Mt Hood Native Wildlife

Footprints in the Snow

Mt Hood’s Winter Wildlife

During Mt. Hood’s winters, you will marvel at the mountain’s serene, snowy beauty. If you’re walking quietly at the right time and place, you might enjoy the chance to glimpse another lovely sight: the local wildlife.  A few of our wild neighbors are easy to spot, some are a bit more difficult to discover.  They’ll all be looking hard for winter food, so please admire them from a distance and let them pass peacefully.

Elk move to lower elevations in the cold months. Bulls may choose high meadows, while cows and their young like south-facing slopes where food is easier to come by.  When necessary, elk paw through snow for meals of dried grasses and twigs.
black tailed deer, meanwhile, will be nosing around on the forest edges. There they can find safe shelter close to the underbrush and grasslands where they feed. Deer are browsers, which mean they’ll nibble tender bark and shrubs in any handy garden, too.  If you’re outside at dawn or dusk you may catch them at it.

Other locals with a taste for twigs and buds are the snowshoe hare and the mountain cottontail, which will need food close to the ground and within close hopping distance of their homes.  Both may come out in the daytime more than usual during the short winter days.  If you see a bunny with big feet and longish, black-tipped ears, you’ve spotted a snowshoe hare.  Bobcats would like to spot them too, as rabbits and rodents are their main food sources.  Twice as big as housecats and good tree climbers, bobcats like to make their dens in caves and dense brush piles.  They’ll be more active during the days too so as to catch more prey.  Even so, these wide-eyed hunters with their black-tufted ears and stumpy tails are notoriously hard to spot. 

Perhaps on a snowy walk you might see the footprints of the highly reclusive mountain lion (or cougar), if they’ve had to share the hunt for smaller prey with their bobcat cousins.  Cougars prefer elk or deer, which are large enough to keep them for about two weeks a kill.  In between, they make their homes in dense thickets, rocky ledges, and under uprooted trees.

Wouldn’t it be fascinating to glimpse a fox?  The red fox is also found in the Mt. Hood National Forest, where it seeks wooded, hilly areas, streams, and marshes.  Foxes live in dens, whether they’ve refurbished an old marmot hole, or dug a brand-new one.  Normally solitary hunters, in winter they pair up for breeding and for the hunting advantage.  They’ll be looking for small animals such as rabbits, voles and mice.

Look to the Sky

There are feathery neighbors to meet as well during this winter season in The Villages of Mt Hood.  Bald eagles need easy fishing, and like to fly down to the coast during the winters, but look around the Sandy River for a few staying home or passing through.  Mergansers are waterfowl that prefer rivers as well, while if you’re at lakeside you’ll see the familiar sight of mallard ducks bobbing on the surface.

Closer to town some smaller fellows hope you’ve got a full bird feeder.  Look for the Dark-eyed Junco, which winters in fields and gardens, or the Black-Capped Chickadee, which stays put for the winter and appreciates an easy meal.  Meanwhile, the friendly Gray Jays or “Camp Robbers” are smart, outgoing birds who know people equal food, and will charm you out of your sandwich crusts.  These are some of the animals you might meet this winter around The Villages of Mt. Hood.

By Andree Larson

 

December 2008 / January 2009

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