At this point in the season, there was not as much activity as prior months. The animals of the area seemed to have hunkered down for the time being to stay warm during current snowstorms. One of the first signs of life that I saw upon entering the stand was the presence of deer. Throughout the plot, deer tracks meandered within the trees with seemingly less purpose than a deer traveling through the woods, and more like one that was scavenging. The ground has a solid base of snow on it covering all grass, so what is left to browse is the abundance of the understory. I could only find a couple sections where the deer had gnawed some twigs, and even though the undergrowth there is dense with shrubbery and vegetation, the overwhelming majority of that is buckthorn. Buckthorn is an invasive species that crowds out the rest of the understory. Contrary to the name, deer do not like to browse on buckthorn. However, a species that does eat buckthorn berries are birds, and they only consume it as a starvation food in winter when there is no other alternative. Judging by the presence of berries, the area had not yet been browsed. This suggests that the birds there are not at the point of turning to eat the berries. The only other clear sign of life that I observed was the multitude of burrows created by rodents burrowing into the subnivean zone. These holes were widespread, but they could be at risk due to the severe temperature fluctuations recently. It might be more difficult for certain species that rely on the subnivean zone to survive winters and hide from predators during times of food scarcity. Since I was 5, I can still remember and see the difference in snow quantity and change in average winter temperature compared to today. After some snow melts, the small intermittent creek was flowing slowly and had dissolved a path through the snowpack, signaling the rain earlier that day and the general melting from the past days.
