Squirrel!!
-- Dug

Multiple of them, even!

And likely to scatter in multiple directions.

I recall that Bellwood Park squirrels tend towards more friskiness and adventure when the weather's warmer, so 'blast from the past' could be interpreted as 'Spring 2021'. Not as many people coming to feed them, but a whole lot more free rein of the park to enjoy Company, Combobulation and Center Stage. Trinities of squirrels by those names! ^_^ And ones with lovely snow-white as well as night-sky plumage; this is important! <3

-2Paw.

Makes sense; squirrels may not do full hibernation the way bears do, but they are a lot less active in the winter.

Of course, winter is the season in which the white squirrels tend to have the best disguise advantage.

"We are Snowbally'un, for we are Snowy."

-2Paw.

Heh. Granted, squirrels often end up tunnelling under the snow. Snow is a great insulator (that's why igloos work) and you often get entire little tunnel systems underneath snowpack. That's why there are those pictures of foxes pouncing into snow, because they can hear mice running around underneath it. Look up 'subnivium' sometime.

I thought that might've been the reason why; despite the snow being cold, condensed water the snow is itself an insulator because of what it's made out of. <3 I'll have a look for a Wiki and details about the 'subnivium'; and I think that I can make use of in my writing work!

-2Paw.

I'd known it was a thing for years; don't remember when I first heard about it, but I've definitely seen mice disappearing into holes in snowcover and going underneath the snow. I only found out that was the proper name for it relatively recently.

Gah... that reminds me of the stories I need to get back to, one of them being 'Spelling the Cat', which involved mice and cats, both at about 'natural' size. There's one scene where the mouse village in the mountain pass has to dig out the roadways so that everybody can get around after the snowfall buried the entire town. Normally that involves one of the people on the higher end of the town digging up and then setting up what's pretty much a bucket brigade to cart some of the lower snow out the hole in the top.

A reverse fire-extinguishing, but to get the snow out so everyone doesn't freeze, rather than putting out a fire that's going to burn the town down. I think I've learned more about physics and thermodynamics from observing the behaviour of critters I've encountered and known, was puzzled or intrigued by behaviours I didn't understand at the time, then gone and looked the whole shebang up online. <3

-2Paw.

Heh. Yeah, one of the aspects of that story that I played into is that houses tend to have fairly tall chimneys relative to the size of the mice, because they have to be tall enough that they'll probably still stick up out of the snow and let smoke out after a storm. And because they're actually small, there aren't the problems that would happen with similarly multi-storey chimneys at our scale. (If the chimney is too long, the air can cool and stall rather than rise out the top, especially since CO2 is heavier than O2; you need the air to be warm enough to continue rising until it gets outside.) Getting the air circulation going again is a major thing.

Mice and other small animals tend to 'run hot'...it's the whole square/cube ratio thing, heat generation is based on body mass but heat loss is based on surface area, so mice and other small animals lose heat quickly, which is also why they eat so much compared to their own body weight. They also tend not to live as long for similar reasons.

The differing relative lifespans of mice and cats actually started to become a plot point later on in the sequel to the original story, though I still haven't finished that.

Oh, I dig why the mouse-chimneys have to be much taller relative to their homes and hearths than human-sized homes of a similar genera would be; carbon monoxide poisoning or choking on low-hanging soot is no better for a small mammal than a human-sized one. I don't know what comparative level of technological evolution the mouse and cat-persons in your story roost within, but it would be that much more important if a mouse had a foundry, a tannery or even moreso towards the relative stage of their own Industrial Revolution, with big cities and factories.

The aspect of body heat loss with much smaller mammals I know of as well; it's why I would never bring home a new little lady or gentleman ham in cold weather, or even if it was in warmer weather but wet and cold. The heat would be all but siphoned out of their tiny bodies, even if it took less than half an hour to get home from the pet store, that would easily be enough for them to die of heat loss.

That's an interesting plot point, though, regarding the normal lifespan of a mouse and that of a cat, generational differences in the context of your story. You could have a cat living, say, 20 years, but a mouse for three years if healthy, not infrequently less.

-2Paw.

This looks like mischief waiting to happen...

I love that thought.

Oh, quite possibly.

Lucy (the one with her eyes still closed) tends to be the most likely one to actually start mischief. Sylvie finds keeping her out of trouble to be almost a full-time job.