a winter sleuth - blog 4

     In the summer, the trees are covered in leaves, spiders, and ticks; thorns are longer, stronger; snakes are awake and moving; poisonous weeds are in full bloom. In winter, snow and cold temperatures tames these threats into submission. In the summer its best to stay on the trail, but in winter, there are many different ways to walk, many different directions to explore. No season is better to learn the land and its topography.

With no leaves, the blank silhouettes of trees stand contrast with snow like an Ansel Adams photograph. Without poisonous weeds or snakes, the brushy, wooded areas are safer to tread. Without the snap of twigs and rustle of leaves, each step has more stealth and chance of coming across a deer. With snow on the ground, you can walk in nearly any direction, but the land, trees, and brush guide you nonetheless. There are impassable areas of thick thorny brush and unclimbable, steep hills, and the deer use this to their advantage just the same as a patch of grass growing in the winter.
 

     The details and lay of the land are important to survival, and this area appears to provide many advantages for feeding, roaming, and sleeping. It's this area, bordered on nearly every side, that is their home. From feeding to escape, the topography of this ridge seems to help the deer. On the western edge, where I enter, there is a gravel parking lot, a baseball diamond, and the front of the park, where there are grassy knolls and dog parks. On the southern border of this area, there are residential homes that line the ridge of land. To the east, down over the slope, there is a road that divides this area of the park from another. The northern side of the ridge slopes down to a stream that has cut through hills from years and years. This is the only border that broadens into the rest of Frick Park. It's this pocket, this niche, of the park that they make their home.

Sleeping near the cliff for sight and protection.

The ridge, the highest point of ground, is especially advantageous for the deer. Although the area is fenced-in by backyards, dog parks, and roads, this also protects and limited the intrusion of other animals and predators into the area. Aside from a flowing water source and food supply, there are gains from the topography. I make the assumption because there are patterns to their sleeping spots.

You can just barely see three spots spread out here.  The last is beyond the log, and the second is in front.

There are few, if any, spots beyond the stream on the northern border, near the dog parks, or any imprints are found in clearings, or near the eastern road.  It's the flat parts of the ridge where they cluster.  On a single day, I find 15 to 20 spots total. It's impossible to say if the deer move through the night to other beds, or if each spot represents a different deer. The spots tend to be in clusters, of two to four. Each deer rests about three to four feet away from the others, and this positioning appears intelligent and strategic.
      There are three large, possibly buck, spots along the lower cliff of the ridge, and further up, there are groups of three and four spread over the flat expanse of wooded area.  This is where they live and roam and hide.  They do not sleep in the cleared and replanted area; it's too sparse and open to wind and sight.

 
     Their tracks travel through, and their feeding is clear, but they sleep on the ridge.  It's on the ridge where they bed, and where they return after a day of roaming and searching.  From the stream to the road, from the homes to the dog park, and all through the park they roam, but it's the ridge where they sleep, and I see them most.  Without the snow and cold temperatures of winter, I wouldn't traverse this area so easily.  The steep hills are loose with dirt in the summer and dangerously covered with leaves in the fall.  In winter, snow packs under foot and enhances a good hike through nearly any part of the park.  Winter clears the leaves and allows a clearer vision through the trees.

a few walks - blog 3

    Since my last blog, I've been out to the park three or four times. With the snow, it was the best time to be stalking through the forest, hoping to see deer. As a result, this blog is a blend of a few excursions through the leafless trees of Frick Park.

     I enter the park on the bike trail, and it's not too far before I start into the trees. There's a large strip of land between the trail and the upper ridge, where homes are. I walk slowly through this area and hope to catch sight of deer in the distance. A light snow falls, and in between the crunch of my steps, the wind blows, branches squeak, and squirrels gnaw on nutshells. They tc-tc-tc-tc-tc away, sitting in trees, grinding through to meat. A few birds chirp and a woodpecker rattles a tree. I follow the noise and find him high up in a tree. The squirrels continue chomping, birds call, the woodpeckers works, the wind blows, and it all becomes a feeling, an ambiance. It's not that unique, it's not that special. It's not grand, but it's not my living room. This moment--simple, quiet existence--lasts a few seconds before I start walking again.

     Moving forward, I come upon two sleeping spots. Imprinted in the snow is the body of two deer. About two by three feet, round at the edges, the spots are leaves and ice.

The heat of deer bodies have melted the snow and revealed the ground beneath.   I continue further, and there's a group of resting spots, where birds and squirrels are digging for food.








Suddenly, a small facet of the interdependence of these animals is clear to me. This is the ecology of the Pennsylvanian forest. The smalls birds and squirrels aren't diggers, but sleeping areas and deer hooves uncover scarce nutrients. The birds flirt back and forth between the bare leaves and a nesting bush nearby. While the deer are gone, they gather what they can.

 
 After watching a while, I head to the grass clearing, where a few dead trees stand in the middle, around them are caged sprouts. A few are oak, maybe, and few are evergreens. I've ordered books from the library about tree identification, and I'm curious exactly what kind of trees these are. Why these species? Are they native to Pennsylvania like the long-leaf pine to the Southern region? Before I'm too far into imaginative inquiry, two deer appear up the hill.  Camouflaged by dense brush, a doe stares through and flicks her ear. After a few minutes, the other deer grazes and digs through snow. The doe and I stand long enough that snow covers her back, her head, and the angle of her ears. A solid skiff lays over each of us, and I wonder, I don't know how, if my disturbance is costing her calories, costing her daylight.  We stood there maybe ten to twenty minutes, and though that's not long, I wonder how many calories that is in the cold of winter. That's twenty minutes she could have been eating.

      Suddenly, she spooks, and they leap up the hill. The two of them don't go far, still in sight, but I decide to leave them be. We've encountered each other and the moment is over. I leave the clearing and head back through the trees. I go slow, hoping to see other deer, but there's no sight or sound. At the top of the hill, I come across five to six sleeping spots--each a patch of leaves, dirt, and a few green sprouts.  They are spread over a circumference of thirty or forty feet, but all in sight of each other.  Even resting, the deer must remain alert, depending on others.

      I continue walking and daydreaming when I notice burs all over the bottom of my jacket, all over my gloves. As I trek, my fingers pick small burs from my clothes with little thought.  I never see anymore deer, but the whole way I pick and throw burs. I realize I'm spreading something through the forest no different from the birds or squirrels. Similar burs are probably trapped in the pelage of deer tracking these woods.  I'm part of the forest ecology, of the nearly invisible web of interactions.