It's winter, after all, and everything is covered in successive layers of ice and snow. The usual food sources for wild creatures are buried deep in snow. Or so it is we believe. We wonder where they get enough to eat, to sustain them, to give them energy, over the winter months.

They, of course, know their food sources and we don't. If they feed off dried tree and shrub-berries and seeds and cones they are likely present in abundance. They would note whereto forage, we wouldn't.

It's true that they're compelled by nature to begin gathering food for themselves in the fall, as winter approaches. We believe that the tiny chipmunks are best at this; we never see them once winter hits, until spring arrives. Presumably they've laid away enough food to last them throughout the frigid winter months when everything is layered with snow and ice. And, although we know that squirrels too lay away caches of food to help them tide over winter, we see them dig into the soil to deposit little treasures there; so what good is it to them when the soil is itself frozen solid, as well as covered in ice and not amenable at that time to giving up those treasures?

It doesn't at all surprise us to see crows following us. Where once they used to migrate, to stay over winter in warmer climes, increasingly they overstay the winter, and they're accustomed to seeing us in the ravine. They also must distinguish us from others who also ramble along the forested pathways, because, as they follow us, they stop to gather the peanuts in the places where we generally leave them. It's a contest over who will get there first, the squirrels or the crows.

And that's all right, each of them have an obligation to their species to survive, and both look out for themselves accordingly.