Winter at Wahkeena

December 2, 2025 –

Snow weighs heavy on hemlock branches, some close enough to touch the ground, while laughing nuthatches crawl along their trunks. Below them, rabbit, squirrel, and deer tracks intermingle in the pillowy white blanket quieting the landscape. Over the frozen pond outstretches a walnut, gnarled and dead, but strong enough, it seems to scoff, still to offer perch to a pair of bluebirds. Winter has arrived at Wahkeena.

Bouncing above in a redbud are two downy woodpeckers. One leaves the main trunk for a less supportive branch and sends snow glittering down beneath it. Eventually, they both dispatch to a neighboring buckeye. Most of these trees have lost their leaves by now, but American beeches persist despite the cold.

And if you were a bat, you’d be grateful! In spring, as the bats that didn’t overwinter here begin to migrate back, they have to stop to rest somewhere along the way, and what better place to be than camouflaged among tenacious beech leaves just their color? To the would-be predator, they’re nothing more than another leaf shaking in the breeze.

Other plant species may retain their leaves at this time of year, and even their green color, but often this tells of something much less beneficial for wildlife. Nonnative plants like Japanese honeysuckle, multiflora rose, and climbing euonymus are green at this moment, meaning there’s still chlorophyll in their leaves and they’re continuing to photosynthesize and grow while their native competition is entirely dormant. This is one advantage nonnative, invasive species have that allows them to outcompete native plants.

However, not all that is green during winter is bad! Our native rhododendron is evergreen, ferns such as the aptly-named Christmas fern remain fresh and vibrant-looking, and American holly, even at the northern end of its range, hold out during the cold and lose their leaves one at a time like pines and spruces instead of all at once like maples and oaks.

Elsewhere on the preserve, deer search for anything edible they can find. In the warmer months, their diet mostly consists of green foliage and fruit, but in winter here, we’re generally lacking in that department, so they must rely on twigs and buds low enough to reach, and, when available, hard mast such as acorns.

Very occasionally, deer will consume mushrooms and lichen, and in winter, when we receive a lot of snow and other precipitation, some fungi flourishes.

For the species that don’t migrate or hibernate, the search for food in winter is on-going, and tracks left behind tell of the search.

We hope you’ll come visit us sometime this winter to see all wild wonders that persist even in our coldest and darkest months – just remember that preserve hours are Wednesday-Friday 9am-4pm until March 14, 2026. Stay warm and happy holidays!

– Naturalist Leah