Batt: Christmas season revelations with Al Batt

Published by rkramer@bluffco... on Mon, 12/16/2019 - 3:36pm

By :

AL BATT

Shoofly pie and fruitcake

I was at a Christmas party with friends. One had made shoofly pie, a molasses crumb cake baked in a piecrust. It was powerful good. There was no fruitcake at this particular feast day for friends. I like fruitcake.

There, I've admitted it. I like it best when none of the ingredients is sawdust. I'm keen on fruitcake wearing a layer of whipped cream. I like some fruitcake better than others, but that's true about all foodstuffs.

I wish I’d been eating fruitcake instead of a salad, greens and walnuts at a banquet in Sitka, Alaska. I broke a tooth. I didn't do it for me. It was a Christmas gift for my dentist.

December weather folklore

A windy Christmas is a sign of a good year to come.

If Christmas Day be bright and clear, there’ll be two winters in the year.

White Christmas, green Easter. Green Christmas, white Easter.

December changeable and mild, the whole winter will remain a child.

Thoughts while in the dentist’s chair

If someone signs your paycheck, they can't be a complete idiot.

You become an adult when you've lost the desire to become a grownup.

Familiarity invites repeat customers to restaurants.

Nature notes

I got a nice Christmas card from a Baltimore oriole. It said he was warm and eating fruit and nectar in Costa Rica.

After reading the card, I moved to a pretty place. The window. There were chickadees at the feeders. My favorite bird eats about 35 percent of its weight per day. A Cooper’s hawk had been hunting/haunting the yard. That raptor eats 12 percent of its weight daily.

An opossum was nibbling on seeds that had fallen from feeders. I'd eaten an apple and tossed the core outside, nearly hitting the opossum. I didn’t mean to come that close. It didn’t alarm the animal.

An opossum’s eyesight isn’t the greatest, but it smelled the apple and grabbed it with its mouth of 50 teeth and ambled away. I felt good about my simple gift.

A male house sparrow in the yard had an impaired wing. Birds don’t fly well on one wing. I tried to catch the little bird, but it was too quick for me. I’ve been feeding it. Many would say that it’s just a house sparrow.

Even though I’m more than willing to trap a mouse or swat a mosquito or stable fly, I try not to judge creatures. They are what they are. I remain hopeful on the sparrow’s behalf.

I saw a coyote feeding on a deer killed by a car. Coyote mating season is January and February. Five to seven pups are born in April. Their mother teaches them to hunt when they are 8 to 12 weeks old. From autumn until mid-winter, the pups leave the den and search for their own territories.

Deer are nature’s “reduce speed” signs. Just think how fast people would drive if it weren’t for deer.

I went outside and stayed a while

Rick Mammel told me about decoys affixed to Albert Lea Audubon's purple martin houses as a tool to attract martins. They were attacked by Cooper's hawks, which destroyed the decoys.

The Eurasian collared-dove is grayish brown with a black collar. It's chunkier than a mourning dove and has a blunt-tipped tail unlike the mourning dove’s longer, pointed tail. Males give a distinctive koo-KOO-kook call.

Snowmobilers, snowshoers, skiers, and those making money by moving snow aren't the only ones happy to see snow. Voles live in a subnivean zone, the area between the surface of the ground and the bottom of the snowpack. Voles retreat to that grocery store for protection from the cold, wind, and predators.

Male pheasants crow throughout the year. "Cow-cat" they proclaim while making a drumming sound with their wings. During severe winter weather, pheasants can go two weeks without food by reducing their metabolism.

They are able to detect sounds or ground vibrations from long distances. The Department of Game and Fish acquired 70 pairs from Wisconsin and Illinois, and released them in 1905. None survived.

In 1916, the Minnesota Game Protective League established a game farm on Big Island in Lake Minnetonka.

The Game and Fish Department assumed the operation in 1917 and by 1922, pheasants had been released in 78 of Minnesota's 87 counties. Minnesota held its first hunt in 1924.

Phun with phenology

Great horned owl pairs hoot duets.

Raccoons aren't true hibernators. They may forage when temperatures hit 20°F or above.

Most white-tailed deer bucks shed antlers in mid-January, but some do so in December when stressed by severe weather conditions.

Q&A

"I saw a cowbird recently. Shouldn't it have left here?"

Most of the brown-headed cowbirds have flown south, but some overwinter in southern Minnesota and are reported on Christmas Bird Counts. I sometimes see them in the winter on the backs of livestock. A cowbird feeding on the ground might show a raised tail.

"When I was a boy, I had an ant farm. What kind of ants worked on that farm?"

They were likely harvester ants. I find ants fascinating. Ohio State researchers discovered the American field ant can withstand pressures up to 5,000 times greater than its own body weight. The black garden ant queen, found throughout Europe and in certain parts of Asia and North America, can live 15 years, with claims of up to 30 years. Despite their name, no ants are found in Antarctica.

"I'm thinking of getting my wife a bug zapper for Christmas. Do they work?"

Yes and no, you romantic devil. The Rutgers Center for Vector Biology found bug zappers kill a lot of insects, but kill few mosquitoes. The continued popularity of the zappers is probably due to the sound effects, which assure owners that their investment is working.

Most of the popping sounds are moths lured into the trap while attempting to navigate by the moon. Bug zappers aren't the only useless thing foisted upon folks attempting to avoid mosquito bites.

Scientific studies have repeatedly shown that electronic mosquito repellers do little in the way of reducing mosquito annoyance.

Citrosa plants are another way someone takes advantage of consumers. Mosquitoes are able to alight upon the leaves of these plants. Mosquitoes produce that annoying buzz by beating their wings 300 to 600 times per second. They don't live long, but they make up for it by volume and irritation.

"Do you have suggestions for Christmas gifts for my birdbrained brother?"

Here is a long, but far from exhaustive list for birdbrains everywhere: Binoculars, calendar, backpack, warm socks, trail camera, bird feeder, membership to a nature organization, book or field guide, state park sticker, camp chair, fanny pack, gloves or mittens, and subscription to Bird Watcher's Digest or Audubon magazine.

Thanks for stopping by

"There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child." — Erma Bombeck

"God gave us our memories so that we might have roses in December." — J. M. Barrie

Meeting adjourned

"Happiness is the new rich. Inner peace is the new success. Health is the new wealth. Kindness is the new cool." — Syed Balkhi

Do good.

The day may darken too soon, but its beauty lingers. Haines, Alaska.