despite the wind chill. A dandelion is coming up. And here, beneath the white, meadow voles have built a city of tunnels.
      Insects are sleeping down in the soil, where they’re trying to stay warm or at least avoid freezing. There’s pinebug larvae hibernating here, egg masses on plant stems—which deer and others seek out, a high-protein, nutrient-filled snack. Lichen and moss light up during winter, whenever the snow blows off and they’re touched by the sun.
      Snow-covered mullein juts from the meadow, an effigy of summer, and it is loaded with tiny black seeds. All around its base, the snow is peppered with shiny seeds. Snowbirds like finches, snow buntings, gold finches and chickadees swoop in to feast.
      Birds flit in and out, and some dive-bomb into meadow snowpack, creating a high-velocity insta-nest. The snow becomes a blanket. The snow is a hideout. They can sleep peacefully, until someone—say, me—happens by, rousting them. The flurry and fury of their sudden exit can startle the bejeebers out of you.
      The voles, too, use meadow snow as shelter. They move mostly during the day in winter, spending the season building a labyrinth of tunnels, complete with bedrooms and dining halls and escape exits. Inside, it’s several degrees warmer than surface temperature. There they feed on grasses and seeds they find while excavating. Uneaten grass covers tunnel floors like carpeting. They seldom travel outside. Unless they must.
      Fox, coyotes and other predators are onto voles, and have developed keen listening to hear them running through tunnels. When they’ve located an unlucky field mouse, fox and coyote leap and try to catch them between paws. Often they end up with a mouth full of powder.
      Over winter, snows eventually bust down the taller weeds, creating an empty page. And snow metamorphoses. When each crystal gradually loses its points, evolving from stars to spheres, the snow compacts, and when that happens enough, the tunnels are crushed, forcing voles above ground. There, they’re especially vulnerable to owls, who swoop down and grab them. There, fox and coyote can smell them, running. Mouse tracks are visible for amazing distances in winter as they scurry to new shelter, to evade, to find food.
      At the meadow’s edge are white pine and fir, heavy with snow. There, there are signs of life: red fox tracks, no—a gray fox? Meadowlarks, sparrows or one-note cedar waxwings hide here. Trees and foliage provide safety from the wind and thermal shelter, a place where the sun’s scant heat is preserved a tiny bit, held onto a touch, an nth of a degree that can make all the difference between life and death for winter’s free-roaming animals. Most red-blooded wildlife lingers here, behind the borders of the meadow.
Deer stray out occasionally and leave patterns across the glaze, as they traipse here to sniff a twig, there to nip at a nearly microcosmic leaf bud. Anything to get them through—a miniscule leaf, a seed pod, a wee maple sapling—anything that will help them stay warm, take another breath. Like me, they’re just passing through. They know better than to stay here.



MEADOW CREATURES
White-tail deer
White-tailed deer are among the few large animals that dare straying into the vulnerable wide-open spaces of meadows in winter. The reason? They’re darned hungry. By mid-winter, these well-known woodland creatures are sporting shabby and wind-tattered coats, and they’re rummaging the cupboards for sustenance. Their tracks can be found in meadows, where they browse for anything they can nibble—even a protein-packed seedling bud.

Mullein
Mullein ( Verbascum Thapsus L.) often pocks winter meadows, poking up like so many frozen statues. The biennial can grow up to 7 feet, and in summer bears yellow, densely arranged flowers in a club-like spike. Ancient Greeks dipped dried stalks in wax and used them as candles, and Appalachians today use a tea made from mullein leaves as an antidote to colds.

Meadow vole
The meadow vole—or field mouse—is a common rodent that’s 5 to 7 inches long, gray on the underside, and usually weighing only an ounce or two. They’re darned busy: They eat constantly, and breed frequently, often bearing twelve litters a year of up to eleven offspring. They burn out quickly, too: The average lifespan is a year to eighteen months, tops.

Black-capped Chickadee
The male and female black-capped chickadee ( Parus atricapillus) wear the same plumage: black cap (go figure) and a black throat patch. These birds, almost as well known as the robin, are pretty vocal, especially while mating in late winter or foraging for food. Their distinctive call? You guessed it: chick-a-dee.


Published in Traverse magazine

###