Posted 8-1-21
A rabbit ate my dirt
Naturally
Crows were drinking cawfee and playing crowquet as turtle doves (mourning doves) were whistling wings on a utility wire. Time wings by and summer picks up speed. I hear insect noise at night. Cricket music. Kobayashi Issa wrote, “Summer night—even the stars are whispering to each other.” The Dog Days of summer last from July 3 to August 11. This period of sweltering weather coincides with the year’s heliacal (at sunrise) rising of Sirius, the Dog Star. Don’t worry about your lawn. Grass endures.
Killdeer are drama queens. One looks as if it had a broken wing and calls loudly as if in pain. It's all a big act by the killdeer parent, putting on a show as it tries to lure you away from its nest.
I look out the window at a stunning bird and feel as if I’m on the outside looking in. In the dooryard, our planted mint attracts dumbledore, an old English word meaning bumblebee.
I listened to Neil Young sing, "Beautiful Bluebird." Young bluebirds have been scarce this year, but blue jay, oriole and grosbeak fledglings entertain as they explore their new world. The day was a baby when I put peanuts in the shell in a feeder. A young blue jay had never seen such things. He tried to land on the feeder 15 times. I counted them. None involved a successful landing. He found the peanuts vexing. An adult flew in, grabbed a shell and flew away. The youngster followed suit, but not without trepidation and several fumbled goober footballs.
Tall yellow flowers bloom: common mullein, evening primrose and Black-eyed Susan. White and yellow clovers prosper on roadsides. Canada thistle is allelopathic, which
means it secretes chemicals from its roots that are toxic to surrounding plants. Canada thistle and bull thistle both have spiked leaves. Bull thistle stems have spiny wings that are absent on Canada thistle. The spines along its stem make a bull thistle look meaner than a Canada thistle. Both have pink/purple/reddish flowers, but bull thistles have much larger flowers.
Monarch butterflies land upon swamp milkweed, common milkweed and butterfly weed in our yard. Generations 3 and 4 monarchs are the great- and great-great-grandchildren of the overwintering monarchs. Eggs laid from late May through July (Generation 3) and late June through August (Generation 4) congregate in large numbers in September, and by the end of October have left in a migration to their winter grounds in Mexico.
We’ll start seeing more flocks of birds. A flock provides safety in numbers and keeps an eye on everything, especially you. It’s like circling the wagons of a wagon train for protection.
Breeding Bird Survey (BBS)
I did a BBS covering parts of Freeborn, Mower and Steele counties in June. I’ve done that count for umpteen years and each year, it’s fun with a proper amount of uncertainty. It’s an exercise that feeds my constant curiosity. I make 50 designated stops and count any bird I see or hear in 3 minutes according to my egg timer. I begin at 5:02 a.m. sharp and in the morning’s clarity, see wild critters besides birds—fox, raccoon and skunk. Bald eagles have become expected, as have trumpeter swans, Eurasian collared-doves and red-headed woodpeckers. I saw a couple of yellow-headed blackbirds. They’ve been scarce in that area this year. I was pleased to count a chimney swift flying above a red barn on a farm, yellow-billed cuckoo, Virginia rail, green heron and clay-colored sparrow. I was happy to get a long look at a gray (Hungarian) partridge on the road. I notice absences. Not one Savannah sparrow, grasshopper sparrow or eastern bluebird.
Q&A
“Do fish rot from the head down?” Despite the ancient proverb stating this, the guts of fish rot and stink before the head.
“Minnesota doesn’t get periodical cicadas, but does Iowa?” Yes, they get Broods III, IV and XIII of the 17-year cicadas and Brood XIX of the 13-year cicada.
“I watched a rabbit eat dirt. Why was it doing that?” The practice of eating dirt, especially claylike soils, is called geophagia. A common explanation as to why animals and people eat dirt is that soil contains minerals, such as calcium, sodium and iron, which support vital biological processes.
“Do pheasants lay eggs in the nests of other species?” They are rare nest parasites on grouse and ground-nesting waterfowl.
“What is the smallest bird in the U.S.?” The calliope hummingbird is the smallest native bird in North America.
Thanks for stopping by
"Nature gets into our souls and opens doors to hidden parts of ourselves."—Pamela Heyda
“The more I think it over, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.”—Vincent Van Gogh
Do good.
©Al Batt 2021
A rabbit ate my dirt
Naturally
Crows were drinking cawfee and playing crowquet as turtle doves (mourning doves) were whistling wings on a utility wire. Time wings by and summer picks up speed. I hear insect noise at night. Cricket music. Kobayashi Issa wrote, “Summer night—even the stars are whispering to each other.” The Dog Days of summer last from July 3 to August 11. This period of sweltering weather coincides with the year’s heliacal (at sunrise) rising of Sirius, the Dog Star. Don’t worry about your lawn. Grass endures.
Killdeer are drama queens. One looks as if it had a broken wing and calls loudly as if in pain. It's all a big act by the killdeer parent, putting on a show as it tries to lure you away from its nest.
I look out the window at a stunning bird and feel as if I’m on the outside looking in. In the dooryard, our planted mint attracts dumbledore, an old English word meaning bumblebee.
I listened to Neil Young sing, "Beautiful Bluebird." Young bluebirds have been scarce this year, but blue jay, oriole and grosbeak fledglings entertain as they explore their new world. The day was a baby when I put peanuts in the shell in a feeder. A young blue jay had never seen such things. He tried to land on the feeder 15 times. I counted them. None involved a successful landing. He found the peanuts vexing. An adult flew in, grabbed a shell and flew away. The youngster followed suit, but not without trepidation and several fumbled goober footballs.
Tall yellow flowers bloom: common mullein, evening primrose and Black-eyed Susan. White and yellow clovers prosper on roadsides. Canada thistle is allelopathic, which
means it secretes chemicals from its roots that are toxic to surrounding plants. Canada thistle and bull thistle both have spiked leaves. Bull thistle stems have spiny wings that are absent on Canada thistle. The spines along its stem make a bull thistle look meaner than a Canada thistle. Both have pink/purple/reddish flowers, but bull thistles have much larger flowers.
Monarch butterflies land upon swamp milkweed, common milkweed and butterfly weed in our yard. Generations 3 and 4 monarchs are the great- and great-great-grandchildren of the overwintering monarchs. Eggs laid from late May through July (Generation 3) and late June through August (Generation 4) congregate in large numbers in September, and by the end of October have left in a migration to their winter grounds in Mexico.
We’ll start seeing more flocks of birds. A flock provides safety in numbers and keeps an eye on everything, especially you. It’s like circling the wagons of a wagon train for protection.
Breeding Bird Survey (BBS)
I did a BBS covering parts of Freeborn, Mower and Steele counties in June. I’ve done that count for umpteen years and each year, it’s fun with a proper amount of uncertainty. It’s an exercise that feeds my constant curiosity. I make 50 designated stops and count any bird I see or hear in 3 minutes according to my egg timer. I begin at 5:02 a.m. sharp and in the morning’s clarity, see wild critters besides birds—fox, raccoon and skunk. Bald eagles have become expected, as have trumpeter swans, Eurasian collared-doves and red-headed woodpeckers. I saw a couple of yellow-headed blackbirds. They’ve been scarce in that area this year. I was pleased to count a chimney swift flying above a red barn on a farm, yellow-billed cuckoo, Virginia rail, green heron and clay-colored sparrow. I was happy to get a long look at a gray (Hungarian) partridge on the road. I notice absences. Not one Savannah sparrow, grasshopper sparrow or eastern bluebird.
Q&A
“Do fish rot from the head down?” Despite the ancient proverb stating this, the guts of fish rot and stink before the head.
“Minnesota doesn’t get periodical cicadas, but does Iowa?” Yes, they get Broods III, IV and XIII of the 17-year cicadas and Brood XIX of the 13-year cicada.
“I watched a rabbit eat dirt. Why was it doing that?” The practice of eating dirt, especially claylike soils, is called geophagia. A common explanation as to why animals and people eat dirt is that soil contains minerals, such as calcium, sodium and iron, which support vital biological processes.
“Do pheasants lay eggs in the nests of other species?” They are rare nest parasites on grouse and ground-nesting waterfowl.
“What is the smallest bird in the U.S.?” The calliope hummingbird is the smallest native bird in North America.
Thanks for stopping by
"Nature gets into our souls and opens doors to hidden parts of ourselves."—Pamela Heyda
“The more I think it over, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.”—Vincent Van Gogh
Do good.
©Al Batt 2021
Photo by Al Batt
Posted 7-25-21
Cabbageheads and duck snorts
Naturally
I fought the lawn and the lawn won. I retreated indoors, plopped down in a chair and listened to a caller tell me of a wild turkey terrorizing a walk-in basement window this spring. An American goldfinch is currently battling with my office window. The goldfinch fights politely, to my estimation. A chipping sparrow had a brief tussle with the glass earlier. There were no skirmishes featuring cardinals or robins this year. A great crested flycatcher was the year’s marathon brawler. It fought various windows of the house for several weeks. I worried it was ignoring important bird duties. It didn’t reach terminal velocity while striving for world domination, but the flycatcher walloped its reflection. Its attacks have ground to a halt.
Wipe that smile onto your face
As a tour leader, I took many group photos. There are the magic words, words with weight, used to make one smile. I’d say prunes, say cheese, smile, smile you’re on Candid Camera, whiskey, lottery winners, cabbageheads and duck snort. A duck snort is a softly hit ball that goes over the infield and lands in the outfield for a hit. Chicago White Sox announcer Ken “Hawk” Harrelson popularized the term.
Red admiral butterflies kept me company as the tree swallows fledged. I needed to walk past their nest box a few times each day. Each time, the male buzzed my tower. As the nestlings neared the point of fledging, he hunted me down in the yard to fly at me. He seemed happy to be unhappy to see me. The youngsters fledged in the morning. Took to air like experts and headed to a lake.
I saw a great-tailed grackle in Minnesota. The bird is a prolific producer of clacks, clatters, wheezes and trills. The male is nearly 1.5 feet long with a long tail shaped like a boat’s keel and the female is about 3/4 that size. There were 500,000 birds in one roost in south Texas. The population increase is due to urbanization, industrial agriculture and widespread irrigation.
Research reveals
Research shows that zebras have stripes not for camouflage, cooling or individual recognition, but to confuse biting flies.
Research by Marie Perkins, an ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, studied seven songbird species for mercury levels. Six species showed increasing levels and all six have declining populations (rusty blackbird, palm warbler, wood thrush, olive-sided flycatcher, saltmarsh sparrow and northern waterthrush). The red-eyed vireo was the one species that didn’t exhibit increased mercury levels and its population is increasing.
Q&A
“How clean should I keep my hummingbird feeder?” Clean enough so that you’d be willing to drink the sugar water. A typical hummingbird lifespan is 3-5 years.
“There is a nesting hawk on my southern Minnesota property that tries to catch birds at my feeder. Is it a sharp-shinned or Cooper’s hawk?” Cooper’s hawk as per breeding bird surveys. Sharpies nest in dense stands of mature coniferous and mixed deciduous-coniferous forests with well-developed canopies.
“What was a barn swallow called before it became the barn swallow?” The Oxford English Dictionary dates the English common name "barn swallow" to 1851 though there is an earlier instance in an English-language context in Gilbert White's book “The Natural History of Selborne,” originally published in 1789: “The swallow, though called the chimney-swallow, by no means builds altogether in chimneys, but often within barns and out-houses against the rafters.” Where did barn swallows nest before barns and chimneys? Probably in caves. Europeans refer to the barn swallow as the swallow. Thomas Jefferson called it the American swallow. I’ve heard people call it the country swallow. The barn swallow is the national bird of Austria and Estonia and in many cultures, a barn swallow nest on a barn is good luck. Legend says the barn swallow got its forked tail after it had stolen fire from the gods and given it to humans. Angry gods shot flaming arrows at the bird, one hitting the swallow’s tail, burning away its central tail feathers. Since then, the barn swallow has had a forked tail. Peter Kalm, a Swedish naturalist who visited this country in the 1700s, wrote that barn swallows nested both inside and on the outside of colonists' homes. The barn swallow is the most widespread of the swallows.
“Why are there so many monarch butterflies flying across the roads?” Roadsides are productive habitat for monarch reproduction, but the largest mortality is believed to occur during the fall migration.
“How many broods do chickadees have?” Black-capped chickadees have one. Second broods are rare in chickadees. Replacement broods, begun after losing a first brood, may have fewer eggs.
Thanks for stopping by
When the dew is on the grass, rain will never come to pass. When grass is dry at morning light, look for rain before the night.
“There are never enough 'I love you's.’”―Lenny Bruce
Do good.
©Al Batt 2021
Cabbageheads and duck snorts
Naturally
I fought the lawn and the lawn won. I retreated indoors, plopped down in a chair and listened to a caller tell me of a wild turkey terrorizing a walk-in basement window this spring. An American goldfinch is currently battling with my office window. The goldfinch fights politely, to my estimation. A chipping sparrow had a brief tussle with the glass earlier. There were no skirmishes featuring cardinals or robins this year. A great crested flycatcher was the year’s marathon brawler. It fought various windows of the house for several weeks. I worried it was ignoring important bird duties. It didn’t reach terminal velocity while striving for world domination, but the flycatcher walloped its reflection. Its attacks have ground to a halt.
Wipe that smile onto your face
As a tour leader, I took many group photos. There are the magic words, words with weight, used to make one smile. I’d say prunes, say cheese, smile, smile you’re on Candid Camera, whiskey, lottery winners, cabbageheads and duck snort. A duck snort is a softly hit ball that goes over the infield and lands in the outfield for a hit. Chicago White Sox announcer Ken “Hawk” Harrelson popularized the term.
Red admiral butterflies kept me company as the tree swallows fledged. I needed to walk past their nest box a few times each day. Each time, the male buzzed my tower. As the nestlings neared the point of fledging, he hunted me down in the yard to fly at me. He seemed happy to be unhappy to see me. The youngsters fledged in the morning. Took to air like experts and headed to a lake.
I saw a great-tailed grackle in Minnesota. The bird is a prolific producer of clacks, clatters, wheezes and trills. The male is nearly 1.5 feet long with a long tail shaped like a boat’s keel and the female is about 3/4 that size. There were 500,000 birds in one roost in south Texas. The population increase is due to urbanization, industrial agriculture and widespread irrigation.
Research reveals
Research shows that zebras have stripes not for camouflage, cooling or individual recognition, but to confuse biting flies.
Research by Marie Perkins, an ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, studied seven songbird species for mercury levels. Six species showed increasing levels and all six have declining populations (rusty blackbird, palm warbler, wood thrush, olive-sided flycatcher, saltmarsh sparrow and northern waterthrush). The red-eyed vireo was the one species that didn’t exhibit increased mercury levels and its population is increasing.
Q&A
“How clean should I keep my hummingbird feeder?” Clean enough so that you’d be willing to drink the sugar water. A typical hummingbird lifespan is 3-5 years.
“There is a nesting hawk on my southern Minnesota property that tries to catch birds at my feeder. Is it a sharp-shinned or Cooper’s hawk?” Cooper’s hawk as per breeding bird surveys. Sharpies nest in dense stands of mature coniferous and mixed deciduous-coniferous forests with well-developed canopies.
“What was a barn swallow called before it became the barn swallow?” The Oxford English Dictionary dates the English common name "barn swallow" to 1851 though there is an earlier instance in an English-language context in Gilbert White's book “The Natural History of Selborne,” originally published in 1789: “The swallow, though called the chimney-swallow, by no means builds altogether in chimneys, but often within barns and out-houses against the rafters.” Where did barn swallows nest before barns and chimneys? Probably in caves. Europeans refer to the barn swallow as the swallow. Thomas Jefferson called it the American swallow. I’ve heard people call it the country swallow. The barn swallow is the national bird of Austria and Estonia and in many cultures, a barn swallow nest on a barn is good luck. Legend says the barn swallow got its forked tail after it had stolen fire from the gods and given it to humans. Angry gods shot flaming arrows at the bird, one hitting the swallow’s tail, burning away its central tail feathers. Since then, the barn swallow has had a forked tail. Peter Kalm, a Swedish naturalist who visited this country in the 1700s, wrote that barn swallows nested both inside and on the outside of colonists' homes. The barn swallow is the most widespread of the swallows.
“Why are there so many monarch butterflies flying across the roads?” Roadsides are productive habitat for monarch reproduction, but the largest mortality is believed to occur during the fall migration.
“How many broods do chickadees have?” Black-capped chickadees have one. Second broods are rare in chickadees. Replacement broods, begun after losing a first brood, may have fewer eggs.
Thanks for stopping by
When the dew is on the grass, rain will never come to pass. When grass is dry at morning light, look for rain before the night.
“There are never enough 'I love you's.’”―Lenny Bruce
Do good.
©Al Batt 2021
Photo by Al Batt
Posted 7-19-21
Harry Otter and the chiggers
Naturally
Birdsong diminishes in July. House wren songs abate toward the end of July, but indigo buntings, song sparrows and red-eyed vireos continue to sing. Why does the uncaged bird sing? Most songs are linked to a bird’s love life. Birdsong has touched the hearts of poets, composers and birders.
A friend, Kim Eckert of Duluth, wrote sagely that the swallows in Minnesota could be divided into three sets of two. The blue ones (purple martins and tree swallows) nest in birdhouses. The brown ones (bank and northern roughed-winged) nest in the ground (sand piles or riverbanks). The ones with dark red throats (barn and cliff swallows) construct mud nests. I find the swallows with masonry skills fascinating. Barn swallows create mugs and cliff swallows jugs.
I’m continually awestruck. A Navajo prayer is, “With dew about my feet, may I walk. With beauty before me may I walk. With beauty behind me may I walk. With beauty below me may I walk. With beauty above me may I walk. With beauty all around me may I walk.” While walking, I saw a river otter. I think his name was Harry Otter.
I watched three tree swallows at a nest. As a boy, I was told the third bird was an attendant or helper, but the extra swallow doesn’t feed nestlings. It attempts to pirate food from nestlings and parents.
Black-eyed Susans, yarrows (milfoil or thousand-leaf), blue flag iris, yellow sweet clover (usually blooms a bit earlier than white sweet clover), vetch, bergamot, false sunflower, milkweeds, evening primrose and field bindweed bloom. Bindweed has arrow-shaped leaf blades and white-to-pinkish flowers. Common morning-glory has rounded, heart-shaped leaves and blue to purple flowers. Daisy or prairie fleabane has flowerheads about ½-inch across with a daisy-like appearance and 40-100 white (sometimes pink- or purple-tinted) ray florets that surround a yellow disk. Pineapple weed is a low-growing plant with finely divided, feathery leaves that gives off a pineapple smell when crushed. Curly dock (yellow dock, sour dock, curled dock) flower stalks bloom at the top of the plant and when mature, turn brown and are covered with papery capsules that are triangular or heart-shaped. Each plant produces as many as 40,000 seeds, which remain viable in soil for decades.
Stay on the trails
There are chiggers in Minnesota. They crawl to the highest point on grass and other plants and use them as diving boards to hop onto a passing meal. They fall onto a person, usually landing on the shoes or lower pantlegs, and crawl up the body looking for a place to bite. They’re a type of mite related to ticks. Sometimes tiny red mites are seen. These adult chiggers don't bite people. The chigger larvae that bite us are much smaller than the adults and can scarcely be seen without a magnifying glass. They don't burrow into the skin. They pierce a skin cell with their mouths and their saliva contains an enzyme that causes the skin cell wall to liquefy. After the chigger has had its fluid meal, it drops off. The bite develops a welt in 10-16 hours. Coating bites with Vaseline or nail polish to suffocate the chigger doesn’t work. You can't suffocate something that’s not there. They’re sometimes confused with swimmer’s itch caused by microscopic larvae spread by waterfowl. Entomologist H.B. Hungerford wrote: “The thing called a chigger, is really no bigger, than the smaller end of a pin, but the bump that it raises, just itches like blazes, and that's where the rub sets in.”
Q&A
“What’s pooping in a pile in my yard?” Creating a latrine is raccoon behavior. Its scat is cylindrical with rounded or broken ends. Coyote scat is tubular with tapered ends and fox scat has twisted ends.
“Is there an easy way to tell if a flower is wind-pollinated or insect-pollinated?” Showy flowers are typically insect- or animal-pollinated. Tiny flowers lacking color are likely wind-pollinated. Think ragweed.
“You wrote of bluebird numbers being low this year due to ice storms in the south, were other birds impacted?” It hit other birds that winter there—robin, hermit thrush, song sparrow and eastern phoebe. The storms covered food resources. The loss will be properly assessed by nesting data.
“Is there such a thing as a Seahawk?” Only on the football field.
“Why do house wrens puncture the eggs of other birds?” The tiny, persistent singer does it to eliminate competition for resources.
Customer comments
Joyce Tabor of Askov wrote, “Apple cider vinegar is also good for bites. Wasp, deer fly, and mosquito bites.”
Thanks for stopping by
“Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.”—Nathaniel Hawthorne
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.”―Helen Keller
Do good.
@Al Batt 2021
Harry Otter and the chiggers
Naturally
Birdsong diminishes in July. House wren songs abate toward the end of July, but indigo buntings, song sparrows and red-eyed vireos continue to sing. Why does the uncaged bird sing? Most songs are linked to a bird’s love life. Birdsong has touched the hearts of poets, composers and birders.
A friend, Kim Eckert of Duluth, wrote sagely that the swallows in Minnesota could be divided into three sets of two. The blue ones (purple martins and tree swallows) nest in birdhouses. The brown ones (bank and northern roughed-winged) nest in the ground (sand piles or riverbanks). The ones with dark red throats (barn and cliff swallows) construct mud nests. I find the swallows with masonry skills fascinating. Barn swallows create mugs and cliff swallows jugs.
I’m continually awestruck. A Navajo prayer is, “With dew about my feet, may I walk. With beauty before me may I walk. With beauty behind me may I walk. With beauty below me may I walk. With beauty above me may I walk. With beauty all around me may I walk.” While walking, I saw a river otter. I think his name was Harry Otter.
I watched three tree swallows at a nest. As a boy, I was told the third bird was an attendant or helper, but the extra swallow doesn’t feed nestlings. It attempts to pirate food from nestlings and parents.
Black-eyed Susans, yarrows (milfoil or thousand-leaf), blue flag iris, yellow sweet clover (usually blooms a bit earlier than white sweet clover), vetch, bergamot, false sunflower, milkweeds, evening primrose and field bindweed bloom. Bindweed has arrow-shaped leaf blades and white-to-pinkish flowers. Common morning-glory has rounded, heart-shaped leaves and blue to purple flowers. Daisy or prairie fleabane has flowerheads about ½-inch across with a daisy-like appearance and 40-100 white (sometimes pink- or purple-tinted) ray florets that surround a yellow disk. Pineapple weed is a low-growing plant with finely divided, feathery leaves that gives off a pineapple smell when crushed. Curly dock (yellow dock, sour dock, curled dock) flower stalks bloom at the top of the plant and when mature, turn brown and are covered with papery capsules that are triangular or heart-shaped. Each plant produces as many as 40,000 seeds, which remain viable in soil for decades.
Stay on the trails
There are chiggers in Minnesota. They crawl to the highest point on grass and other plants and use them as diving boards to hop onto a passing meal. They fall onto a person, usually landing on the shoes or lower pantlegs, and crawl up the body looking for a place to bite. They’re a type of mite related to ticks. Sometimes tiny red mites are seen. These adult chiggers don't bite people. The chigger larvae that bite us are much smaller than the adults and can scarcely be seen without a magnifying glass. They don't burrow into the skin. They pierce a skin cell with their mouths and their saliva contains an enzyme that causes the skin cell wall to liquefy. After the chigger has had its fluid meal, it drops off. The bite develops a welt in 10-16 hours. Coating bites with Vaseline or nail polish to suffocate the chigger doesn’t work. You can't suffocate something that’s not there. They’re sometimes confused with swimmer’s itch caused by microscopic larvae spread by waterfowl. Entomologist H.B. Hungerford wrote: “The thing called a chigger, is really no bigger, than the smaller end of a pin, but the bump that it raises, just itches like blazes, and that's where the rub sets in.”
Q&A
“What’s pooping in a pile in my yard?” Creating a latrine is raccoon behavior. Its scat is cylindrical with rounded or broken ends. Coyote scat is tubular with tapered ends and fox scat has twisted ends.
“Is there an easy way to tell if a flower is wind-pollinated or insect-pollinated?” Showy flowers are typically insect- or animal-pollinated. Tiny flowers lacking color are likely wind-pollinated. Think ragweed.
“You wrote of bluebird numbers being low this year due to ice storms in the south, were other birds impacted?” It hit other birds that winter there—robin, hermit thrush, song sparrow and eastern phoebe. The storms covered food resources. The loss will be properly assessed by nesting data.
“Is there such a thing as a Seahawk?” Only on the football field.
“Why do house wrens puncture the eggs of other birds?” The tiny, persistent singer does it to eliminate competition for resources.
Customer comments
Joyce Tabor of Askov wrote, “Apple cider vinegar is also good for bites. Wasp, deer fly, and mosquito bites.”
Thanks for stopping by
“Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.”—Nathaniel Hawthorne
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.”―Helen Keller
Do good.
@Al Batt 2021
Photo by Al Batt
Posted 7-11-21
How many seeds can you get in your gular pouch?
Naturally
The cardinals fed at dawn. They avoid crowds. A chickadee is the epitome of a feeder bird—cute, tiny and perky.
The jumbled song of house finches was beautiful music to my ears. I bit a couple of mosquitoes back.
Stephanie Seymour wrote and sang, “Blue jay you made my day And you didn't even try But if you wonder why It's because of all the beauty that I see When you're in front of me.” A blue jay has a gizzard and a throat sac (called a gular pouch). It fills the pouch (observers have counted 70-100 black oil sunflower seeds) and hack up the seeds for consumption or caching later. Reports say its gular pouch can hold up to five acorns.
I saw a Cooper’s hawk in a city. This accipiter mainly eats birds. Studies have found that small birds are safer around Cooper’s hawks than are medium-sized birds like European starlings, mourning doves, rock pigeons, robins, jays, northern flickers, quail, pheasants, grouse and chickens, which are common targets. The female hawk is larger (about 1/3) than the male, a condition called sexual dimorphism, and because of this the female hunts larger birds than does the male.
I don’t see white-tailed jackrabbits around my place anymore. I grew up with cattle dogs. They were smart but insisted on chasing the big hares that leaped 10 feet and ran 40 mph. I saw jackrabbits eat clover, alfalfa, dandelion and grasses.
Q&A
“What do rabbits eat?” I’ve heard eastern cottontail rabbits described as artful dodgers. In winter, they feed on seeds, twigs, bark and tree seedlings. They also practice coprophagy, eating their own vitamin-rich droppings. I can tell where a rabbit had been eating, as the plant had suffered a 45-degree-angle cut. Deer tear away at plants. Rabbits love the tender shoots of various plants—crabgrass, sow thistle, dock, plantain, red clover, white clover and dandelion. Whether you consider them pretty, pesty or perky, dandelion plants can live 5-10 years. Dandelions have wide-spreading roots that loosen hard-packed soil, aerate the earth and help reduce erosion. Deep taproots pull nutrients from deep in the soil and make them available to other plants. They’re used by pollinators. Goldfinches, song and chipping sparrows, indigo buntings, towhees eat the seeds. Rabbits, porcupines, ground squirrels, mice and prairie dogs eat the seeds, foliage and root, while deer browse on dandelions.
“Are bug zappers effective?” A zapper participates in an indiscriminate slaughter of insects, many of them beneficial. A University of Delaware study found that 0.22% of the kills were biting insects. Research showed your chances of being bitten by a mosquito increase when you are near a bug zapper. The light is attractive and so are you.
“What birds eat cicadas?” There are many—chickadees, robins, bluebirds, eastern kingbirds, yellow-billed cuckoos, black-billed cuckoos, house sparrows, red-bellied woodpeckers, red-headed woodpeckers, grackles, red-winged blackbirds, mallards, cardinals, wild turkeys and others.
“Does the male bluebird incubate eggs?” Only the female incubates as male bluebirds don’t develop a brood patch.
“How long is a snapping turtle’s neck?” Common snapping turtles have long necks that reach up to two-thirds the length of their shells, making handling them dangerous. They’re capable of inflicting a painful bite, but a human’s bite is stronger.
“How long will raccoons remain with their mother?” One man’s garbage is a raccoon’s treasure. The kits are weaned in 2-3 months and remain with their mother for up to a year. "Ain't no thing like me except me!” said Rocket Raccoon in “Guardians of the Galaxy.”
“What’s one good thing about having wolves around?” In a short time after wolves had colonized an area, deer-vehicle collisions dropped 24% according to Dominic Parker, a natural resources economist at the University of Wisconsin in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Thinning of the deer population by wolves and behavior changes in fearful deer are factors in the decline. “Wolves use linear features of a landscape as travel corridors, like roads, pipelines and stream beds. Deer learn this and adapt by staying away,” said Parker.
Annie Mattson of Albert Lea asked how long eagles are in a nest. Incubation for bald eagles is about 35 days. Eggs hatch in the order they were laid. Eaglets fledge in 10-14 weeks.
Customer comments
I wrote, “I watched a common nighthawk slice the sky above a ballpark in New Ulm and realized the bird had become the baseball game.” Thomas Schenk of St. Paul wrote, “Al, if you had watched a bat chasing a fly, it would have been a kind of reverse baseball game.”
Thanks for stopping by
“Every generation revolts against its fathers and makes friends with its grandfathers.”—Lewis Mumford
“The happiest people I know are always evaluating and improving themselves. The unhappy people are usually evaluating and judging others.”—Lisa Villa Prosen
Do good.
@Al Batt 2021
How many seeds can you get in your gular pouch?
Naturally
The cardinals fed at dawn. They avoid crowds. A chickadee is the epitome of a feeder bird—cute, tiny and perky.
The jumbled song of house finches was beautiful music to my ears. I bit a couple of mosquitoes back.
Stephanie Seymour wrote and sang, “Blue jay you made my day And you didn't even try But if you wonder why It's because of all the beauty that I see When you're in front of me.” A blue jay has a gizzard and a throat sac (called a gular pouch). It fills the pouch (observers have counted 70-100 black oil sunflower seeds) and hack up the seeds for consumption or caching later. Reports say its gular pouch can hold up to five acorns.
I saw a Cooper’s hawk in a city. This accipiter mainly eats birds. Studies have found that small birds are safer around Cooper’s hawks than are medium-sized birds like European starlings, mourning doves, rock pigeons, robins, jays, northern flickers, quail, pheasants, grouse and chickens, which are common targets. The female hawk is larger (about 1/3) than the male, a condition called sexual dimorphism, and because of this the female hunts larger birds than does the male.
I don’t see white-tailed jackrabbits around my place anymore. I grew up with cattle dogs. They were smart but insisted on chasing the big hares that leaped 10 feet and ran 40 mph. I saw jackrabbits eat clover, alfalfa, dandelion and grasses.
Q&A
“What do rabbits eat?” I’ve heard eastern cottontail rabbits described as artful dodgers. In winter, they feed on seeds, twigs, bark and tree seedlings. They also practice coprophagy, eating their own vitamin-rich droppings. I can tell where a rabbit had been eating, as the plant had suffered a 45-degree-angle cut. Deer tear away at plants. Rabbits love the tender shoots of various plants—crabgrass, sow thistle, dock, plantain, red clover, white clover and dandelion. Whether you consider them pretty, pesty or perky, dandelion plants can live 5-10 years. Dandelions have wide-spreading roots that loosen hard-packed soil, aerate the earth and help reduce erosion. Deep taproots pull nutrients from deep in the soil and make them available to other plants. They’re used by pollinators. Goldfinches, song and chipping sparrows, indigo buntings, towhees eat the seeds. Rabbits, porcupines, ground squirrels, mice and prairie dogs eat the seeds, foliage and root, while deer browse on dandelions.
“Are bug zappers effective?” A zapper participates in an indiscriminate slaughter of insects, many of them beneficial. A University of Delaware study found that 0.22% of the kills were biting insects. Research showed your chances of being bitten by a mosquito increase when you are near a bug zapper. The light is attractive and so are you.
“What birds eat cicadas?” There are many—chickadees, robins, bluebirds, eastern kingbirds, yellow-billed cuckoos, black-billed cuckoos, house sparrows, red-bellied woodpeckers, red-headed woodpeckers, grackles, red-winged blackbirds, mallards, cardinals, wild turkeys and others.
“Does the male bluebird incubate eggs?” Only the female incubates as male bluebirds don’t develop a brood patch.
“How long is a snapping turtle’s neck?” Common snapping turtles have long necks that reach up to two-thirds the length of their shells, making handling them dangerous. They’re capable of inflicting a painful bite, but a human’s bite is stronger.
“How long will raccoons remain with their mother?” One man’s garbage is a raccoon’s treasure. The kits are weaned in 2-3 months and remain with their mother for up to a year. "Ain't no thing like me except me!” said Rocket Raccoon in “Guardians of the Galaxy.”
“What’s one good thing about having wolves around?” In a short time after wolves had colonized an area, deer-vehicle collisions dropped 24% according to Dominic Parker, a natural resources economist at the University of Wisconsin in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Thinning of the deer population by wolves and behavior changes in fearful deer are factors in the decline. “Wolves use linear features of a landscape as travel corridors, like roads, pipelines and stream beds. Deer learn this and adapt by staying away,” said Parker.
Annie Mattson of Albert Lea asked how long eagles are in a nest. Incubation for bald eagles is about 35 days. Eggs hatch in the order they were laid. Eaglets fledge in 10-14 weeks.
Customer comments
I wrote, “I watched a common nighthawk slice the sky above a ballpark in New Ulm and realized the bird had become the baseball game.” Thomas Schenk of St. Paul wrote, “Al, if you had watched a bat chasing a fly, it would have been a kind of reverse baseball game.”
Thanks for stopping by
“Every generation revolts against its fathers and makes friends with its grandfathers.”—Lewis Mumford
“The happiest people I know are always evaluating and improving themselves. The unhappy people are usually evaluating and judging others.”—Lisa Villa Prosen
Do good.
@Al Batt 2021
Photo by Al Batt
Posted 7-4-21
Naturally
June brought greening and growing. As sung in “Carousel,” “June is busting out all over.”
Bird is the word
I watched a kestrel take a house sparrow from a roadside. Young starlings have a grey-brown plumage. Cuckoos called. These rain crows feed on tent caterpillars.
There are over 800 whooping cranes in the world. I’ve been fortunate enough to have seen them in four local counties as they moved through.
I’ve rescued loon, eagles, hawks, pelicans, herons, owls, ducks, vultures, geese, kestrels, a bittern, a swan and more. They weren’t appreciative as I haven’t received a single thank you note from any of them.
Ditch lily
Baneberry, blue-eyed grass and birdsfoot trefoil bloomed as do the clovers—white or Dutch, red, and yellow hop or golden.
Thick shoots called candles appeared at the terminal ends of pine branches.
The ditch lily, sometimes called an outhouse lily, is a vigorous orange-flowered daylily that finds home in our road ditches. When I spot them, I sing a corrupted Beach Boys song, “Ditch lily, ditch lily, give me your hand. Give me something that I can remember.”
Crepuscular critters
I was late getting home and didn’t take in the hummingbird feeder before a raccoon had taken it down for me. The raccoon removed all six of the tiny, plastic, yellow flowers from their cavities and slurped down the sweet water. A deer towered over the corn rows. Deer are crepuscular, active in the twilight of dawn and dusk.
Spittlebugs
If you want to see an insect, look at a flower. Butterflies included: monarchs, tiger swallowtails, blues, sulphurs, skippers, black swallowtails, fritillaries, cabbage whites and crescents. The swallowtails are our largest butterflies here, but the largest, the giant swallowtail, is uncommon. June is the time for the big moths. The spotted, light brown Polyphemus is named after Polyphemus, the giant cyclops from Greek mythology who had a single large, round eye in the middle of his forehead because of the large eyespots in the middle of the moth’s hind wings. It has a 4-5 inch wingspan. Cecropia has a 5-6 inch wingspan and is reddish-brown. And the luna moth is green with a 3-5 inch wingspan.
Spittlebugs have a protective covering resembling soap suds or spit on a plant. It looks as if a baseball team had been there.
Hot, dry summers make for large populations of boxelder bugs in the fall. Those insects are most abundant in years when May is warm and July is dry. Dawn liquid soap in water is an effective spray to use on the harmless bugs if you find them annoying.
The mosquitoes bothered me as I gathered raspberries. My memory told me I notice the first big batch of mosquitoes around Memorial Day each year.
Ebony jewelwings are beautiful damselflies. In good light they appear a bright metallic green or teal blue depending on the angle of light. They appear black in shade.
Bald-faced hornets build the iconic gray, football-shaped nests in trees. A neighbor called them bull wasps and they’re prolific eaters of deer flies and horseflies.
Those rascally rabbits
A farmer’s market vendor told me apple cider vinegar discourages rabbits. Soak items (corncobs or rags work well) in vinegar for a few minutes and place them around the garden. Resoak every week. Or fill a spray bottle with half water and half vinegar. Apple cider vinegar is also effective at repelling ants.
Q&A
“Why do birds roll around in the dirt?” Birds take dirt baths because the abrasive particles in the dust clean feathers and remove lice and parasites. Birds roll about loose sand or dust and shake vigorously. The sand and dust absorb excess preen oil and remove dry skin. Dust bathing leaves bowl-shaped hollows on the ground. It’s soap and water without the soap and water.
Tom Belshan of Glenville asked about cormorants. John Milton, in “Paradise Lost,” described Satan as having “sat like a cormorant” on the Tree of Life, plotting the downfall of Adam and Eve. Despite the bad press, cormorants have benefited from the banning of DDT. Studies found 90% of the fish they consume are 5.3 inches or less in length and weigh an average of 4.2 ounces. They dive 5-25 feet for 30-70 seconds and could be a problem in baitfish ponds. They prefer an adequate food supply within a mile, but will fly a dozen miles for food.
Moron nature
To get more on nature from a nature moron, go to my blog at https://www.albatt.com/blogs/ Or listen in every Tuesday to KMSU (89.7 FM) or KTOE (1420 AM) aired on various dates. All radio shows are online.
Thanks for stopping by
“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”—Winston Churchill
“The Panama Canal was dug with a microscope.”—Ronald Ross (alluding to mosquito research)
Do good.
©Al Batt 2021
Naturally
June brought greening and growing. As sung in “Carousel,” “June is busting out all over.”
Bird is the word
I watched a kestrel take a house sparrow from a roadside. Young starlings have a grey-brown plumage. Cuckoos called. These rain crows feed on tent caterpillars.
There are over 800 whooping cranes in the world. I’ve been fortunate enough to have seen them in four local counties as they moved through.
I’ve rescued loon, eagles, hawks, pelicans, herons, owls, ducks, vultures, geese, kestrels, a bittern, a swan and more. They weren’t appreciative as I haven’t received a single thank you note from any of them.
Ditch lily
Baneberry, blue-eyed grass and birdsfoot trefoil bloomed as do the clovers—white or Dutch, red, and yellow hop or golden.
Thick shoots called candles appeared at the terminal ends of pine branches.
The ditch lily, sometimes called an outhouse lily, is a vigorous orange-flowered daylily that finds home in our road ditches. When I spot them, I sing a corrupted Beach Boys song, “Ditch lily, ditch lily, give me your hand. Give me something that I can remember.”
Crepuscular critters
I was late getting home and didn’t take in the hummingbird feeder before a raccoon had taken it down for me. The raccoon removed all six of the tiny, plastic, yellow flowers from their cavities and slurped down the sweet water. A deer towered over the corn rows. Deer are crepuscular, active in the twilight of dawn and dusk.
Spittlebugs
If you want to see an insect, look at a flower. Butterflies included: monarchs, tiger swallowtails, blues, sulphurs, skippers, black swallowtails, fritillaries, cabbage whites and crescents. The swallowtails are our largest butterflies here, but the largest, the giant swallowtail, is uncommon. June is the time for the big moths. The spotted, light brown Polyphemus is named after Polyphemus, the giant cyclops from Greek mythology who had a single large, round eye in the middle of his forehead because of the large eyespots in the middle of the moth’s hind wings. It has a 4-5 inch wingspan. Cecropia has a 5-6 inch wingspan and is reddish-brown. And the luna moth is green with a 3-5 inch wingspan.
Spittlebugs have a protective covering resembling soap suds or spit on a plant. It looks as if a baseball team had been there.
Hot, dry summers make for large populations of boxelder bugs in the fall. Those insects are most abundant in years when May is warm and July is dry. Dawn liquid soap in water is an effective spray to use on the harmless bugs if you find them annoying.
The mosquitoes bothered me as I gathered raspberries. My memory told me I notice the first big batch of mosquitoes around Memorial Day each year.
Ebony jewelwings are beautiful damselflies. In good light they appear a bright metallic green or teal blue depending on the angle of light. They appear black in shade.
Bald-faced hornets build the iconic gray, football-shaped nests in trees. A neighbor called them bull wasps and they’re prolific eaters of deer flies and horseflies.
Those rascally rabbits
A farmer’s market vendor told me apple cider vinegar discourages rabbits. Soak items (corncobs or rags work well) in vinegar for a few minutes and place them around the garden. Resoak every week. Or fill a spray bottle with half water and half vinegar. Apple cider vinegar is also effective at repelling ants.
Q&A
“Why do birds roll around in the dirt?” Birds take dirt baths because the abrasive particles in the dust clean feathers and remove lice and parasites. Birds roll about loose sand or dust and shake vigorously. The sand and dust absorb excess preen oil and remove dry skin. Dust bathing leaves bowl-shaped hollows on the ground. It’s soap and water without the soap and water.
Tom Belshan of Glenville asked about cormorants. John Milton, in “Paradise Lost,” described Satan as having “sat like a cormorant” on the Tree of Life, plotting the downfall of Adam and Eve. Despite the bad press, cormorants have benefited from the banning of DDT. Studies found 90% of the fish they consume are 5.3 inches or less in length and weigh an average of 4.2 ounces. They dive 5-25 feet for 30-70 seconds and could be a problem in baitfish ponds. They prefer an adequate food supply within a mile, but will fly a dozen miles for food.
Moron nature
To get more on nature from a nature moron, go to my blog at https://www.albatt.com/blogs/ Or listen in every Tuesday to KMSU (89.7 FM) or KTOE (1420 AM) aired on various dates. All radio shows are online.
Thanks for stopping by
“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”—Winston Churchill
“The Panama Canal was dug with a microscope.”—Ronald Ross (alluding to mosquito research)
Do good.
©Al Batt 2021
Photo by Al Batt
Posted 6-27-21
Naturally
The other side of the door sparked my curiosity. There lurked a chickadee and my lawn that thrives on benign neglect. I’m always thrilled to see a chickadee.
I heard it calling “beans.” I watched a common nighthawk slice the sky above a ballpark in New Ulm and realized the bird had become an essential part of that baseball game.
A bird bander married them
My son coached a girls’ softball team. The players complained about being attacked by a bird as they warmed up before a game. It was a killdeer that first feigned injury, and when that didn’t dismiss the intruders, it fluttered at them to protect her nest. No harm was done to girl or bird.
Keith Radel of Faribault told me this about Forest Strnad of Faribault, a late friend of ours who was a Methodist pastor and a bird bander. The bird Forest banded the most was a dark-eyed junco—over 10,000 banded. He banded 700 of Keith’s bluebirds with two birds returning. A tree swallow, banded in one of Keith’s nest boxes, returned seven years later to the same box in which it had hatched. Forest presided at Keith’s wedding on a Friday the 13th, which was good luck.
A money-grubbing crow
I’ve been involved with the American Bald Eagle Foundation (ABEF) in Haines, Alaska, for many years. The ABEF secured a trickster crow that plucked a dollar bill from a willing visitor’s fingers. Sadly, the crow developed seizures and never made it to Alaska. A raven will be trained to perform that dodge.
Soaked, bouncing and concerned
Double-crested cormorants perch in the sun with wings spread to dry. They have less preen oil than other birds and their feathers become soaked rather than shedding water like a duck’s. That might aid hunting underwater.
The wood duck is the only North American duck that regularly produces two broods in one season. This is more common in southern latitudes due to the longer breeding season. The short interval between broods indicates a female’s first one likely failed. The ducklings hatch with the ability to bounce.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has updated its list of Birds of Conservation Concern, a report mandated by the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act of 1988. The new report identifies 269 bird species, subspecies, or populations that represent high conservation priorities for FWS and deserve proactive attention. A few of the newly listed Birds of Conservation Concern that caught my attention are: yellow-billed cuckoo, chimney swift, lesser yellowlegs, belted kingfisher, bobolink, scarlet tanager and rose-breasted grosbeak.
Q&A
“Do ticks fall from trees?” It’s a myth like bug zappers are effective against mosquitoes, deer whistles rid the roads of deer, electronic devices repel mice, and hedge apples (Osage orange fruit) or horse chestnuts discourage spiders. Ticks do climb while trying to find food (blood), but only to the height of the animal. They look close to the ground (grass) for mice and other rodents, and in bushes or tall grasses for larger mammals such as humans and deer.
“When do turtles lay their eggs?” Most of Minnesota's turtle species lay eggs in late May through June. Raccoons and skunks destroy nests by digging up the eggs. A turtle nest cage can be built to help protect them.
https://wiatri.net/Inventory/WiTurtles/Volunteer/Images/ProtectingTurtleNests.pdf
“Are those the same robins in my yard as last year?” There is about a 50% chance one of last year’s nesting pair has returned, but only 25% of fledged robins survive until November.
“I didn’t see many cardinals in Minnesota when I was a child. Was I looking in the wrong places?” Cardinals have expanded their range north into Canada taking advantage of moderate temperatures, human habitation and bird feeders. The growth of towns and suburbs across America has helped the cardinal expand its range. There is speculation the southern birds followed the railroad tracks north.
“What should I do if I find an injured bird?” Try to make the animal as comfortable as possible and call the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Minnesota at 651-486-9453. If you find an injured raptor, contact the University of Minnesota Raptor Center at 612-624-4745.
“What birds have more than one brood a year?” Here are some that commonly do: mourning dove, cardinal, robin, house sparrow, eastern bluebird, house wren, eastern phoebe and barn swallow.
“Do deer eat milkweed?” People have told me they have had rabbits and deer eating their milkweed, but it’s unlikely to be their favorite food. I watched a rabbit eat a leaf.
Thanks for stopping by
“In nature, one never really sees a thing for the first time until one has seen it for the fiftieth.”—Joseph Wood Krutch
“Destroying rainforests for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.”—E.O. Wilson
Do good.
©Al Batt 2021
Naturally
The other side of the door sparked my curiosity. There lurked a chickadee and my lawn that thrives on benign neglect. I’m always thrilled to see a chickadee.
I heard it calling “beans.” I watched a common nighthawk slice the sky above a ballpark in New Ulm and realized the bird had become an essential part of that baseball game.
A bird bander married them
My son coached a girls’ softball team. The players complained about being attacked by a bird as they warmed up before a game. It was a killdeer that first feigned injury, and when that didn’t dismiss the intruders, it fluttered at them to protect her nest. No harm was done to girl or bird.
Keith Radel of Faribault told me this about Forest Strnad of Faribault, a late friend of ours who was a Methodist pastor and a bird bander. The bird Forest banded the most was a dark-eyed junco—over 10,000 banded. He banded 700 of Keith’s bluebirds with two birds returning. A tree swallow, banded in one of Keith’s nest boxes, returned seven years later to the same box in which it had hatched. Forest presided at Keith’s wedding on a Friday the 13th, which was good luck.
A money-grubbing crow
I’ve been involved with the American Bald Eagle Foundation (ABEF) in Haines, Alaska, for many years. The ABEF secured a trickster crow that plucked a dollar bill from a willing visitor’s fingers. Sadly, the crow developed seizures and never made it to Alaska. A raven will be trained to perform that dodge.
Soaked, bouncing and concerned
Double-crested cormorants perch in the sun with wings spread to dry. They have less preen oil than other birds and their feathers become soaked rather than shedding water like a duck’s. That might aid hunting underwater.
The wood duck is the only North American duck that regularly produces two broods in one season. This is more common in southern latitudes due to the longer breeding season. The short interval between broods indicates a female’s first one likely failed. The ducklings hatch with the ability to bounce.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has updated its list of Birds of Conservation Concern, a report mandated by the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act of 1988. The new report identifies 269 bird species, subspecies, or populations that represent high conservation priorities for FWS and deserve proactive attention. A few of the newly listed Birds of Conservation Concern that caught my attention are: yellow-billed cuckoo, chimney swift, lesser yellowlegs, belted kingfisher, bobolink, scarlet tanager and rose-breasted grosbeak.
Q&A
“Do ticks fall from trees?” It’s a myth like bug zappers are effective against mosquitoes, deer whistles rid the roads of deer, electronic devices repel mice, and hedge apples (Osage orange fruit) or horse chestnuts discourage spiders. Ticks do climb while trying to find food (blood), but only to the height of the animal. They look close to the ground (grass) for mice and other rodents, and in bushes or tall grasses for larger mammals such as humans and deer.
“When do turtles lay their eggs?” Most of Minnesota's turtle species lay eggs in late May through June. Raccoons and skunks destroy nests by digging up the eggs. A turtle nest cage can be built to help protect them.
https://wiatri.net/Inventory/WiTurtles/Volunteer/Images/ProtectingTurtleNests.pdf
“Are those the same robins in my yard as last year?” There is about a 50% chance one of last year’s nesting pair has returned, but only 25% of fledged robins survive until November.
“I didn’t see many cardinals in Minnesota when I was a child. Was I looking in the wrong places?” Cardinals have expanded their range north into Canada taking advantage of moderate temperatures, human habitation and bird feeders. The growth of towns and suburbs across America has helped the cardinal expand its range. There is speculation the southern birds followed the railroad tracks north.
“What should I do if I find an injured bird?” Try to make the animal as comfortable as possible and call the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Minnesota at 651-486-9453. If you find an injured raptor, contact the University of Minnesota Raptor Center at 612-624-4745.
“What birds have more than one brood a year?” Here are some that commonly do: mourning dove, cardinal, robin, house sparrow, eastern bluebird, house wren, eastern phoebe and barn swallow.
“Do deer eat milkweed?” People have told me they have had rabbits and deer eating their milkweed, but it’s unlikely to be their favorite food. I watched a rabbit eat a leaf.
Thanks for stopping by
“In nature, one never really sees a thing for the first time until one has seen it for the fiftieth.”—Joseph Wood Krutch
“Destroying rainforests for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.”—E.O. Wilson
Do good.
©Al Batt 2021
Photo by Al Batt
Posted 6-20-21
Naturally
In another time, I traveled around one day a week taking photos and peering at birds. No birds were harmed in the process. My faithful Chihuahua companion Sancho accompanied me. He got his name because of the book I was reading at the time I brought the puppy home in my coat pocket. Sancho Panza was Don Quixote’s squire in the novel “Don Quixote” by Miguel de Cervantes. Don Quixote represented illusion, Sancho Panza represented reality. The canine Sancho was a good friend. A good listener to my quixotic ideas.
Such undertakings built a thirst and I’d swing into the drive-through of a fast-food restaurant to get a cup of iced tea. This was Sancho’s favorite part of birding and photography. He perked up when he saw the person at the restaurant’s window and immediately looked his sweetest. “Oh, your dog is so cute. Would it be OK if I gave him a little bit of hamburger?” said the worker. It was OK with Sancho.
Bluebird blues
Keith Radel of Faribault maintains 175 sites for bluebird nest boxes and told me bluebird numbers in those boxes were down 53% from last year. Many of his birds winter in Arkansas, Texas or Oklahoma and winter storms were hard on them. The best year Keith has had fledging bluebirds was in 2012. A nasty spring here dropped that number 53% in 2013. The availability of houses has led to double the number of chickadees nesting in them this year. He has two chickadee pairs nesting 10 feet apart and has noticed no disputes among them.
President of birding
President Theodore Roosevelt was one of the most powerful voices in the history of American conservation. After becoming president in 1901, Roosevelt established 150 national forests, 51 federal bird reserves, four national game preserves, five national parks and 18 national monuments on over 230 million acres of public land. He identified 91 bird species he saw or heard on the White House lawn.
Hummingbird highlights
When the Spanish first encountered hummingbirds, they called them resurrection birds—believing something that shining must die each night and be reborn the next morning. Spanish missionaries used hummingbirds to explain the resurrection. Male Anna's hummingbirds dive at speeds of 385 body lengths per second according to a study in the U.K. journal “Proceedings of the Royal Society B.” Mayan legend said the first two hummingbirds were created from small feather scraps left over from the construction of other birds. Hummingbirds are attracted to the color red. That includes parked cars, lipstick and hats.
Guy wires
Bob Janssen of Golden Valley told me he and Ray Glassel were birding years ago when they found 978 dead birds (including two yellow rails) near a communications tower by Lewisville. Guy wires can be bird-killers in a fog.
Q&A
“What is your favorite raptor?” I think the American kestrel is the most beautiful. The northern harrier, once called a marsh hawk, kept me company when I was a mere stripling along Mule Lake. The peregrine falcon because its TV channel kept me entertained when I was hospitalized. And the merlin because I can’t help but watch one when I see one. My least favorite is a Toronto Raptor.
“Does any bird have a beak longer than its body?” The sword-billed hummingbird is the only bird to have a beak longer than its body.
“Will barn swallows reuse nests?” They may use nests from previous years, but avoid those heavily infested with mites or other parasites. When reusing nests, they clean out old feathers and add new mud to the nest’s rim. They put their cup-shaped nests on upright surfaces like docks, bridges, barns and the eaves of other buildings. The nests are built of mud reinforced with grass and lined with feathers and fine grasses.
“How many nests does a cardinal have each year?” Cardinals (Cardinalis cardinalis) commonly raise two broods in Minnesota. When the first brood fledges, the father takes care of the fledglings as the mother builds a second nest, and lays and incubates eggs.
“Do dragonflies eat many mosquitoes?” Not nearly as many as I wish they did because adult dragonflies and mosquitoes can keep different hours, but the carnivorous dragonfly nymphs devour mosquito larvae.
Thanks for stopping by
“The animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren; they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.”—Henry Beston
“And since all this loveliness can not be Heaven, I know in my heart it is June.”—Abba Gould Woolson
Do good.
©Al Batt 2021
Naturally
In another time, I traveled around one day a week taking photos and peering at birds. No birds were harmed in the process. My faithful Chihuahua companion Sancho accompanied me. He got his name because of the book I was reading at the time I brought the puppy home in my coat pocket. Sancho Panza was Don Quixote’s squire in the novel “Don Quixote” by Miguel de Cervantes. Don Quixote represented illusion, Sancho Panza represented reality. The canine Sancho was a good friend. A good listener to my quixotic ideas.
Such undertakings built a thirst and I’d swing into the drive-through of a fast-food restaurant to get a cup of iced tea. This was Sancho’s favorite part of birding and photography. He perked up when he saw the person at the restaurant’s window and immediately looked his sweetest. “Oh, your dog is so cute. Would it be OK if I gave him a little bit of hamburger?” said the worker. It was OK with Sancho.
Bluebird blues
Keith Radel of Faribault maintains 175 sites for bluebird nest boxes and told me bluebird numbers in those boxes were down 53% from last year. Many of his birds winter in Arkansas, Texas or Oklahoma and winter storms were hard on them. The best year Keith has had fledging bluebirds was in 2012. A nasty spring here dropped that number 53% in 2013. The availability of houses has led to double the number of chickadees nesting in them this year. He has two chickadee pairs nesting 10 feet apart and has noticed no disputes among them.
President of birding
President Theodore Roosevelt was one of the most powerful voices in the history of American conservation. After becoming president in 1901, Roosevelt established 150 national forests, 51 federal bird reserves, four national game preserves, five national parks and 18 national monuments on over 230 million acres of public land. He identified 91 bird species he saw or heard on the White House lawn.
Hummingbird highlights
When the Spanish first encountered hummingbirds, they called them resurrection birds—believing something that shining must die each night and be reborn the next morning. Spanish missionaries used hummingbirds to explain the resurrection. Male Anna's hummingbirds dive at speeds of 385 body lengths per second according to a study in the U.K. journal “Proceedings of the Royal Society B.” Mayan legend said the first two hummingbirds were created from small feather scraps left over from the construction of other birds. Hummingbirds are attracted to the color red. That includes parked cars, lipstick and hats.
Guy wires
Bob Janssen of Golden Valley told me he and Ray Glassel were birding years ago when they found 978 dead birds (including two yellow rails) near a communications tower by Lewisville. Guy wires can be bird-killers in a fog.
Q&A
“What is your favorite raptor?” I think the American kestrel is the most beautiful. The northern harrier, once called a marsh hawk, kept me company when I was a mere stripling along Mule Lake. The peregrine falcon because its TV channel kept me entertained when I was hospitalized. And the merlin because I can’t help but watch one when I see one. My least favorite is a Toronto Raptor.
“Does any bird have a beak longer than its body?” The sword-billed hummingbird is the only bird to have a beak longer than its body.
“Will barn swallows reuse nests?” They may use nests from previous years, but avoid those heavily infested with mites or other parasites. When reusing nests, they clean out old feathers and add new mud to the nest’s rim. They put their cup-shaped nests on upright surfaces like docks, bridges, barns and the eaves of other buildings. The nests are built of mud reinforced with grass and lined with feathers and fine grasses.
“How many nests does a cardinal have each year?” Cardinals (Cardinalis cardinalis) commonly raise two broods in Minnesota. When the first brood fledges, the father takes care of the fledglings as the mother builds a second nest, and lays and incubates eggs.
“Do dragonflies eat many mosquitoes?” Not nearly as many as I wish they did because adult dragonflies and mosquitoes can keep different hours, but the carnivorous dragonfly nymphs devour mosquito larvae.
Thanks for stopping by
“The animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren; they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.”—Henry Beston
“And since all this loveliness can not be Heaven, I know in my heart it is June.”—Abba Gould Woolson
Do good.
©Al Batt 2021
Photo by Al Batt
Posted 6-13-21
Naturally
I walked across the yard, moving past the named and the nameless. I saw a professional squirrel had moved with ease past obstacles meant to keep it from a feeder. A red-winged blackbird male at a feeder displayed bling on his wing.
Brown thrashers put the world in tune with this long-winded song: "Plant a seed, plant a seed, bury it, bury it, cover it up, cover it up, let it grow, let it grow, pull it up, pull it up, eat it, eat it. Hello, hello. Yes, yes, yes. Who is this? Who is this? Well, well, well, I should say, I should say. How's that? How's that? I don't know, I don't know. What did you say? What did you say? Certainly, certainly. Well, well, well. Not that I know of, not that I know of. Tomorrow? Tomorrow? I guess so, I guess so. All right, all right. Goodbye, goodbye."
As I gathered sticks I saw a Baltimore oriole build a nest. It was quite a divertissement. An oriole takes up to 12 days to weave a nest, but most are completed within a week. I filled the grape jelly feeder because an oriole has a sweet beak.
Pearl crescent, mourning cloak and mid-May monarchs were butterflies dancing in the wind. The monarchs return at about the same time each year. Their migration is determined by day length, temperature and host plant quality.
Goat's-beard (salsify) might be found in every county in Minnesota. Its blossom and seedhead are similar to the dandelion but much larger. Its 1-3 foot tall flowering stems are seen in grassy areas along roadside ditches.
Q&A
“What ferns could I grow in my yard?” Maidenhair fern makes a dandy border with wild geranium or cranesbill (showy flowers and not invasive) and is deer-resistant. The fern has wiry stems and delicate, airy, green fronds that curve into a semi-circle. Ostrich fern, named for its similarity to ostrich feathers, is easy to grow in wet woodland locations, spreads slowly by rhizomes and is deer-resistant. Foragers seek the curled fronds, called fiddleheads, in early spring and prepare them like asparagus. Ostrich ferns have a celery-like, U-shaped stem. Sensitive fern fronds brown quickly after the first fall frost. Interrupted ferns prefer moist, rich, acidic soil, but adapt to drier soils and nearly full sun. The broad fronds are interrupted in the middle by spore-bearing leaflets. Lady ferns enjoy the company of wild ginger and Jack-in-the-pulpit, and all three are rabbit- and deer-resistant. Its name refers to its graceful, feminine appearance, the curved sori (clusters of spore-producing structures on the lower surface of leaves) that resemble a lady's eyebrow or the scales on the stem are like a woman's hairy legs.
“It looks like a bee but has short antennae. What is it?” There are around 450 bee species in Minnesota and of the nearly 900 species of flower flies in North America, most have yellow-and-black stripes and are excellent mimics of bees or wasps. They can’t sting, but looking like insects that can make predators avoid them.
“Were wood ducks nearly extinct?” By the late 1800s to early 1900s, extinction of the wood duck was imminent. Destruction of bottomland hardwood forests and market hunting were the two major factors that contributed to the species' decline. The species was given a standing eight-count, but in 1918, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act prohibited the hunting of wood ducks nationwide. Wood duck populations recovered, and seasons were reopened in 1941.
“Why do songbirds leave the nests so soon?” Predators have an easy time finding a nest full of loud baby birds and nests can be hotbeds of parasites. Parents work to get their young out of the nest as quickly as possible. The parents keep feeding the young after they’ve left the nest and the social-distancing young birds enhance their chance of survival.
“What can I feed mourning doves?” Cracked corn, white millet, sunflower seeds and safflower.
“How big is a bald eagle nest?” The typical nest is 4-5 feet in diameter. They show incredible nest fidelity, meaning the same pair returns to the same site and adds sticks as part of the pair-bonding, which produces gigantic nests, like the largest recorded bald eagle nest in St. Petersburg, Florida, which was 9.5 feet in diameter, 20 feet deep and weighed almost 6,000 pounds.
“Do cowbirds parasitize purple martin nests?” Cowbird females dump eggs into the nests of other birds for the nest owners to raise. They primarily parasitize the nests of birds that build open nests in the edges of woodlots and rarely enter nest cavities.
Thanks for stopping by
“You can't be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or a squirrel of subversion or challenge the ideology of a violet.”—Hal Borland
“Every spring is the only spring, a perpetual astonishment.”—Ellis Peters
Do good.
©Al Batt 2021
Naturally
I walked across the yard, moving past the named and the nameless. I saw a professional squirrel had moved with ease past obstacles meant to keep it from a feeder. A red-winged blackbird male at a feeder displayed bling on his wing.
Brown thrashers put the world in tune with this long-winded song: "Plant a seed, plant a seed, bury it, bury it, cover it up, cover it up, let it grow, let it grow, pull it up, pull it up, eat it, eat it. Hello, hello. Yes, yes, yes. Who is this? Who is this? Well, well, well, I should say, I should say. How's that? How's that? I don't know, I don't know. What did you say? What did you say? Certainly, certainly. Well, well, well. Not that I know of, not that I know of. Tomorrow? Tomorrow? I guess so, I guess so. All right, all right. Goodbye, goodbye."
As I gathered sticks I saw a Baltimore oriole build a nest. It was quite a divertissement. An oriole takes up to 12 days to weave a nest, but most are completed within a week. I filled the grape jelly feeder because an oriole has a sweet beak.
Pearl crescent, mourning cloak and mid-May monarchs were butterflies dancing in the wind. The monarchs return at about the same time each year. Their migration is determined by day length, temperature and host plant quality.
Goat's-beard (salsify) might be found in every county in Minnesota. Its blossom and seedhead are similar to the dandelion but much larger. Its 1-3 foot tall flowering stems are seen in grassy areas along roadside ditches.
Q&A
“What ferns could I grow in my yard?” Maidenhair fern makes a dandy border with wild geranium or cranesbill (showy flowers and not invasive) and is deer-resistant. The fern has wiry stems and delicate, airy, green fronds that curve into a semi-circle. Ostrich fern, named for its similarity to ostrich feathers, is easy to grow in wet woodland locations, spreads slowly by rhizomes and is deer-resistant. Foragers seek the curled fronds, called fiddleheads, in early spring and prepare them like asparagus. Ostrich ferns have a celery-like, U-shaped stem. Sensitive fern fronds brown quickly after the first fall frost. Interrupted ferns prefer moist, rich, acidic soil, but adapt to drier soils and nearly full sun. The broad fronds are interrupted in the middle by spore-bearing leaflets. Lady ferns enjoy the company of wild ginger and Jack-in-the-pulpit, and all three are rabbit- and deer-resistant. Its name refers to its graceful, feminine appearance, the curved sori (clusters of spore-producing structures on the lower surface of leaves) that resemble a lady's eyebrow or the scales on the stem are like a woman's hairy legs.
“It looks like a bee but has short antennae. What is it?” There are around 450 bee species in Minnesota and of the nearly 900 species of flower flies in North America, most have yellow-and-black stripes and are excellent mimics of bees or wasps. They can’t sting, but looking like insects that can make predators avoid them.
“Were wood ducks nearly extinct?” By the late 1800s to early 1900s, extinction of the wood duck was imminent. Destruction of bottomland hardwood forests and market hunting were the two major factors that contributed to the species' decline. The species was given a standing eight-count, but in 1918, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act prohibited the hunting of wood ducks nationwide. Wood duck populations recovered, and seasons were reopened in 1941.
“Why do songbirds leave the nests so soon?” Predators have an easy time finding a nest full of loud baby birds and nests can be hotbeds of parasites. Parents work to get their young out of the nest as quickly as possible. The parents keep feeding the young after they’ve left the nest and the social-distancing young birds enhance their chance of survival.
“What can I feed mourning doves?” Cracked corn, white millet, sunflower seeds and safflower.
“How big is a bald eagle nest?” The typical nest is 4-5 feet in diameter. They show incredible nest fidelity, meaning the same pair returns to the same site and adds sticks as part of the pair-bonding, which produces gigantic nests, like the largest recorded bald eagle nest in St. Petersburg, Florida, which was 9.5 feet in diameter, 20 feet deep and weighed almost 6,000 pounds.
“Do cowbirds parasitize purple martin nests?” Cowbird females dump eggs into the nests of other birds for the nest owners to raise. They primarily parasitize the nests of birds that build open nests in the edges of woodlots and rarely enter nest cavities.
Thanks for stopping by
“You can't be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or a squirrel of subversion or challenge the ideology of a violet.”—Hal Borland
“Every spring is the only spring, a perpetual astonishment.”—Ellis Peters
Do good.
©Al Batt 2021
Photo by Al Batt
Posted 6-6-21
Naturally
I watched a red-headed woodpecker and was taken with its beauty. Many woodpeckers have some red on their heads, but the red-headed woodpecker sets the standard. By the turn of the 20th century, red-headed woodpeckers had suffered population declines due to several factors. Road mortality, competition with European starlings for nesting cavities and the harvesting of their feathers all contributed to the decline. Populations of many avian species were reduced to provide feathers for women’s hats. Farmers killed red-headed woodpeckers because they damaged fruit and berry crops. Further population declines were observed from the 1930s on. Habitat loss, the limited availability of nesting sites and road mortality worsened the decline. Turkey vultures are also lovely redheads, but I’ve heard one described as unpleasantly beautiful.
I took photos of trumpeter swans on a day when I’d enjoyed the company of bald eagles, wood ducks and a peregrine falcon. The remarkable recovery of these four species reminded me that in this time of population decline for many birds, waterfowl and raptors are doing well. I looked at the illustrations of “The Sibley Guide to Birds,” (the book weighs as much or more than a red-tailed hawk), to marvel at the colors of the wood duck.
I delved into corners and saw damselflies, needle-shaped odonates that fold wings over their abdomen when perched (unlike dragonflies).
In early to mid-June, 2-3 weeks after the goslings hatch, adult Canada geese molt and are unable to fly for about a month. Goslings cannot fly until around mid-July when they’re 8-12 weeks old. During the molt, resident geese lose their flight feathers and remain flightless from mid-June to early July. This vulnerability causes the geese to become secretive, preferring areas that provide food and water. Goslings fly in 63 days and adults in 32 days after losing their flight feathers.
Q&A
“The stripes on the heads of white-throated sparrows vary in color. Why?” The striking stripes on the heads of white-throated sparrows are either white or tan. Author Pete Dunne said, “White-throated Sparrows come in two plumages—stunning and shabby.” The two color forms are genetically determined. All males prefer females with white stripes. All females prefer tan-striped males.
“Did women wear birds on their hats at one time?” Such fashion would lay an egg today, but in the late 19th and early 20th century, birds were killed for their feathers. On Manhattan's Ladies' Mile, a principal shopping district, retail stores sold the feathers of snowy egrets, white ibises and great blue herons. Stuffed owl heads found their way onto hats. At Cape Cod, 40,000 terns were killed in one season by an agent of the hat trade. Frank Chapman, ornithologist and field guide writer, described heron massacres, “Mercilessly they were shot down at their roosts or nesting grounds, the coveted feathers are stripped from their backs, the carcasses are left to rot, while the young in the nest above are starving.” Entire songbirds were used on many hats, mounted on wires and springs that permitted the heads and wings to move in a natural manner. Chapman counted 40 different species of birds on women’s hats in New York City over two days in 1886. In 1896, a Boston socialite Harriet Lawrence Hemenway read an article about feather hunting. She was upset by what the article described and took action. She contacted her cousin, Minna B. Hall, and together they organized a series of teas where they asked the wealthy ladies who attended to stop wearing hats with feathers. Over 900 women joined the cause and boycotted feathered hats. In 1896, women didn't have the right to vote and had difficulty being taken seriously by politicians and other powerful people. Hemenway convinced scientists and Bostonian men to help her form the Massachusetts Audubon Society, the oldest Audubon Society in the country, which in 1897, played a key role in convincing that state’s legislature to outlaw the wild bird feather trade. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 made it unlawful, unless licensed, to pursue, hunt, take, capture, kill, possess, sell, purchase, barter, import, export, or transport any migratory bird.
“What kind of jelly should I feed orioles?” Grape jelly is good, the darker the better they like it. The birds will take orange marmalade or cherry, strawberry, apple or raspberry jams or jellies. All brands are good, but a woman told me that her orioles ate only Welch’s. She tried Smucker’s, but they ignored it. She gave it to her husband because he eats anything. Some people add crushed grapes to grape jelly for additional nutrition and offer mealworms separately.
Thanks for stopping by
“Nature is filled with words of love, but how can we listen to them amid constant noise, interminable and nerve-wracking distractions, or the cult of appearances?"—Pope Francis
“All it takes is one good person to restore hope.”—Pope Francis
Do good.
©Al Batt 2021
Naturally
I watched a red-headed woodpecker and was taken with its beauty. Many woodpeckers have some red on their heads, but the red-headed woodpecker sets the standard. By the turn of the 20th century, red-headed woodpeckers had suffered population declines due to several factors. Road mortality, competition with European starlings for nesting cavities and the harvesting of their feathers all contributed to the decline. Populations of many avian species were reduced to provide feathers for women’s hats. Farmers killed red-headed woodpeckers because they damaged fruit and berry crops. Further population declines were observed from the 1930s on. Habitat loss, the limited availability of nesting sites and road mortality worsened the decline. Turkey vultures are also lovely redheads, but I’ve heard one described as unpleasantly beautiful.
I took photos of trumpeter swans on a day when I’d enjoyed the company of bald eagles, wood ducks and a peregrine falcon. The remarkable recovery of these four species reminded me that in this time of population decline for many birds, waterfowl and raptors are doing well. I looked at the illustrations of “The Sibley Guide to Birds,” (the book weighs as much or more than a red-tailed hawk), to marvel at the colors of the wood duck.
I delved into corners and saw damselflies, needle-shaped odonates that fold wings over their abdomen when perched (unlike dragonflies).
In early to mid-June, 2-3 weeks after the goslings hatch, adult Canada geese molt and are unable to fly for about a month. Goslings cannot fly until around mid-July when they’re 8-12 weeks old. During the molt, resident geese lose their flight feathers and remain flightless from mid-June to early July. This vulnerability causes the geese to become secretive, preferring areas that provide food and water. Goslings fly in 63 days and adults in 32 days after losing their flight feathers.
Q&A
“The stripes on the heads of white-throated sparrows vary in color. Why?” The striking stripes on the heads of white-throated sparrows are either white or tan. Author Pete Dunne said, “White-throated Sparrows come in two plumages—stunning and shabby.” The two color forms are genetically determined. All males prefer females with white stripes. All females prefer tan-striped males.
“Did women wear birds on their hats at one time?” Such fashion would lay an egg today, but in the late 19th and early 20th century, birds were killed for their feathers. On Manhattan's Ladies' Mile, a principal shopping district, retail stores sold the feathers of snowy egrets, white ibises and great blue herons. Stuffed owl heads found their way onto hats. At Cape Cod, 40,000 terns were killed in one season by an agent of the hat trade. Frank Chapman, ornithologist and field guide writer, described heron massacres, “Mercilessly they were shot down at their roosts or nesting grounds, the coveted feathers are stripped from their backs, the carcasses are left to rot, while the young in the nest above are starving.” Entire songbirds were used on many hats, mounted on wires and springs that permitted the heads and wings to move in a natural manner. Chapman counted 40 different species of birds on women’s hats in New York City over two days in 1886. In 1896, a Boston socialite Harriet Lawrence Hemenway read an article about feather hunting. She was upset by what the article described and took action. She contacted her cousin, Minna B. Hall, and together they organized a series of teas where they asked the wealthy ladies who attended to stop wearing hats with feathers. Over 900 women joined the cause and boycotted feathered hats. In 1896, women didn't have the right to vote and had difficulty being taken seriously by politicians and other powerful people. Hemenway convinced scientists and Bostonian men to help her form the Massachusetts Audubon Society, the oldest Audubon Society in the country, which in 1897, played a key role in convincing that state’s legislature to outlaw the wild bird feather trade. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 made it unlawful, unless licensed, to pursue, hunt, take, capture, kill, possess, sell, purchase, barter, import, export, or transport any migratory bird.
“What kind of jelly should I feed orioles?” Grape jelly is good, the darker the better they like it. The birds will take orange marmalade or cherry, strawberry, apple or raspberry jams or jellies. All brands are good, but a woman told me that her orioles ate only Welch’s. She tried Smucker’s, but they ignored it. She gave it to her husband because he eats anything. Some people add crushed grapes to grape jelly for additional nutrition and offer mealworms separately.
Thanks for stopping by
“Nature is filled with words of love, but how can we listen to them amid constant noise, interminable and nerve-wracking distractions, or the cult of appearances?"—Pope Francis
“All it takes is one good person to restore hope.”—Pope Francis
Do good.
©Al Batt 2021
Photo by Al Batt
Posted 5-30-21
Naturally
The day was an infant when I listened to a gray catbird produce a series of chirps, mewing, snippets of sounds and renditions of birdsong. The catbird uses other birds’ words against them.
There were whispers from the shadows. It’s the time of the year for the LBJ (Little Brown Job) and the LBB (Little Brown Bird).
I rode the day up like a vulture on a thermal. I don’t often see turkey vultures in flight before mid-morning. It takes time for the sun to generate enough heat to form thermals. I love seeing turkey vultures at work. They clean our roads. They eat carrion as do many of our raptors, including the bald eagle. A group of perched vultures is called a wake or committee. A bumblebee buzzed past—it was a May bee. May—it may rain, it may snow, it may be 90º, it may be 30º. Grackles buzzed the tower (feeder) trying to dislodge a squirrel.
First- and second-year Canada geese (too young to breed) along with those that lost nests early in the breeding season undertake a molt migration. Individuals may move hundreds of miles in late spring and early summer to bodies of water where they’re safer as they molt and become flightless. In September and October, they return and may fly in any direction.
The lilac is traditionally a funeral flower in parts of Europe and was placed in caskets, likely because the perfume from the flower masked the scent of death before modern funerary practices were adopted.
The two common ants in lawns are field ants and cornfield ants. Field ants are about 1/4 inch long and are black or red and black. Their nests are mound-like and can cover an area up to two feet in diameter. Field ants can be found in healthy, growing turf. People mistake them for fire ants, which are found as close as southern Tennessee. Field ants bite, but it isn’t as painful as the stings of fire ants. Cornfield ants can also be found in lawns. They are smaller than field ants, about 1/8 inch long and range in color from light to dark brown. They construct small, conical mounds, in bare or thinning areas.
I corresponded with bluebirding friends located in the Midwest who indicated their bluebird numbers are down 10-20% from last year. February brought harsh winter weather to the south of us and it killed bluebirds and other early migrants.
Q&A
“When do hummingbirds arrive?” In the spring, the males arrive in Minnesota in early May (sometimes in late April) and females in early to mid-May. They feed on flower nectar, tiny insects, spiders, sweetened water from feeders and yellow-bellied sapsucker wells. In the fall, adult males begin migrating in early August. Females follow soon afterward. They fly across the Gulf of Mexico or along the western coast of Mexico and spend the winter in Central or South America.
Rae Jerrel of Kensel, North Dakota, asked for identification of young owls. Her photo showed owlets with yellow eyes, looked as if they wore too much mascara and had dark bills. That means they should be great horned owls. The adults have plumicorns (feathered tufts that resemble horns). Great horned owls begin nesting in January or February. They usually lay their eggs in abandoned nests of squirrels, hawks or crows but sometimes nest on cliff ledges or in hollow trees. Female owls lay one to five eggs, which hatch in 30-37 days. They leave the nest in 6-9 weeks. Barred owls have dark eyes, light-colored bills and have more rounded heads. Barred owls nest later than great horned owls, starting in March, with two or three eggs in a clutch. Incubation is 28-33 days with the owlets leaving the nest in 4-5 weeks. Barred owls eat mice, squirrels, rabbits, birds, frogs, fish and crayfish.
“Do blue jays reuse nests?” Occasionally. They do rarely use nests of other species, including squirrels.
“What is the rarest bird ever seen in Minnesota?” I’d vote for the fieldfare seen in Cook County in November 1991.
Smithsonian Coloring Book
“The Smithsonian Birds Coloring Book” illustrated by Rachel Curtis is a wonderful gift for that coloring book aficionado who is a birder. The back of the book says this, “Fans of coloring books and birds in their majestic diversity will find an enchanting realm to explore with their own creativity.” Interesting facts are provided for each bird. The book is excellent for those of all ages who enjoy birds.
Thanks for stopping by
“I think if you listen closely in the sweet, glad days of spring, with the song of the brook, the breeze and the birds, you can hear the flowers sing.”–Helen Isabel Moorhouse
"We seem to think that we can substitute an irreplaceable and irretrievable beauty with something which we have created ourselves."—Pope Francis
Do good.
©Al Batt 2021
Naturally
The day was an infant when I listened to a gray catbird produce a series of chirps, mewing, snippets of sounds and renditions of birdsong. The catbird uses other birds’ words against them.
There were whispers from the shadows. It’s the time of the year for the LBJ (Little Brown Job) and the LBB (Little Brown Bird).
I rode the day up like a vulture on a thermal. I don’t often see turkey vultures in flight before mid-morning. It takes time for the sun to generate enough heat to form thermals. I love seeing turkey vultures at work. They clean our roads. They eat carrion as do many of our raptors, including the bald eagle. A group of perched vultures is called a wake or committee. A bumblebee buzzed past—it was a May bee. May—it may rain, it may snow, it may be 90º, it may be 30º. Grackles buzzed the tower (feeder) trying to dislodge a squirrel.
First- and second-year Canada geese (too young to breed) along with those that lost nests early in the breeding season undertake a molt migration. Individuals may move hundreds of miles in late spring and early summer to bodies of water where they’re safer as they molt and become flightless. In September and October, they return and may fly in any direction.
The lilac is traditionally a funeral flower in parts of Europe and was placed in caskets, likely because the perfume from the flower masked the scent of death before modern funerary practices were adopted.
The two common ants in lawns are field ants and cornfield ants. Field ants are about 1/4 inch long and are black or red and black. Their nests are mound-like and can cover an area up to two feet in diameter. Field ants can be found in healthy, growing turf. People mistake them for fire ants, which are found as close as southern Tennessee. Field ants bite, but it isn’t as painful as the stings of fire ants. Cornfield ants can also be found in lawns. They are smaller than field ants, about 1/8 inch long and range in color from light to dark brown. They construct small, conical mounds, in bare or thinning areas.
I corresponded with bluebirding friends located in the Midwest who indicated their bluebird numbers are down 10-20% from last year. February brought harsh winter weather to the south of us and it killed bluebirds and other early migrants.
Q&A
“When do hummingbirds arrive?” In the spring, the males arrive in Minnesota in early May (sometimes in late April) and females in early to mid-May. They feed on flower nectar, tiny insects, spiders, sweetened water from feeders and yellow-bellied sapsucker wells. In the fall, adult males begin migrating in early August. Females follow soon afterward. They fly across the Gulf of Mexico or along the western coast of Mexico and spend the winter in Central or South America.
Rae Jerrel of Kensel, North Dakota, asked for identification of young owls. Her photo showed owlets with yellow eyes, looked as if they wore too much mascara and had dark bills. That means they should be great horned owls. The adults have plumicorns (feathered tufts that resemble horns). Great horned owls begin nesting in January or February. They usually lay their eggs in abandoned nests of squirrels, hawks or crows but sometimes nest on cliff ledges or in hollow trees. Female owls lay one to five eggs, which hatch in 30-37 days. They leave the nest in 6-9 weeks. Barred owls have dark eyes, light-colored bills and have more rounded heads. Barred owls nest later than great horned owls, starting in March, with two or three eggs in a clutch. Incubation is 28-33 days with the owlets leaving the nest in 4-5 weeks. Barred owls eat mice, squirrels, rabbits, birds, frogs, fish and crayfish.
“Do blue jays reuse nests?” Occasionally. They do rarely use nests of other species, including squirrels.
“What is the rarest bird ever seen in Minnesota?” I’d vote for the fieldfare seen in Cook County in November 1991.
Smithsonian Coloring Book
“The Smithsonian Birds Coloring Book” illustrated by Rachel Curtis is a wonderful gift for that coloring book aficionado who is a birder. The back of the book says this, “Fans of coloring books and birds in their majestic diversity will find an enchanting realm to explore with their own creativity.” Interesting facts are provided for each bird. The book is excellent for those of all ages who enjoy birds.
Thanks for stopping by
“I think if you listen closely in the sweet, glad days of spring, with the song of the brook, the breeze and the birds, you can hear the flowers sing.”–Helen Isabel Moorhouse
"We seem to think that we can substitute an irreplaceable and irretrievable beauty with something which we have created ourselves."—Pope Francis
Do good.
©Al Batt 2021
Photo by Al Batt
Posted 5-23-21
Naturally
I helped some birders from Utah find Waldo amid a slew of warblers at a state park. The beauty of the warblers (mostly American redstarts), orchard orioles, indigo buntings and Swainson’s thrushes enthralled us. I didn’t have enough eyes to go around.
I’d gotten photos from a column customer in St. Paul. They were of a yellow-eyed hawk peering through a window into a break room located on the 9th floor of an office building. It was a red-tailed hawk, a raptor that in its first year has pale yellowish eyes and as an adult has dark brown eyes. The color change from yellow to brown happens over several years and more quickly in some birds than in others.
A grackle enjoyed the peanuts in the shell I put out for the blue jays and red-bellied woodpeckers. He grabbed one, flew to the ground and pecked the shell open to find the prize inside. How did the grackle repay me? It did a drive-by dropping of droppings that hit the tip of my sandal, missing my toe by the width of a pencil stroke. That’s what happens when you put your best foot forward. Then the bird went off to chase a squirrel.
Q&A
“Do cats kill rats?” They could, but most cats avoid doing so. Cats and rats are more likely to ignore or avoid each other than engage in conflict. Given the choice between attacking a large rat, a bird or a mouse, cats tend to opt for the latter two.
“Are bees unable to see red?” Bees see a range of colors, but not red. While we see colors as combinations of blue, green and red, bees see combinations of blue, green and ultraviolet.
“How do I make hummingbird nectar?” Use a 1:4 ratio of refined white sugar to water. You need water just hot enough to dissolve the table sugar you're mixing in. Don’t use organic, natural or raw sugars. Avoid honey and red dye.
“How did the dragonfly get its name?” In “Folklore of the Dragonfly: A Linguistic Approach” it’s theorized the name dragonfly came about because of an ancient Romanian folktale in which the devil turned a horse ridden by St. George into a giant, flying insect. The Romanian names the people used for this giant insect translated into St. George’s horse, devil’s horse or devil’s fly. The Romanian word for devil was “drac,” also the word for dragon. The book suggests the Romanian name for the devil’s fly evolved into the English “dragonfly.” Swedish folklore holds the devil uses dragonflies to weigh people’s souls.
“Do ladybugs sleep?” Yes, mostly at night, but they don’t close their eyes and fall asleep as we do. They enter a resting period, during which they remain still and unresponsive for hours in tree bark, logs, bushes, cracks in trees, leaves, dense vegetation and ground cover.
“Are owls able to turn their heads all the way around?” As I walked a trail recently, I heard a barred owl call its distinctive "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you-all?” Owls can rotate their heads 270 degrees in either direction without damaging blood vessels or cutting off blood flow to the brain. The owl has bone and vascular structures running along its neck and into its skull that keep the blood flowing even when the head is swiveled up to 270 degrees. If an owl were human size, the eyes would be the size of grapefruits. Owl eyes face forward and are immovable, providing great binocular vision. Owls compensate for immovable eyes by the ability to rotate their heads. Owls have excellent vision both in daylight and at night.
“Are spiders insects?” They are arachnids as are harvestmen, mites, ticks and scorpions. All arachnids have eight legs, and unlike insects, they don't have antennae.
“Why do bucks shed their antlers?” The prime reason bucks have antlers is to fight with other bucks for dominance. Once the deer breeding season is over, they don’t need them. The antlers become excess weight. When testosterone levels drop, so do antlers.
“How many quills does a porcupine have?” Around 30,000.
Daniel and Kim Otten of Hayward saw a raptor take an adult wood duck and wondered about its identity. It was a peregrine falcon. Other predators of adult wood ducks are the raccoon, fox, great horned owl, barred owl and goshawk. On the subject of peregrine falcons, a Peregrine Falcon nest cam at the Mayo Building in Rochester can be seen at https://www.earthcam.com/usa/minnesota/rochester/falcon/?cam=falcon_mn. Another riveting nest cam is the Decorah North Bald Eagle Cam found at
https://youtu.be/VlNV1L9qnrk
Thanks for stopping by
“Spring: the music of open windows.”—Terri Guillemets
“The day the Lord created hope was probably the same day he created Spring.”—Bernard Williams
Do good.
©Al Batt 2021
Naturally
I helped some birders from Utah find Waldo amid a slew of warblers at a state park. The beauty of the warblers (mostly American redstarts), orchard orioles, indigo buntings and Swainson’s thrushes enthralled us. I didn’t have enough eyes to go around.
I’d gotten photos from a column customer in St. Paul. They were of a yellow-eyed hawk peering through a window into a break room located on the 9th floor of an office building. It was a red-tailed hawk, a raptor that in its first year has pale yellowish eyes and as an adult has dark brown eyes. The color change from yellow to brown happens over several years and more quickly in some birds than in others.
A grackle enjoyed the peanuts in the shell I put out for the blue jays and red-bellied woodpeckers. He grabbed one, flew to the ground and pecked the shell open to find the prize inside. How did the grackle repay me? It did a drive-by dropping of droppings that hit the tip of my sandal, missing my toe by the width of a pencil stroke. That’s what happens when you put your best foot forward. Then the bird went off to chase a squirrel.
Q&A
“Do cats kill rats?” They could, but most cats avoid doing so. Cats and rats are more likely to ignore or avoid each other than engage in conflict. Given the choice between attacking a large rat, a bird or a mouse, cats tend to opt for the latter two.
“Are bees unable to see red?” Bees see a range of colors, but not red. While we see colors as combinations of blue, green and red, bees see combinations of blue, green and ultraviolet.
“How do I make hummingbird nectar?” Use a 1:4 ratio of refined white sugar to water. You need water just hot enough to dissolve the table sugar you're mixing in. Don’t use organic, natural or raw sugars. Avoid honey and red dye.
“How did the dragonfly get its name?” In “Folklore of the Dragonfly: A Linguistic Approach” it’s theorized the name dragonfly came about because of an ancient Romanian folktale in which the devil turned a horse ridden by St. George into a giant, flying insect. The Romanian names the people used for this giant insect translated into St. George’s horse, devil’s horse or devil’s fly. The Romanian word for devil was “drac,” also the word for dragon. The book suggests the Romanian name for the devil’s fly evolved into the English “dragonfly.” Swedish folklore holds the devil uses dragonflies to weigh people’s souls.
“Do ladybugs sleep?” Yes, mostly at night, but they don’t close their eyes and fall asleep as we do. They enter a resting period, during which they remain still and unresponsive for hours in tree bark, logs, bushes, cracks in trees, leaves, dense vegetation and ground cover.
“Are owls able to turn their heads all the way around?” As I walked a trail recently, I heard a barred owl call its distinctive "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you-all?” Owls can rotate their heads 270 degrees in either direction without damaging blood vessels or cutting off blood flow to the brain. The owl has bone and vascular structures running along its neck and into its skull that keep the blood flowing even when the head is swiveled up to 270 degrees. If an owl were human size, the eyes would be the size of grapefruits. Owl eyes face forward and are immovable, providing great binocular vision. Owls compensate for immovable eyes by the ability to rotate their heads. Owls have excellent vision both in daylight and at night.
“Are spiders insects?” They are arachnids as are harvestmen, mites, ticks and scorpions. All arachnids have eight legs, and unlike insects, they don't have antennae.
“Why do bucks shed their antlers?” The prime reason bucks have antlers is to fight with other bucks for dominance. Once the deer breeding season is over, they don’t need them. The antlers become excess weight. When testosterone levels drop, so do antlers.
“How many quills does a porcupine have?” Around 30,000.
Daniel and Kim Otten of Hayward saw a raptor take an adult wood duck and wondered about its identity. It was a peregrine falcon. Other predators of adult wood ducks are the raccoon, fox, great horned owl, barred owl and goshawk. On the subject of peregrine falcons, a Peregrine Falcon nest cam at the Mayo Building in Rochester can be seen at https://www.earthcam.com/usa/minnesota/rochester/falcon/?cam=falcon_mn. Another riveting nest cam is the Decorah North Bald Eagle Cam found at
https://youtu.be/VlNV1L9qnrk
Thanks for stopping by
“Spring: the music of open windows.”—Terri Guillemets
“The day the Lord created hope was probably the same day he created Spring.”—Bernard Williams
Do good.
©Al Batt 2021
Photo by Al Batt
Posted 5-16-21
Naturally
Silent shadows moved past me on a walking trail. Vultures were flying between me and the sun. I watched a movie called “Miami Blues.” It wasn’t my cup of tea, but one of its scenes showed vultures flying overhead with the sounds of red-tailed hawks dubbed in.
The insistent whistle of a cardinal provided background music. It’s impossible to ignore a redbird. May brings the musical trills of American toads as they all chime in at once. House wren song accompanied the cardinal as my steps added up. I walked past plantain, which native people called “white man’s footstep.”
Raccoons were noisy. Their mating season is February to March and after a 63-day gestation period, the female gives birth to a litter of 2-6 young in April or May in either hollow trees, woodchuck burrows, culverts, under buildings, etc.
Tiny spring azures are among the first butterflies seen in spring that haven’t hibernated overwinter as adults. They have bright blue upper wings that are apparent as they fly in search of mates or food. They seldom perch with wings open and the undersides of their wings are gray with spots.
Countless 17-year periodical cicadas are emerging in many major media markets, but not in Minnesota. The cicadas are about an inch long and I’ve heard there may be 20,000-40,000 in a single tree. The nymphs had spent their lives 12-24 inches deep in the soil where they fed on tree sap. They are noisy because they are teenagers. Brood X emerges this year. Two broods have gone extinct and a third is declining due to deforestation.
I watched trumpeter swans feed in a shallow wetland. They used their strong webbed feet to dig into the pond bottom for roots, shoots and tubers. Their big feet churn like the swans are on a Peloton bike before they plunge their heads and necks underwater to eat what they’d dislodged.
Speak softly and carry a loaf of bread
A friend came home from grocery shopping to discover a wild turkey tom in his yard. The turkey had been courting a nearby hen. The tom identified the returning shopper as a competitor and shifted into attack mode. My friend retreated swiftly to the deck of his home, but the tom followed him nimbly. The man kicked the turkey twice, but it only encouraged the tom’s assault. The tom put the man’s castle under siege. Finally, in desperation, the man pulled a loaf of bread from his shopping bag and struck the big bird with it. That did the trick and sent the tom into retreat.
Q&A
“I watched a crow dip bread in a birdbath. What was it doing?” Crows dip their food in water to soften it. Crows will soak food for nestlings to make it easier to eat and to provide them with water.
“Why are they called ladybugs?” The name was coined by European farmers who prayed to the Virgin Mary when pests were eating their crops. After ladybugs had come and destroyed the pests, the farmers named them "beetle of Our Lady." This was eventually shortened to "lady beetle" and "ladybug."
“What is the largest rodent in the U. S.?” The largest rodent in North America is the beaver. The porcupine is the second largest.
“What is eating my tulips?” Deer, rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks and woodchucks eat tulips. Rabbit damage is easy to recognize because they make sharp cuts as if someone has trimmed the plants with scissors. The cut is often angled at 45 degrees. A rabbit will sometimes nibble the tulip bloom and not eat the entire flower at one sitting. Squirrels and chipmunks are the most common pests of tulip bulbs.
“What animal eats asparagus?” Deer eat what is available and likely would sample fresh spears.
Dennis Anderson of Hartland asked when pelicans nest? Minnesota has 10 lakes, a city and a river that include pelican as part of their names. In April and May, they nest in large dense groups. Pelicans nest on the ground, mainly on isolated islands. American white pelicans reach sexual maturity at around three years of age and average two eggs in a nest. Minnesota has 15 known nesting colonies, but the number and locations can vary.
Customer comments
Grant Garriott of McGregor wrote, “We bought a fake owl one summer to discourage woodpeckers from attacking our home’s cedar siding. The only thing it accomplished was luring screaming crows to the house. The woodpeckers ignored it and continued their drilling operations.”
Thanks for stopping by
“I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.”—E. B. White
“Animals don't hate, and we're supposed to be better than them.”―Elvis Presley
Do good.
©Al Batt 2021
Naturally
Silent shadows moved past me on a walking trail. Vultures were flying between me and the sun. I watched a movie called “Miami Blues.” It wasn’t my cup of tea, but one of its scenes showed vultures flying overhead with the sounds of red-tailed hawks dubbed in.
The insistent whistle of a cardinal provided background music. It’s impossible to ignore a redbird. May brings the musical trills of American toads as they all chime in at once. House wren song accompanied the cardinal as my steps added up. I walked past plantain, which native people called “white man’s footstep.”
Raccoons were noisy. Their mating season is February to March and after a 63-day gestation period, the female gives birth to a litter of 2-6 young in April or May in either hollow trees, woodchuck burrows, culverts, under buildings, etc.
Tiny spring azures are among the first butterflies seen in spring that haven’t hibernated overwinter as adults. They have bright blue upper wings that are apparent as they fly in search of mates or food. They seldom perch with wings open and the undersides of their wings are gray with spots.
Countless 17-year periodical cicadas are emerging in many major media markets, but not in Minnesota. The cicadas are about an inch long and I’ve heard there may be 20,000-40,000 in a single tree. The nymphs had spent their lives 12-24 inches deep in the soil where they fed on tree sap. They are noisy because they are teenagers. Brood X emerges this year. Two broods have gone extinct and a third is declining due to deforestation.
I watched trumpeter swans feed in a shallow wetland. They used their strong webbed feet to dig into the pond bottom for roots, shoots and tubers. Their big feet churn like the swans are on a Peloton bike before they plunge their heads and necks underwater to eat what they’d dislodged.
Speak softly and carry a loaf of bread
A friend came home from grocery shopping to discover a wild turkey tom in his yard. The turkey had been courting a nearby hen. The tom identified the returning shopper as a competitor and shifted into attack mode. My friend retreated swiftly to the deck of his home, but the tom followed him nimbly. The man kicked the turkey twice, but it only encouraged the tom’s assault. The tom put the man’s castle under siege. Finally, in desperation, the man pulled a loaf of bread from his shopping bag and struck the big bird with it. That did the trick and sent the tom into retreat.
Q&A
“I watched a crow dip bread in a birdbath. What was it doing?” Crows dip their food in water to soften it. Crows will soak food for nestlings to make it easier to eat and to provide them with water.
“Why are they called ladybugs?” The name was coined by European farmers who prayed to the Virgin Mary when pests were eating their crops. After ladybugs had come and destroyed the pests, the farmers named them "beetle of Our Lady." This was eventually shortened to "lady beetle" and "ladybug."
“What is the largest rodent in the U. S.?” The largest rodent in North America is the beaver. The porcupine is the second largest.
“What is eating my tulips?” Deer, rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks and woodchucks eat tulips. Rabbit damage is easy to recognize because they make sharp cuts as if someone has trimmed the plants with scissors. The cut is often angled at 45 degrees. A rabbit will sometimes nibble the tulip bloom and not eat the entire flower at one sitting. Squirrels and chipmunks are the most common pests of tulip bulbs.
“What animal eats asparagus?” Deer eat what is available and likely would sample fresh spears.
Dennis Anderson of Hartland asked when pelicans nest? Minnesota has 10 lakes, a city and a river that include pelican as part of their names. In April and May, they nest in large dense groups. Pelicans nest on the ground, mainly on isolated islands. American white pelicans reach sexual maturity at around three years of age and average two eggs in a nest. Minnesota has 15 known nesting colonies, but the number and locations can vary.
Customer comments
Grant Garriott of McGregor wrote, “We bought a fake owl one summer to discourage woodpeckers from attacking our home’s cedar siding. The only thing it accomplished was luring screaming crows to the house. The woodpeckers ignored it and continued their drilling operations.”
Thanks for stopping by
“I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.”—E. B. White
“Animals don't hate, and we're supposed to be better than them.”―Elvis Presley
Do good.
©Al Batt 2021
Photo by Al Batt
Posted 5-9-21
Naturally
A swallow whispered past.
Accompanied by the droning of bumblebees, the flitting of cabbage white butterflies and the darting of dragonflies (the first I see each spring are common green darners and variegated meadowhawks), I stooped to enjoy a closer look at spring ephemerals. The plants are familiar neighbors. I greeted them as if they were long-lost friends. Fiddleheads, the tightly coiled tips of ferns, proliferated. They’re named for their resemblance to the curled decoration at the end of stringed instruments.
I’ve been out turning over rocks, so to speak. Good numbers of palm warblers led me down a trail. Yellow-rumped warblers were busy in every other tree. An orange-crowned warbler and a hermit thrush were here and there. Ruby-crowned kinglets used megaphones to produce their loud sounds. Spotted sandpipers were numerous along the water’s edge. My father called them teeter-snipe because teeter-snipes sounded wrong. Forster’s tern calls of “ki-arr” came from all directions. Mudflats were occupied with pectoral sandpipers and both species of yellowlegs. I walked with Bob Janssen of Golden Valley. Bob is the godfather of Minnesota birding. We watched a Cooper’s hawk (the “chicken hawk” of my youthful years when I tried to make millions by raising exotic breeds of small chickens) harassed three turkey vultures with menacing flight maneuvers and a lengthy series of cak-cak-cak calls. A Cooper’s hawk was on the ground in my yard, hiding in the tangles, hoping to ambush a bird. I saw a solitary sandpiper at the edge of a cow pasture and a green heron at a lakeside park.
In the yard, white-crowned sparrows and Harris’s sparrows joined the flock of white-throated sparrows and a single fox sparrow dancing on the ground. The whistling white-throated sparrows turned the yard into a whistle-athon. There were many purple finches and pine siskins (I love this tiny bird’s tameness). There was but one eastern towhee, but its number was impressive.
I saw pelicans fish communally on the lake. The birds in the back of the feeding group flew to the front to get a better place in the buffet line. The pelicans leapfrogged and fished.
As I drove, I found it impossible to ignore the chartreuse color of weeping willows. I watched a red-tailed hawk dive from on high at a northern harrier hunting close to the ground. There was no contact, but the harrier fled the scene. That was a good idea.
Multi-colored Asian lady beetles have found my garage to their liking.
Astonishments
I dreamed we were birds. I told my wife she looked like an M when she flew. The longest known shorebird flight—about 7,000 miles nonstop—is by the bar-tailed godwit during its migration from Alaska to New Zealand. Before departing, godwits binge eat to more than double their body weight. Fat comprises up to 55% of that weight.
Willow bark has been used as a traditional medicine for headaches and toothaches. Just a pinch between cheek and gum brought relief. An active agent within willow bark is salicin, which later formed the basis of aspirin.
Why did Michelangelo paint a tarpon instead of Jonah’s whale on the Sistine Chapel?
The names of the full moons are January Wolf Moon, February Snow Moon, March Worm Moon, April Pink Moon, May Flower Moon, June Strawberry Moon, July Buck Moon, August Sturgeon Moon, September Harvest Moon, October Hunter’s Moon, November Beaver Moon and December Cold Moon.
Q&A
Tom Ehrhardt of Albert Lea wondered where the goldfinches are? Goldfinches are nomadic by nature. They prefer to feed as a group and might not find a feeder attractive if it has a low level of food. Check the seed for dampness after rains. Shake the feeder to make sure the seed is dry and loose. Smell the seeds for mustiness.
“Is the dandelion native to Minnesota?” No, it originated in Europe and Asia. European settlers brought dandelions to America in the mid-1600s and cultivated dandelions as food sources and for medicinal uses.
“Why do feeders get busy before a storm?” Birds have an inborn barometer. Storms are associated with falling pressure and birds have difficulty getting food during a storm. The sooner they know a storm is coming, the more time they have to fuel up.
“What would eat the heads of chickens?” The primary suspects are owls and raccoons. Other candidates include cats, hawks, dogs, foxes and coyotes. The head of a chicken is an easy target, the brain is high in protein and essential fats, and the head can be carried away when the whole chicken is too heavy.
Thanks for stopping by
“A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.”—Jerry Seinfeld
"The plants adapt, the people adopt." “In some Native languages the term for plants translates to ‘those who take care of us.’”—Robin Wall Kimmerer
©Al Batt 2021
Naturally
A swallow whispered past.
Accompanied by the droning of bumblebees, the flitting of cabbage white butterflies and the darting of dragonflies (the first I see each spring are common green darners and variegated meadowhawks), I stooped to enjoy a closer look at spring ephemerals. The plants are familiar neighbors. I greeted them as if they were long-lost friends. Fiddleheads, the tightly coiled tips of ferns, proliferated. They’re named for their resemblance to the curled decoration at the end of stringed instruments.
I’ve been out turning over rocks, so to speak. Good numbers of palm warblers led me down a trail. Yellow-rumped warblers were busy in every other tree. An orange-crowned warbler and a hermit thrush were here and there. Ruby-crowned kinglets used megaphones to produce their loud sounds. Spotted sandpipers were numerous along the water’s edge. My father called them teeter-snipe because teeter-snipes sounded wrong. Forster’s tern calls of “ki-arr” came from all directions. Mudflats were occupied with pectoral sandpipers and both species of yellowlegs. I walked with Bob Janssen of Golden Valley. Bob is the godfather of Minnesota birding. We watched a Cooper’s hawk (the “chicken hawk” of my youthful years when I tried to make millions by raising exotic breeds of small chickens) harassed three turkey vultures with menacing flight maneuvers and a lengthy series of cak-cak-cak calls. A Cooper’s hawk was on the ground in my yard, hiding in the tangles, hoping to ambush a bird. I saw a solitary sandpiper at the edge of a cow pasture and a green heron at a lakeside park.
In the yard, white-crowned sparrows and Harris’s sparrows joined the flock of white-throated sparrows and a single fox sparrow dancing on the ground. The whistling white-throated sparrows turned the yard into a whistle-athon. There were many purple finches and pine siskins (I love this tiny bird’s tameness). There was but one eastern towhee, but its number was impressive.
I saw pelicans fish communally on the lake. The birds in the back of the feeding group flew to the front to get a better place in the buffet line. The pelicans leapfrogged and fished.
As I drove, I found it impossible to ignore the chartreuse color of weeping willows. I watched a red-tailed hawk dive from on high at a northern harrier hunting close to the ground. There was no contact, but the harrier fled the scene. That was a good idea.
Multi-colored Asian lady beetles have found my garage to their liking.
Astonishments
I dreamed we were birds. I told my wife she looked like an M when she flew. The longest known shorebird flight—about 7,000 miles nonstop—is by the bar-tailed godwit during its migration from Alaska to New Zealand. Before departing, godwits binge eat to more than double their body weight. Fat comprises up to 55% of that weight.
Willow bark has been used as a traditional medicine for headaches and toothaches. Just a pinch between cheek and gum brought relief. An active agent within willow bark is salicin, which later formed the basis of aspirin.
Why did Michelangelo paint a tarpon instead of Jonah’s whale on the Sistine Chapel?
The names of the full moons are January Wolf Moon, February Snow Moon, March Worm Moon, April Pink Moon, May Flower Moon, June Strawberry Moon, July Buck Moon, August Sturgeon Moon, September Harvest Moon, October Hunter’s Moon, November Beaver Moon and December Cold Moon.
Q&A
Tom Ehrhardt of Albert Lea wondered where the goldfinches are? Goldfinches are nomadic by nature. They prefer to feed as a group and might not find a feeder attractive if it has a low level of food. Check the seed for dampness after rains. Shake the feeder to make sure the seed is dry and loose. Smell the seeds for mustiness.
“Is the dandelion native to Minnesota?” No, it originated in Europe and Asia. European settlers brought dandelions to America in the mid-1600s and cultivated dandelions as food sources and for medicinal uses.
“Why do feeders get busy before a storm?” Birds have an inborn barometer. Storms are associated with falling pressure and birds have difficulty getting food during a storm. The sooner they know a storm is coming, the more time they have to fuel up.
“What would eat the heads of chickens?” The primary suspects are owls and raccoons. Other candidates include cats, hawks, dogs, foxes and coyotes. The head of a chicken is an easy target, the brain is high in protein and essential fats, and the head can be carried away when the whole chicken is too heavy.
Thanks for stopping by
“A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.”—Jerry Seinfeld
"The plants adapt, the people adopt." “In some Native languages the term for plants translates to ‘those who take care of us.’”—Robin Wall Kimmerer
©Al Batt 2021
Photo by Al Batt