Nature Connection: Meeting Up With Winter Friends

Winter on Cape Cod is one of my favorite times of year. It hasn’t always been this way. When I was a kid growing up here, winters were deadly dull. 

Even in Hyannis everything shut down except grocery and department stores. Most movie theaters, restaurants and shops shut their doors after Labor Day and didn’t reopen until Memorial Day weekend. 

Libraries remained open, and many of us became good friends with the librarians who kept an eye out for books we’d like. There were skating, sledding, and snowball fights when it was cold and snowy enough, but mostly it was cold and damp and boring.

I’m a fan of boredom for kids. Boredom gave us an excuse to daydream, and daydreams got us off our buns and into the world. It didn’t take much to gather some neighborhood friends and go exploring in the nearby woods. We built forts, pretended to be old-time explorers and rigged up all sorts of things with old pulleys and ropes, wooden crates and sticks. Hours went by until someone’s mom called us in for hot chocolate and snacks.

We’d warm up and tell tales of surprising a quail or a ruffed grouse, and how we found tracks of raccoons and deer, and then we’d be off for new adventures, often with sticky marshmallow lips and a warm cookie in our pocket.

As a teen with a driver’s license and VW bug, I drove all over the Cape in winter, exploring trails and beaches in Truro, pretending I was on a horse with no name through the Province Lands, and getting lost on the back roads of Wellfleet. I explored the dunes and marsh trails on Sandy Neck, got lost in the woods in Mashpee and found my way around Falmouth, Harwich and Chatham. It was then that I began to fall in love with a Cape Cod winter.

Even now it is quiet here in the winter, especially if you head to a beach or path through the woods. Often I see only one or two people, but sometimes I’m the only person I see for miles. I never get lonely, though, for I have many friends to get reacquainted with everywhere I go. 

On the south side of the Cape, whether in Chatham or Dennis or Hyannis, I can almost always count on seeing flocks of brant, small geese that resemble the familiar Canada geese but which have dark instead of white fronts. If you listen, you’ll hear them chatting to each other.

Gulls hang around all year, but in winter they have slightly different plumage than their summer finery. Herring gulls are the most common, but there are usually some greater black-backed gulls, and in some areas good sized flocks of the smaller ring-billed gulls. Winter is a good time to look for less common gulls as well, including the Iceland gull, Bonaparte’s gull, lesser black-backed gulls, and an occasional rarity like a glaucous gull. 

I see ruddy turnstones at one favorite spot and dunlin at another. Sanderlings can be seen at many area beaches and are a favorite of many winter walkers.

In dune areas keep watch for horned larks and snow buntings, both of which are fairly common and easy to find at this time of year. They are often mistaken or overlooked as sparrows, but take a closer look at those small birds you see flitting about. You may be pleasantly surprised. Song sparrows are here year-round, as are Savannah sparrows, but they are fun to spot along the way.

Loons are here, both common loons and red-throated loons. The latter are a bit smaller and more delicate looking than the sturdy common loons. 

At any beach diving ducks can be found, including eiders, various species of scoter and mergansers. Watch for golden eyes and long-tailed ducks as well.

A winter walk around a pond will give you views of more ducks that only visit in the winter. Look for ring-necked ducks and gadwalls, both elegant, lovely ducks. You may spy a wigeon or teal, a shoveler or ruddy duck if you’re lucky. Of course, finding a wood duck is always fun, and spotting a pintail duck makes any day a special day, at least for me. Buffleheads and hooded mergansers are fun to see, too.

Winter is when I see many hawks and have a better chance of spotting a roosting owl. It is when I may see a deer bounding across a marsh or a fox taking in some sun. Maybe I’ll see a coyote harassing a flock of turkeys or an otter peering at me from the water. 

Growing up on the Cape, we had our summer friends and our winter friends. That seems to have changed now with everyone connected by phones, texts and social media, but back in the day that was something we looked forward to, savored even. Thankfully, nature doesn’t worry about such things, and we can still enjoy our different seasons and the friends that arrive with each.

Although many animals and birds have what seems like a heightened awareness in winter due to possible danger at every turn, they seem to allow us into their worlds more than at other times of year. This is probably due to the fact that they aren’t nesting and they determine quickly who and what is an actual threat. But I have to admit I like the feeling that we are all in this winter thing together. 

The weather outside may be frightful, but as a friend who lives much farther north reminds me, there is no bad weather, just bad clothes for the weather. So bundle up, be mindful of ice and forceful winds, and get outside. Your winter friends are waiting.