Al Batt: Days between first snow and Christmas signify total snowfalls
Published by tlittle@bluffco... on Mon, 10/21/2019 - 1:20pm By :
Al Batt
For the Birds
A large flock of blackbirds moved through the air as though each bird shared a brain and gravity was a law that didn't apply to them. White-throated sparrows whistled up memories of past falls.
Spiderwebs were numerous, welcoming flying insect guests. Instead, they gathered leaves the wind had peeled from trees.
A couple of days before an early October snow, I watched ants at work. Myrmecology is the scientific study of ants and is a branch of entomology.
Ants might not find snow the thrill of their lives. Count the number of days from the first snowfall until Christmas. This number is the number of snowfalls to expect — or not. An ant didn't tell me that.
I watched a scuttle fly scurry like a tiny (my guess is 1/16 to 1/8 inch in size) Olympic sprinter across a kitchen countertop.
This fly tends to dart instead of flying. They don't bite and are associated with decaying organic matter.
Echoes from Loafers' Club
I bought a new sweatsuit but it's not working.
What do you mean by that?
I've owned it a month and I haven't lost any weight.
The cafe chronicles
I stopped at a fine eating establishment. I'm blessed to have a palate that prefers things like hotdish, mashed potatoes and pie.
The food at this cafe is good, although damned by faint praise and some jokes about being awarded the purple heartburn after eating there more than once.
I sat at a table where everyone ordered coffee except me. There is one in every crowd. I splurged on water. The liquids arrived quickly — thirst things first. A fellow Loafer told me that he enjoyed peanut butter on lefse. I'm going to try that. It's important to have goals.
A hodgepodge
Harvey Benson of Harmony had a relative who had been elected to a public office of great importance. He told Harvey that he had to do only two things each day on that job: Find where to get money and decide who to give it to.
Happy unbirthday to those not celebrating a birthday today. Unbirthday, meaning a day other than one’s birthday, was coined by Lewis Carroll in "Through the Looking-Glass."
Friends celebrated their 44th wedding anniversary. They'd unearthed a newspaper clipping of their wedding. On the reverse side was a column penned by this ink-stained wretch.
Andy Dyrdal of Albert Lea is 97 years old. Someone asked him if he wanted to live to be 100. Andy said he had set his sights higher than that. I hope to be able to listen to his stories for many years.
We had a snow tire swing when I was a boy. I don't remember the brand of tire, but it wore well. Wealthier folks had two tire swings. One was the spare.
Nature Notes
There are no suicidal leaps for lemmings, as they don’t periodically hurl themselves off cliffs into the sea.
Cyclical explosions in populations occasionally provoke lemmings to move to areas with lower population density. Some lemmings might die by falling over cliffs or drowning in lakes or rivers.
These are accidental deaths in quest of reaching a new territory. A memorable scene from Disney’s 1958 Academy Award-winning nature documentary “White Wilderness” was of lemmings drowning after jumping off cliffs and into the sea. That scene was staged by filmmakers.
There are other things that are contrary to popular myth. Ostriches don't bury their heads in the sand. They wouldn't be able to breathe. They do dig nests in the ground. Toads won't give you warts. Mother birds don't reject babies because they have been touched by humans. Porcupines cannot throw their quills.
Q&A
"Do birds ever get migratory headaches?"
I'm sure they do when they deal with delayed and canceled flights.
"I saw a robin that was half white. What is that called?"
It's called leucism and is manifested in a partially, mostly or completely white animal. Piebald is an example of leucism. The eyes retain their natural color in leucistic animals whereas the eyes are pink in animals with albinism. Albinos are much rarer. Leucism is a condition caused by a partial loss of pigmentation.
"What is the world's smallest bird?"
It's the bee hummingbird found in Cuba. It weighs less than a dime.
"How did the downy woodpecker get its name?"
American colonial naturalist Mark Catesby gave the species its common name, with "downy" being a reference to the soft feathers of the white stripe on the lower back, in contrast to the similar, but more hairlike feathers on the lower back of the larger hairy woodpecker. The hairy has a distinctly longer bill.
"Are there any state record sized trees in southern Minnesota?"
You bet there are. The DNR has a Big Tree Registry that includes the state's 52 native species. The largest trees are determined by circumference, height and crown spread. Here are the largest trees with heights in feet by county. Fillmore: white ash 87 and eastern white pine 103. Houston: silver maple 95, northern pin oak 97 and northern red oak 75. Olmsted: black maple 78, bur oak 68 and black walnut 112. The DNR requires a completed form and a photo for a tree to be considered for Minnesota's Big Tree Registry.
Larry Dolphin of Austin asked if barred owls eat skunks as great horned owls do.
The barred owl is opportunistic in its feeding habits and preys upon fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds, mice, squirrels, chipmunks, frogs, rabbits and insects. I don't doubt it would take a skunk out to lunch, but maybe not a full-grown adult. Great horned owls will eat barred owls.
Natural happenings
1. Gray squirrels build leafy nests called dreys.
2. Thirteen-lined ground squirrels begin to hibernate.
3. Cattails shed seeds.
4. Short-tailed weasels begin to change color from brown to white. This weasel is also known as an ermine.
Trip essentials
1. Comfortable shoes.
2. A good attitude.
3. More cellphone chargers than you could ever lose.
Meeting adjourned
“Remember there’s no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.” – Scott Adams
Thanks for stopping by
"If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day." — E.B. White
“May my heart always be open to little birds who are the secrets of living whatever they sing is better than to know and if men should not hear them men are old.” — E.E. Cummings
Do good.
c. Al Batt 2019
AL BATT/BLUFF COUNTRY READER A dark-eyed junco (oftentimes called a snowbird) signifies winter is ready to come and the first snowfall is not far off. When summer is here, the birds nest in mountain regions or farther north.
AL BATT/BLUFF COUNTRY READER White-throated sparrows can have two different plumage variations – tan-striped or white-striped. When searching for a mate, the sparrows almost always pair with their opposite color.