Since many animals see better at night than in the day, you'll be able to find them hunting for food in the middle of the night. However, this is also the time when you have to look out for them on the road.
Welcome to this week's edition of Something Wild. I'm Rosemary Conroy for the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests.
So much is happening in the woods right now. That's why everyone needs to be extra careful when driving around early in the day and at dusk. Not only are breeding amphibians on the move, but many mammals are more active too. That's because they'll soon have hungry mouths to feed, and a parent has to scavenge far and wide to keep them filled.
For vegetarians like deer and moose, finding fresh greenery is a motivating factor to wander, as well. But why does the vast majority of wildlife move around at night when it is harder for us humans to see them in our cars?
Well, for one, they see much better in the dark than we do. Human eyes traded seeing well at night for better color vision in the day. Most mammals have the reverse. That's why hunters can wear bright orange - deer can't see that color like we do.
But at night? A doe can practically pirouette through the woods while we'd be tripping over branches and running into rocks.
Many mammals have one other key advantage besides more rods in their retinas. Have you ever been driving at night and seen the reflection of an animal's eyes in your headlights? That eye shine comes from a special lining in the mammal's eye that doubles the amount of light absorbed by their optic nerves. That's one reason why some animals appear so stunned by on-coming headlights - it's probably absolutely blinding for them.
Here's another cool fact: Each animal's eye reflects a different color in the dark. Some experts can tell a raccoon from a dog or a deer just by its eye shine.
So slow down while you're driving - maybe you'll learn to identify wildlife in the dark, and you'll run fewer of them over too!
Something Wild is a joint production of the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, NHPR, and New Hampshire Audubon.
For Something Wild, I'm Rosemary Conroy.
