Nice winter hike, wolf sign, and ever heard of snow fleas?

Walkabout

Walkabout

Joined
Jul 28, 2003
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Had a nice winter hike last weekend in the Whiteshell Provincial Park in Manitoba, Canada.

When I started the hike I could hear a pack of wolves howling in the distance. There have been an increasing number of grey wolves in the area. They don't seem to cause problems, but it was a bit intimidating to me as I started this solo hike off trail.

Here's some scenery:

scenery.jpg



Here's a wolf track. I followed a pair of these that walked beside each other for a long ways into the remote bush. It looks to be about 4.5 inches long. There were some fox or coyote tracks nearby as well, which were much smaller. Lots of deer and rabbit tracks as well.

wolftrack2.jpg



I stopped to make some pine needle tea on my Honey stove:

pinetea.jpg



These are springtails, or "snow fleas", from what I could find on the web; there were thousands (or more) of them, all over the place:

snowfleas.jpg



A big bracket fungus. The knife (Busse Boss Jack) has a 6 inch blade, for size reference:

bracketfungus.jpg



A frozen flooded area:

frozen.jpg



Hope you enjoy the pics!
 
Great post!!! Yep, seen the fleas before - Northern Michigan < *Southern* Canada ;-)

So did you skate across the ice for some cattails?
 
That flooded area reminds me of winter here a few years ago. Flooded pretty bad in the winter and then just turned my yard into a frozen lake. Was fun slipping around on.
 
Thanks for the pics. That Busse is one of the few of theirs I really like the looks of.
 
Ive never heard of snow fleas before this thread. I had to Google them and found out they are a species of springtail.

Regarding the wolves, have you ever seen one in the wild? Im planning a winter hike in an area with wolves, but i know that chances are near-zero that i'll see one. Ill consider myself lucky if i spot a track.
 
PropThePolecat said:
Ive never heard of snow fleas before this thread. I had to Google them and found out they are a species of springtail.

Regarding the wolves, have you ever seen one in the wild? Im planning a winter hike in an area with wolves, but i know that chances are near-zero that i'll see one. Ill consider myself lucky if i spot a track.
Click to expand...

I haven't seen any... just the tracks. I was half hoping and half dreading seeing them on that hike... would have been great if I could have seen one as I was nearing my car, but scary if I saw 3 or 4 when deepest in the bush :)
 
Here's a wolf track. I followed a pair of these that walked beside each other for a long ways into the remote bush. It looks to be about 4.5 inches long. There were some fox or coyote tracks nearby as well, which were much smaller. Lots of deer and rabbit tracks as well.
Click to expand...

The deer and rabbit tracks were your insurance, keeping the wolves busy with what they really wanted for dinner. :)
 
Cool pics. I cant see you having any problems with the wolves but I know a number of hound hunters have lost dogs to them. Those with dogs may want to consider this when in wolf territory.
josh
 
j_d said:
Cool pics. I cant see you having any problems with the wolves but I know a number of hound hunters have lost dogs to them. Those with dogs may want to consider this when in wolf territory.
josh
Click to expand...

All the more reason to keep your puppy on a string.

And so... these "snow fleas" things. They bite or just hop around on the snow?
 
Great pictures
I was gonna ask too,
are they like regular fleas,
or do they only survive in the cold?
I see they were found in the animal print (wolf?)
Do you think it was some kind of egg cluster that fell off the wolf
and then hatched?

anyway,cool hike!
 
From what I can find about them, they don't seem to be a biting critter... one source indicates that "the diet of the snow fleas consist mainly of the mold and fungus found on decaying leaf matter"

I'm not sure why they clustered in the track print... there were a few places where they did that. It didn't seem to be eggs... just a gathering of the bugs. I found this info about why they may have been all over the place:

"In many cases when the snow flea is found on the surface of snow they are preparing to migrate. When this occurs as many as a million of the insects will move across the ground in a relatively rounded mass that extends below the winter littering of leaves. The migration of the snow flea can take several days since the tiny creatures rest at night. Even when the migration is over they have only moved a short distance. It is believed that these migrations take place when the food supply in one area is exhausted. Although the average snow flea is a dark, dull gray color some species of this insect are blue, red, orange, gold, brown or green."
 
Some awesome photos there thanks for sharing. I was recently gifted a crusader kit and a boiling lid by a friend as an early Christmas present. I'm taking it out on the next outing. We have a lot of shelf fungus here but I don't recall seeing any that big before. We have several that are larger than the ones in the pics below, but I've found nothing quite like the one you found.

DSC_8211.jpg


DSC_8209-1.jpg


.
 
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