Naturally

There was a soft wind as I looked out a window and paid attention.

Birds are a way to experience joy and wonder. They are adorable and outdoorable. I watched a brown creeper fly from the base of one tree to the next, foraging upward each time. A nuthatch moves up, down and sideways on a tree. A fox with a plush nose warmer (tail) ran past. Ironwood and red oak demonstrated marcescence, meaning having withered, persistent leaves. Ironwood makes great tool handles and posts.

There were four chickadees on one platform feeder on Thanksgiving. There are few things more cheering than a chickadee, but I seldom see four of the hyper-vigilant birds on a single feeder. Starling and house sparrows were present in good numbers. Some people consider them the lima beans of birds. Dark-eyed juncos were here and there. They're called snowbirds. John James Audubon wrote, "So gentle and tame does it become on the least approach of hard weather, that it forms, as it were, a companion to every child. Indeed, there is not an individual in the Union who does not know the little Snow-bird, which, in America, is cherished as the Robin is in Europe." A vinaceous (of the color of red wine) purple finch male joined the day and an opinionated blue jay piped up.

I used to wish for a snow day, now I wish for a snowy owl

Thanks to the International Owl Center in Houston, Minn., I listened to Roar Solheim, the Senior Curator of Zoology at the Natural History Museum at Agder University in Norway. Solheim has been studying owls for over 50 years after a pygmy owl inspired his interest. He spoke of snowy owls. Solheim said snowy owls don't mate for life, and it's difficult to tell the sexes apart. The male becomes paler with age. The owls typically weigh about 4 pounds and are agile enough to catch birds in the air. Solheim told of one catching a pigeon in flight. They prey primarily upon mammals like lemmings and voles but take waterfowl, ptarmigan and other prey. Solheim called snowy owls critically endangered with only 14,000 breeding pairs in the world. A clutch is generally six to eight eggs, with the possibility of an owl living 20-25 years.

The Feather Thief

I read an interesting book titled, "The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century" by Kirk Wallace Johnson who stumbled upon a story about a feather underground that refused to adhere to the law. Johnson investigated an unlikely ornithological crime caper, the theft of 299 rare bird skins from a British Natural History Museum in Tring, which has a collection of over 750,000 bird skins. Johnson dove into a culture of rare and exotic bird trafficking, and the insular world of fly-tying enthusiasts. There is a certain community of flytiers with an unquenchable thirst for feathers from the Indian crow, king bird-of-paradise, blue chatterer (cotinga), the resplendent quetzal, bowerbird and others to be used to recreate outlandish Victorian salmon flies, some of which used the feathers from 15 species. They collect rare and valuable bird feathers and pay exorbitant prices for the most exotic ones to use in the art of making intricate fishing lures. Edwin Rist, an accomplished student musician (a flutist) and avid flytier, stole the rare bird skins worth $1 million. He wasn't a fisherman. Johnson said salmon couldn't care less about the absurd architecture of the flies. One bird skin, not necessarily stolen from the Tring, sold for $6000 on the black market.

Johnson touched on another abuse of feathers. At one time, 200 million birds were killed each year for the millinery trade. It took as many as 1000 snowy egrets to yield a kilo (approximately 2.2 pounds) of feathers. In 1886, an ounce of snowy egret mating plumes fetched $32. Gold was under $20 an ounce. Conservation groups railed against this abuse, and the feather trade and its lobbyists ran a campaign filled with animosity and half-truths while denigrating their opponents. It led to a ban on such use of feathers and it was determined that wildlife should be preserved in their natural state.

Q&A

"I saw a hawk with feathered legs. What kind was it?" It was a rough-legged hawk. "Rough-legged" refers to those feathered legs. It, the ferruginous hawk and the golden eagle are the only American raptors to have legs feathered to the toes.

Thanks for stopping by

"Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That's why it's a comfort to go hand in hand." — Emily Kimbrough

"Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather." ― John Ruskin

Do good.

©Al Batt 2020

The Steller’s jay has one of the most often misspelled bird names. Despite that, it remains stellar. Photo by Al Batt taken in Alaska