The woods remain alive with wildlife food, especially winterberry and wild rose hips The continuing availability of these easy-to-find foods would seem to indicate that other, preferable natural foods still are abundant in the wild, perhaps due to the relatively mild and wet winter that we’ve been having.
Winterberry fruit, shown above, is a favorite last-resort food of birds, including American robins, catbirds, eastern bluebirds, hermit thrushes, wood thrushes, northern mockingbirds, brown thrashers, cedar waxwings, and white-tailed sparrows. However, raccoons and mice also are reported to feed on the berries in winter as well.
Wild rose hips, shown above, have been reported as vital to the survival of many birds, especially American robins, cedar waxwings, grouse, and wild turkeys. They also are eaten by white-tailed deer, coyotes, beavers, opossums, snowshoe hares, skunks, chipmunks, and mice. The rose hips shown above may be multiflora rose hips, but I’m not sure of their identification. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 2, 2023.)