Fresh Snow

Winter is my favorite season, but only when there’s enough snow to go gliding through the woods in groomed tracks on my local cross-country ski trails. Up until that point, I relied on a different type of fresh tracks to entice me outside. Even a dusting of snow can reveal the movements of my wild neighbors, beings whose stealthy, nocturnal adventures would otherwise be invisible. A quick jog before work is the best way to catch up on the news of the night.

My nose tingles with the smell of cold as soon as I open the door. Just a fraction of an inch of white flakes coats the ground. What gives cold air that distinctive smell? Throughout the summer, plants release chemicals into the air as a side effect of photosynthesis, to ward off pests, and to communicate with one another. Now dormant and frozen, that source of molecules has paused. Even if they were still wafting aromas, cold, dry air moves more slowly and carries fewer scents. The fresh snow also plays a part. Each snowflake has a speck of dust or a tiny bacterium at its center, providing the ice crystals with a starting point for growth. As they fall, the snowflakes cleanse the air. What I smell on this chilly morning is not the presence of something but the absence.

After a deep breath of the cold, I get my feet moving down the driveway. Among the boughs of the balsam fir trees, a few snowflakes have paused in their drop to the earth. Peering closer at one as I pass, I discover that the flake is caught on a gossamer strand of spider silk. I imagine a tiny young spider rappelling quickly as the temperatures drop, then finding their way down through fallen leaves and rotting wood to a cozy place on the forest floor. There, with a type of alcohol antifreeze in their body, they’ll spend the winter resting and hunting. Only the first couple of snowfalls overlap with the last spiderwebs of the season and produce this magic trick.

A line of dainty tracks shows that a fox did the same run a few hours ago. Or were they a coyote? Their tracks are similar in size, with red foxes’ being two inches or smaller and coyotes’ being closer to two-and-a-half. Without a ruler handy, I look for more clues. Half the tracks show a small, round interdigital pad—what you might think of as a heel. The other half are slightly bigger and have a triangular pad behind the toes. Members of the canid (dog) family carry most of their weight up front, and their front feet are larger than their hind. When walking, canids will place their hind foot where their front foot just lifted. But all these tracks are separate and visible, untrampled by another step. The canid was trotting—their momentum carrying each paw to a fresh patch of snow. And, looking again, I realize they could be less than two inches long. Might there have been a little gray fox running down my driveway? Tracking is always a “probably” kind of game, and the mystery is half the fun.

I find the record of more nocturnal activities. The cross-like tracks of a grouse form a daisy chain from one thicket to the base of a birch tree, where seeds lie scattered on the snow. Tiny, nail tracks show where a squirrel bounded down the bank. The four toes of their front feet make little star-like impressions as the squirrel plants them, then brings their hind legs around to push off for another leap. Counterintuitively, this puts their bigger hind tracks in the lead. With five skinny toes, they remind me of a skeleton hand. Bigger handprints, all with five digits, reveal the path of a fat raccoon. Since most of their weight is carried in the rear, both squirrels and raccoons have bigger back feet—the opposite of canids.

A rustling of oak leaves warns me of a cold breeze approaching. Among the lacy twigs of maples and green needles of white pines, the leafy brown canopy of a red oak tree looks out of place. Back in autumn, when the maple trees started to grow a covering of corky cells at the base of each leaf, oaks followed right along. But the oaks didn’t finish the job. The abscission layer set the maple leaves free to flutter to the ground, while the oak leaves stayed attached. Scientists aren’t quite sure how this benefits the tree. Perhaps the tough leaves keep deer from nibbling on tender new buds? Come spring, the abscission layer will finish growing and the oak leaves will finally fall…unless a blizzard tears them off before then.

Highbush cranberries glow crimson under their white cap of snow in my neighbor’s yard. These aren’t true cranberries but are named for their tart red berries anyway. Unable to resist their beauty, I pick a single, small fruit from the dangling cluster. The burst of musty lemon flavor on my tongue makes my eyes water. With so much acid, these berries last long into winter and feed flocks of cedar waxwings and robins when other, tastier foods have spoiled. I once made jelly from their juice, but only after adding excessive amounts of sugar.

Even snow so fresh that no stories have been tracked across it entices me to explore. In winter, the absence of some things makes the presence of others more special, and I’m never sorry that I put on my mittens and went outside.

Emily M. Stone is a naturalist by birth, training, profession, and passion. She explores the Northwoods with an eye toward using science to make stories come alive.