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Wolf tracks in Kuresoo, March 2013

 

There has not been a March this cold in Estonia for over a quarter of a century and the Arctic air mass is retreating very slowly. On the other hand, there were so many sunshine hours that such abundance of light was last measured in March 1969.  Almost no migrant birds at all have arrived until recent days.

 

Time is slowly moving towards the spring; Hall (Grey) and his partner have not settled down to a certain territory for denning yet. But, is the claim even true that wolves settle down to a denning area already in March or the beginning of April and start constructing a den after that? Definitely not.

 

Wolves are very mobile animals by nature for two main reasons: because of feeding needs and territoriality, which make the aforementioned way of life rather unacceptable to them. Based on years of observation in Estonia and also mostly at our northern neighbours in Finland, it is safe to say that a dominant pair, which is producing offspring, travels common trails with the exact same intensity as in the winter before and they do it as long as they possibly can – until pups are born.