Wendy Pfeffer - The Arctic Foxs Journey

D uring spring and summer arctic foxes live in family
groups, but in the fall each fox goes off on its own.
During winters long, cold, dark days some arctic foxes
take dangerous but amazing journeys.
One fox starts her winter wanderings in late fall.
She roams alone across the tundra, a rocky, windswept,
treeless plain.

As colder weather sets in, the foxs warm
coat slowly turns from brown to winter white.

Thats good. It camouflages her from
hungry arctic wolves and polar bears.

The arctic fox is on the prowl. Suddenly her
ears twitch. She hears the hustle and bustle of
her favorite food, a fat, furry lemming. These
little rodents scurry around under the snow.

The fox leaps in the air, then plunges
through the lemmings snowy roof. She
dives under the snow to grab dinner.

But the little lemming darts
through a network of tunnels,
out of the foxs reach.

DID YOU KNOW?

The artic foxs senses help her
catch lemmings! Arctic foxes
have strong hearing and can
tell what direction sounds are
coming from. They can hear
lemmings moving around under
inches (1013 centimeters)
of snow. They can smell the
lemmings under the snow, too!

The arctic fox plods away hungry.
Snow swirls. The wind howls. The air is
freezing cold.
Finding food is not easy. Lemmings are
scarce and summer berries are gone.

Still hungry, the fox does something brave to find
food. Although shes only as big as a house cat, she
follows a huge polar bear. The bear spots its favorite
food, a young ringed seal, swimming under the water.

The seal heads for a hole in the ice to
come up for air. The bear heads to the ice
and drags the seal out of the hole.

The bear eats only the seals fat.
The fox waits patiently.

After eating its fill, the
bear lumbers off.

The hungry fox hurries over and munches
on morsels of seal meat. She eats until she is
full and only a few bones are left.

The fox heads farther north
into the wilderness, toward the
top of the world.

The arctic fox does not migrate south to
warmer places.
She does not hibernate for the winter,
resting in a safe place. Instead, she faces
starvation, bitter cold, blinding blizzards, and
gusty winds sweeping across the sea ice.

No one knows why she heads north. In this harsh
environment, her journey is full of dangers as she
treks over ice- choked waters, across frigid glaciers,
and around rocky, snow- covered peaks.

On one steep cliff, the hungry fox spies an egg on the
edge of a ledge. The egg was laid last summer and now is
frozen in the rock- hard ice.
Clawing at the egg, the fox loosens tiny bits to eat.

Weeks later, still searching for food, she senses something ahead.
In the dark she sees a huge object. Its not moving. She hurries and finds a
dead musk ox. Animals, probably arctic wolves, had devoured most of its
meat. The fox scrapes the bones and feeds on a few frozen scraps.

For the next three months the sun never rises. Winter
is one long night. Sometimes the northern lights give
off a green, red, or blue glow. They swirl around and
light up the sky.

The fox growls and howls, filling the night air with an
eerie song. Surrounded by an icy world, the fox looks like a
little ghost, with her snow- white fur blowing in the wind.

The wind picks up and violently tosses
sharp pieces of ice as big as hailstones at
the fox.

DID YOU KNOW?

Arctic winters get bitterly cold, often degrees
below zero Fahrenheit (- 34.4 degrees Celsius). People
can freeze. But not the arctic fox. She can even
survive at degrees below zero Fahrenheit (- 43C)
the coldest Arctic temperaturebecause she has a
winter coat of incredibly warm, thick fur. Even her