Lois Nestel Archives: White Animal of the White Winter

From Lois Nestel's Wayside Wanderings archives:

"Nothing lasts forever and winter is waning. There is a new warmth in the sun and each day brings changes so that even the seeming setbacks of late winter storms cannot alter the fact that spring is in the air.

"An occasional fly now basks on a sun-warmed wall, a spider creeps lethargically from a crevice, and a warm afternoon may find a mourning cloak butterfly emerging temporarily from hibernation to flit over receding banks of snow.

"The sight of a snowshoe hare crossing the yard made me realize that its great spring transition has begun. This is the time when the hare turns, over a period of several weeks, from winter white to brown. Long white guard hairs are dropping out, to be brushed off during its passage through the bushes. The white tips on the soft under hairs have become worn and frayed, and as they break off the snowshoe is no longer solidly white. The entire coat becomes tinged with tan and brown patches appear, first on the face and forelegs then spreading back over the body.

"If the hare is lucky these changes will keep pace with the melting of the snow so that the white animal of the white winter becomes the mottled animal of the thawed spots and, finally, the brown of leaves, grass and earth. A sudden warm spell, taking too much snow too soon, can leave a white hare in sharp contrast to a dark background and so in constant peril from predation. A very late snow can leave the darkened animal in the same precarious position.

"A delightful book on forest ecology as shown through the life cycle of a snowshoe hare is Those of the Forest by Wallace Byron Grange, available at the Forest Lodge Library (still available there in 2023)."