Naturally
The first day of meteorological winter hit on December 1. December is the darkest month. The proverb says, "If December be changeable and mild, the whole winter will remain a child." Each day will continue to be a weather event.
Fox squirrels chased one another. They mate twice a year, typically from December to February and June through July.
I heard great horned owls softly hooting in the night as part of their courtship. The most common owl in Minnesota calls hoo-h’HOO-hoo-hoo before nesting begins in January or February.
I watched and listened to outraged birds. Chickadees, nuthatches, jays and a downy woodpecker flushed a Cooper's hawk from a tree. Four uncharacteristically quiet crows sat out the vocal mobbing, concentrating instead on chasing the flying raptor as it retreated from the yard. The gang of house sparrows perched in arborvitae stayed out of it. Life isn’t perfect but I saw birds. Sometimes that’s enough.
The Minnesota Ornithologists’ Union's Paper Session was virtual
Notes from "Climate Change and Forests" by Lee Frelich, Director, University of Minnesota Center for Forest Ecology. Drought, insect infestation, wind and fire will accompany climate change. There is more of a treed climate in southwest Minnesota now than at the time of European settlement when it was more favorable to the prairie.
High temperatures in March 2012 caused magnolias to bloom in Minnesota. (This writer remembers 81° on March 17 and 80° on March 18 in Rochester). If climate change isn't mitigated, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area will have the climate of Granite Falls by 2070 due to higher temperatures. Deer will replace moose, bobcats will replace lynx, and red-bellied woodpeckers will replace black-backed woodpeckers. Red-bellies are being seen in Ely now. Frelich said, "We have a perfectly good Kansas now. We don't need a second one in Minnesota."
Notes from "Eagles as Ambassadors" by Scott Mehus, Education Director at the National Eagle Center in Wabasha. Scott started the Wintering Golden Eagle Survey in 2005. On the third Saturday of January each year, volunteer citizen scientists drive over 40 counties (5,801 total miles this year) in the blufflands of Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota, straddling the Mississippi River from the Hastings-Stillwater area to Dubuque. They counted 119 golden eagles in 2020, 145 in 2019, 62 in 2018, and 44 in 2017. Golden eagles aren't found near water. Scott has found only one golden eagle within 30 feet of the Mississippi River. They feed on rabbits, squirrels and wild turkeys. They survey other birds, too. There were 1,403 bald eagles seen in 2020, 1,392 in 2019, 1,202 in 2018, 893 in 2017, and 1,515 in 2016. Red-tailed hawks: 461 in 2020, 583 in 2019, and 747 in 2018. Rough-legged hawks: 127 in 2020, 124 in 2019, and 131 in 2018. American kestrels: 89 in 2020, 64 in 2019, and 141 in 2018. There were 60 unidentified eagles and 19 red-headed woodpeckers seen in 2020. The golden eagles like goat prairies, which are dry, upland bluff prairies where thermal give lift to eagles saving them energy and haste altitude gain. The goat prairies, named because goats fed on them while cows grazed lower hillsides, also offer access to prey. Red cedar trees have invaded many of the goat prairies. Where do the golden eagles counted by Scott and the squad go? They breed in northern Canada. If you are interested in volunteering for the 2021 Wintering Golden Eagle Survey on Saturday, Jan. 16, email golden@nationaleaglecenter.org.
Q&A
"There was a rather nondescript bird in my yard this summer that wagged its tail when perched. Why did it do that?" It sounds like an eastern phoebe, a flycatcher that is dull in coloration and without bold markings. Gregory Avellis, a California scientist, studied black phoebes to determine if the tail pumping was related to balance, territorial aggression, foraging or predators. It was found the tail fidgeting was a message to predators, letting them know that they'd been spotted and eliminating the element of surprise. A playback of the calls of a Cooper's hawk, a raptor that preys on birds, caused a phoebe's tail-pumping rate to triple.
Thanks for stopping by
"It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so." — accredited to Mark Twain, Josh Billings, Artemus Ward, Kin Hubbard and Will Rogers
"I do not know terns anymore than I know myself. They keep leading me toward any number of questions to which I only receive tangential answers. Still, they have enlarged my sight, my aspirations, my grasp of the earth's great distances. What more do we need to know than that the truth lies not in us alone, but with every other form of life, no matter how insignificant it may seem." — John Hay
Do good.
©Al Batt 2020
The tufts of lengthened feathers on the head of this great horned owl are called plumicorns. Photo by Al Batt