How Animals Prepare for Winter (Pictures)

Winter is a difficult period for many representatives of the animal kingdom on our planet. The starting point for them is autumn. Animals are preparing for the winter with the onset of this time of year. Each zoological species is prepared in its own way: some animals switch to "winter" fur, others manage to make "food" stocks, while others, having gained enough fat during the summer, are forgotten by winter sleep. But what kind of animals meet the winter in full "combat readiness"? How do they do it? In this article, you will learn on several examples, which animals are preparing for the winter and how they do it.

How do hamsters prepare for winter?

Winter time in the northern regions is, perhaps, the most intense and responsible time in the life of small rodents. To avoid starvation and cold death, many small animals are stockpiled with significant supplies of feed. For example, an ordinary hamster, living in the steppes of Western Siberia and Europe, is prepared for winter in the following way: the rodent for autumn collects a few kilograms (!) Of selected grains and root crops. He does it diligently and easily: the hamster for whole days sends the harvest from the fields to its "bins", dragging the grain in cheek pouches.

How do the vole meet the winter?

It is interesting to meet the winter and many voles. These cute little mice begin to harvest grass from spring, folding it into small piles under some shelter (for example, under rocks). In the summer, the voles bring flower briar flowers, leaves, cones and needles. The active activity of these creatures ends in the fall, when the first snow covers the mountain meadows. Scientists have calculated the seasonal reserve of these animals: one family of voles stores from 5 to 10 kg of feed!

Real drowsy!

How do animals prepare for winter yet? Some negligent animals fully justify their name, lying for the winter in hibernation. Mother Nature ordered that these sloths do not even burden themselves with cares for daily bread. Indeed, why? After all, you can just go into hibernation! Who are these little lazy creatures? Yes it's dormouse! Small rodents, similar to squirrels. They dwell mainly in European forests, for which they were called forest dormouse.

Before the onset of cold weather, forest drowsies begin to gain weight significantly. They grow fat until they weigh a couple of times more than usual and look like a small fur bag. These creatures sleep in ball-shaped nests, woven by them especially for wintering. Though in some ways they are active! Zoologists are touched by the sight of a sleeping forest dormouse: the rodent folds into a very tight ball, pressing the nose and small paws to the abdomen. At the same time, the fluffy tail with a half-ring covers almost the entire body of the animal.

Wild animals are preparing for the winter. Brown bear

Not far from the forest dwelling went and toed. In particular, the owner of the Russian taiga is a brown bear. Bears are predatory animals that do not suit themselves with any storerooms, preferring to go to sleep for the winter. If to speak the language of metaphor, then slanting heavyweights are themselves "storerooms", because all summer and all autumn they try to eat large reserves of subcutaneous fat in their body. Moreover, fat is a great "warmer" in the winter season!

To wilk to the feet begin when the berry rides in the forest. While animals prepare for winter in one way or another, bears eagerly feed on rhizomes of plants, berries, nuts, etc. The favorite delicacy of a brown bear is honey. For the sake of his sweet and tempting taste, the beast is ready to endure for hours the bites of enraged wild bees. But only the vegetable food "bear menu", of course, is not limited. Do not forget that this beast - a real predator, so along with berries and nuts, these animals eat young deer, hares, foxes, wolves and fish. Bear does not cost anything to raise an adult moose!

But to gain subcutaneous fat is only half the battle. Before the onset of protracted cold weather, the clumsy must find a secluded place for the future lair. Bears with enviable carefulness do this. Once the place is found, the beast begins to "build": he digs a burrow in the ground, warming it with branches, moss, pine needles and other materials. If in one or another forest the search for a place for the lair has not succeeded, the bear can pozaritsya on someone else's shelter. Some of them even drive out the present guest from there and lie there themselves. This is such a bearish preparation for the winter!

Quiet in the forest: beavers, hedgehogs and badgers are sleeping

Talking about how animals are preparing for winter (pictures with some representatives of the world of fauna are presented in the article), one can not help saying about badgers, beavers and, of course, hedgehogs. For example, beavers from summer harvest a lot of branches, taking them under the water to their huts. There they put the "building materials" in handfuls.

Badgers also decided to follow the example of the clubfoot: they also store subcutaneous fat for the winter. In addition, it is easier for them (than bears) to build a shelter for wintering, and, it should be noted, they are quite skillful in coping with their task. Zoologists say that some of these animals can prepare for the winter literally in one day! It is curious that sometimes a badger "invites" a neighbor-raccoon into his refuge. Both animals perfectly coexist in the hole, shorting the winter evenings together.

Jerzy are insectivorous, preferring to spend winter time in hibernation. To do this, they are looking for a secluded hole, located at a distance of 1.5 m from the surface of the earth. The hedgehogs, like bears, sleep all winter. Before going to sleep in winter, these insectivores eat hard, accumulating the same subcutaneous fat, allowing them to oversleep the entire season without unnecessary problems. If the hedgehog goes into hibernation, then he has no chance to survive the winter. Despite the name of their detachment (insectivorous), these creatures eat not only insects, but also frogs, snails, lizards, mice, eggs of birds.

What other animals are preparing for the winter?

The pictures presented in this article are not selected randomly: they depict the most vivid representatives of the animal kingdom that are preparing for the winter. Do it not only large animals, but very tiny creatures - insects. Ants, for example, begin to build large anthills before the onset of severe cold. The bees, with the help of wax, close their flasks more tightly, leaving only tiny hole-holes.

The question of how animals are preparing for winter will not be fully disclosed, if we do not mention the feathered brothers of our smaller ones. Many birds for wintering fly to warmer lands, returning to "native penates" only in the spring (storks, cranes, rooks). They are called migratory. But not all birds do this. There are also sedentary birds, that is, those who stay for the winter in their native lands. These are mostly urban birds (sparrows, pigeons, tits).

Hares, wolves and foxes

In the autumn, some forest dwellers change their "summer" furs to "winter" furs, that is, by moulting they discard the old light wool, growing new and warm. In some animals, the color of the fur coat also changes, for example, in rabbits. Their gray coat turns into white, which allows them to remain virtually unnoticed against the background of snow. These animals do not make any winter stocks. In hibernation, they also do not fall. In winter, hares feed mainly on bark of young trees.

Wolves and foxes, like hares, do not go into winter sleep, but actively prowl in the cold season in the forest in search of food, for example, the same rabbits. These animals also have molting, but the color of the coat does not change.

So, in this article, on some examples, we talked about how animals prepare for winter. As an example, we took the most vivid and famous representatives of the fauna world.