- Welcome back for some more winter nature exploring.

If you are like me, on super cold winter nights, I like to put on some warm pajamas, snuggle under a blanket, and sip on a warm drink, like hot chocolate.

But forest animals, what do they do?

It's not like they can put on pajamas like me, and there's much less food around the forest during the winter for them to eat.

So animals have three choices: they can hibernate, migrate, or adapt.

To tell us more about this, here's our friend Joshua from Five Rivers MetroParks.

- So how do you spend the winter?

I know that you're outdoor kids if you're watching this, so I know that you get outside and play.

But what about when you're not playing?

Like when you're doing your schoolwork, your homework, sleeping.

I bet you have a cozy, warm place where you do these things, right?

We have furnaces and fireplaces to keep warm.

We also have grocery stores and restaurants to get food.

Now, think about the wild animals that live out here.

Do they have furnaces and fireplaces?

Of course not.

What about grocery stores?

So then how do they survive out here when it's so cold and food might be hard to find?

Well, let's explore some of these animals and find out.

I bet you like watching birds in the wintertime.

Most of our insect-eating birds migrate south because their food, like mosquitoes, flies, and others, rest here during our winter.

But our seed-eating birds are in luck.

There are plenty of places out in nature where birds can find seeds.

Sometimes still in the plant that this tree sparrow found.

Our woodpeckers are good at finding sleeping insects hiding in the trees.

Our eagles, ospreys, and great blue herons, like this one, like to catch fish in lakes and streams.

If the water freezes, they have to fly south to get food.

But don't worry, they come back.

Just like how different birds have different ways of adapting for winter, mammals do too.

Unless it's freezing, white-footed mice love to scour the ground in search of seed, insects, and other foods.

They also like to hide food so that they can eat it later.

Squirrels love coming to bird feeders, but they also eat many of the seeds that they have buried during the fall.

Here in Ohio, squirrels love to eat acorns, hickory nuts, and walnuts.

Chipmunks only come out on warmer days.

They spend most of their winter napping and snacking underground on food that they hid during the fall.

Ohio is home to a few hibernating animals as well, like this black bear, different species of bats, and one of my favorites, groundhogs.

These guys only breathe about one time a minute when hibernating.

How many breaths do you take?

Oh, you wouldn't be able to do this in the wintertime, but that's only because our large frogs brumate during the winter, much like hibernation.

On warmer days, though, you might see some species moving around, like this wood frog, known for breeding in the wintertime.

Another kind of animal that brumates are our reptiles, like this gray rat snake.

We won't see them until they come out of their winter homes, which are rock crevices or sometimes underground.

Occasionally though, on a warmer day, some will warm up with the sun and take a winter walk, like this turtle.

So as you can see, wild animals out here know how to survive the winter.

They got the tools and the knowledge to live well out here.

What kind of animals are living in your neighborhood?

Get outside and find out.

Have fun exploring.