A GORP Content Partner Adapted from Seasonal Guide to the Natural Year: New England & New York by Scott Weidensaul

Winter is merciless in the mountains of the Northeast. It comes early, settling into the highest peaks by late October and spreading a veil of white farther down the slopes with each passing day. By December the beaver dams are locked tight with ice, the streams thin ribbons of dark water between banks of white. The birds have fled, save for the hardiest species such as the gray jays and the ravens; the moose and deer have retreated to the thickets, and the coyotes and foxes are already searching out the season's victims, those killed off by too much cold and too little to eat.

Food is where you find it in winter, and the spruce grouse finds it in the branches of the conifers it lives among. From first snow to final thaw, the grouse feeds almost exclusively on the buds and needles of spruce and other softwoods — a waxy, high-cellulose, nutrient-poor diet that requires much digestion, so much that the grouse's intestinal tract enlarges considerably each winter to squeeze the last bit of nourishment from the food. The bird moves from tree to tree on feet that have sprouted snowshoes: elongated toe scales that grow in a fringe, spreading the grouse's weight and allowing it to walk rather than flounder.

Coyote on the winter prowl

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Seasonal Guide to the Natural Year: New England & New York is available from the Adventurous Traveler Bookstore. Click here to order!