Happy Leap Day! Today is that rare and wonderful extra day when we might get the chance to try something new or do something that we’ve been thinking about for years, but just never gotten around to. I’d also like to extend the happiest wishes to anyone born on Feb. 29. I was born on Feb. 22 in a leap year, which means I missed being a leap baby by just 7 days. Had I “hit the snooze button” during the year of my birth, I’d only be twelve right now. That’s a long time to wait for a drivers’ license.
The way I saw it, the topic of today’s column simply had to have something to do with jumping or some sort of literal leaping. Squirrels were in the running, as were rabbits and hares, but the overall lack of snow this winter has made finding tracks generally impossible. Then, I started mulling over the leaps in human understanding that have occurred over human history, and the leaps in technology that have been seen in the past 200 years. I was open to all sorts of ideas, but none really leapt out at me. See what I did there? Susan is rolling her eyes.
All ideas were on the table until one particular moment presented itself and sealed the deal. It was Monday, Feb. 15, and I was home on winter break. I was up early to watch the birds and had recorded a morning temperature of five below zero. It certainly felt like winter that morning. I had spent about an hour at the kitchen window before shifting my attention to the couch, where I like to put my feet up and read. The day’s book was a biography of Alexander von Humbolt, and it was really good.
I’d been reading for about an hour and had risen to stretch my legs and refresh the coffee in my mug, when I glanced out the window and saw a couple of deer right in my back yard. My camera was on the kitchen table and in just a couple steps I was able to trade my mug for my camera, but I had to act quickly because the deer were on the move.
I quietly walked out onto my porch and started snapping photos. The clear sky of 6:10 a.m. had given way to an overcast sky by 8:07, which was both good and bad for photography. There was no harsh contrast with dark shadows, but the light levels were so low that I couldn’t really use a fast shutter speed. I just snapped photos and hoped for the best, as two, then three deer, moved from the southeast corner of my backyard to the small stand of white pines that lines the western edge of my property. They paused there for a moment and then they were gone. Time stamps on my photos indicate that they were in view for only 16.5 seconds.
I went back inside, filled my mug with fresh coffee, and headed back to the couch to review my photos. Many of them were too blurry to keep, but there were several worth holding on to, and two (frames 23 and 40) were worth sharing. Both have their merits, but frame 23 was the leaping photo I’d been looking for.
Feb. 15 was the morning that I shared my theory of winter relativity with the world. Thank you, thank you, your applause aren’t necessary. The point is, these deer that passed through my yard were of mixed ages and two of them seemed small enough to have been fawns. Not yet a year old, these animals were experiencing winter for the first time, which made me wonder if my theory of winter relativity is universal among the higher vertebrates. Will this winter be the standard by which all of these fawns’ future winters will be measured? If so, they may look back on the winter of 2015-2016 with great fondness (or is that fawndness?). I know, it’s a gift.
The El Nino event that is still influencing our weather has made this more a winter of technicality than of heavy impact, at least for those of us in western Massachusetts. It’s been dark, as is normal for winter, and there have been a couple days of bitter cold, but for the most part it has been mild and snow-free. Driving has been easy — I’ve only used my snowblower once, and heating the house has been a breeze.
For the deer, this winter has been a much-deserved respite from the harsh conditions of last year. The snow was so deep and lingered for so long last February that deer by the roadside in broad daylight became a common sight in my neighborhood. Some locals even ran their snowblowers through the yard in an effort to expose some grass for the deer. My next door neighbor cleared a large patch of grass, where he put out grains and he had a herd of deer that would regularly show up for something to eat every afternoon.
By the end of last winter, the deer were noticeably strained. The thick, sleek bodies of November had given way to bodies with ribs showing. I made a visit to the Sachuest Point National Wildlife Refuge (in Rhode Island) in May and was filled with nothing but sympathy for the deer that I saw there. They looked ragged and tired and they were all showing the signs of a prolonged lack of food. I even found the remains of a couple deer that hadn’t made it through the winter.
In contrast, the deer in my back yard on Feb. 15 were in fine shape. Their fur still seemed sleek and there was no sign of ribs anywhere. In fact, they still looked fairly “thick,” as they had at the beginning of the winter. Just now I went through my files and found a couple photos of some young bucks that I saw in September. The February deer definitely looked heavier than the September deer.
Those two young males had certainly lived through the severe winter of 2014-2015, and I imagine (if they managed to survive the recent hunting season) that they are enjoying this very mild winter. There are no biting flies to torment them and there is no deep snow to obstruct their movements. The selection of food may be limited, but things are generally good. Fawns born this year may be unpleasantly surprised next year when the snow starts falling.
I think it was on the evening of Feb. 18 that I was cooking dinner and decided to take advantage of a break in the action to run down to the basement and attend to some errand that I have since forgotten. My basement has a set of floor to ceiling windows and it looks out into my back yard, right underneath my birdfeeders. Guess who was there, right up against the house and eating spilled sunflower seeds? Yep, it was two of the neighborhood deer. Without snow there has been no way to detect their visits close to the house, but their healthy, “thick” appearance suddenly started to make sense. They’ve been feasting on really high-quality food.
And that’s about it for my column today. The next time Leap Day falls on a Monday, it will be 2044, which should give me plenty of time to find another inspirational “leap” photo for my column. In the meantime, I will be back next week with a kids column on something wonderful about the natural world. If you would like to make a request for a particular topic, just drop me an e-mail or visit my Speaking of Nature page on Facebook.
Bill Danielson has worked as a naturalist for 16 years. In that time, he has been a national park ranger, a wildlife biologist and a field researcher. He currently works as a high school chemistry and biology teacher. To contact Bill, or to learn more about his writing, visit www.speakingofnature.com