Return from the Deep Cold

Late December and early January were unusually cold and cloudy for central Oklahoma.. 7-8 F below 30 year average. I went to the Woods before sunset and thought of the barred owl I often encounter in the NE corner of the Woods at the end of the day. What do they do when it is 15 F instead of the normal winter 25F? They are insulated with all their feathers but flight for food must be very chilling. Do they just go on? Some other animals (squirrels?) may just shelter in their nest and suspend activity.

Two days ago at twilight I went to the Woods and walked along the south boundary. There, in the failing light, I came on a large track west of the south end of the NS trail. A large cloven hoof, it looked too heavy, broad and solid for a deer..it looked like a hog. Further west along the boundary I found areas that had been disturbed by rooting. It looked too deep to be the foraging of armadillos or skunks, but in the near-dark I could not be sure it was a hog.

Today the jet stream shifted north and temperatures rose to a pleasant 61 F. I went to the Woods at 2 for a walk from the NE Gate. At the foot of the drop to the wash, the largest bur oak had a colorful assemblage of box elder bugs. There were 35 or more bugs in a crevice in the bark, half the size of my hand. They were crawling about and arranging themselves basking in the warm sun from the south. The green growing herbs Stellaria chickweed and Glechoma Gill-over-the ground, looked a little bedraggled, as though the recent cold had set them back. I encountered one large doe south of the east dune crossing. This is the time of year when does will be carrying new developing young from breeding in late November to early December. I approached the NW pond from the south walking through the dried stems of red-brown Polygonum knotweed, present as an unbroken solid cover, surrounded by scattered patches of Typha cattails and a wide ring of Carex sedge. Interesting question what so sharply delimits the knotweed-sedge boundary. Topography seems little or no different.
The pond was still except for the cardinals and other birds there foraging. I settled there to observe and ended up taking a nap in the warm sun.
Back east of the East Pond I encountered a group of three deer, a younger doe and two yearlings. I sang to them from fifty feet away and waved my hands. They looked skittish but did not run. I wondered what they found to eat this time of the year in the Woods.