A popular, time-gobbling game for children, and adults, while travelling is a kind of Bingo. Look for this, listen for that, and mark off when found. Each season can add something fresh and different. I think back on this winter and the ever-lengthening list is has produced for me, whether on the highway, around town, or slogging along trails and through the bush.
While people like their “stuff” to be colourful, nature’s colour scheme on a cloudy winter day is almost black and white, including animals in their camouflage attire. Bring in sunshine and its magic paintbrush changes everything. Sometimes the snow lets us know, or try to figure out, who has been around and what’s been happening with those who share the territory with us. “Come see this!” John had urged me after an early snowfall. Large and round was a definite cougar track just a short distance from our back porch. We saw its tracks only once but wonder how many times it has passed by, where it went that day, and when had it left those tracks.
Tracks in January’s deep snow were harder than usual to identify: Hoofs? Paws? Some animals leap, others stride; heavy ones sink, tiny ones skitter across the surface leaving intricate patterns. Have you ever seen the imprints left by the wings of a large bird hovering to grasp its prey? Individual feathers spread apart like the fingers on a hand; sometimes every detail of their structure is outlined in the snow. Signs of a scuffle lie between. On one bright day I wasn’t sure about the line along the snow beside me. Bending closer, I discovered the curved top of a wee tunnel. Part way across, a break showed where a tiny head had pushed upwards. Not yet at the comparative safety of trees and underbrush, the critter had pulled its head in and continued tunnelling. For now anyway, the burrower was safe. Brookfield and Wylie Creeks are part of my outings, ice and snow still covering them at the end of February. Heaps of snow on stumps, branches and logs across them can be imagined into anything you like.
Continuing our “Bingo”, look for perfectly straight lines showing where snow has fallen from power lines, and round plops from trees shedding their snow. Roof lines are accentuated with icicles descending in fascinating patterns. Yards, whether tidy or not, still look neat; gardeners rest up while checking the seed catalogues. “We can’t take winter off in Victoria!” stated a friend in Victoria. “We have to tend our gardens all year long.” Was she bragging – or complaining? It was like that for me growing up in sub-tropical Queensland, but the four distinct seasons of B.C.’s interior helped me decide to live here permanently.
People leave obvious evidence of their mode of passing; snowshoes, snowmobiles, skis, and boot tracks extend across farmyards and in the back country, trails usually straighter than those left by animals. Do those hardy souls have a purpose in their forays into the cold outdoors, or are they like me, out there for fun and the challenge? Horses wander around, looking fuzzy and warm in their winter jackets. Cows line up by troughs, not moving far from their food source, tractor tires going every which way around them. And now, already, calves are arriving…
Winter’s snows provide a newspaper for us to read and interpret. It’s like solving a puzzle – or playing a game.