It’s hard to miss a great-tailed grackle with its lengthy tail and an even longer repertoire of sounds. Photo by Al Batt

Naturally

Red oaks show rich reds and browns. Red asparagus berries are evident. There was a red-breasted nuthatch in my yard on Oct. 12. Another milepost of a year. Skunk and raccoon carcasses litter the highways. Many are those of young animals unaware of the dangers found there.
I watched a kettle of turkey vultures surfing on the wind over New Ulm. They performed an aerial ballet. Earlier, I’d seen a HAZMAT team (called a wake) of vultures working on removing a dead raccoon from the road. It’s a job that pays them all they can eat.
I saw a belted kingfisher fishing at the edge of a lake. A kingfisher has a heavy bill that serves as a fishing spear. The species is sexually dimorphic—meaning the males and females look different—and the usual pattern is for males to be more colorful than females. The female belted kingfisher is bigger and more colorful than the male. This is called reverse sexual dimorphism. She displays an additional rust-colored patch across her belly. She has the belt. My wife says that means she wears the pants in the family. I’m not one to argue.
From the mailbag
Bob Hargis of Riverton, Wyoming, wrote about my hand-feeding a Canada jay. Bob said his father-in-law was holding his hand clutching a PBJ sandwich out a car’s window. A camp robber (Canada jay) grabbed onto the sandwich and held on even when the PBJ was brought into the car. His father-in-law became a reluctant birder by inquiring, "What is that bird?”
Q&A
Harvey Benson of Harmony asked why the birds had disappeared from his feeders. Cone, berry, seed and insect abundance change from season-to-season and year-to-year, causing birds to move about to take advantage of food and to escape areas with shortages. The dietary needs of birds change during the year, so they may move away from your feeders seasonally. Fewer birds at feeders during late summer and early fall occur as there is plenty of natural food available. Just like Arnold Schwarzenegger, they will be back.
“Are great-tailed grackles found in Minnesota?” Yes, but most of this rare (in Minnesota) species have been documented in southwestern Minnesota counties. Breeding has been confirmed in Jackson County, where the species has been found repeatedly over the years. The long-legged birds are extending their range northward. I see and hear them everywhere in Texas. They sound like everything from a squeaky door hinge to radio static to rusty machinery to laughing whistles. Food trucks in Austin attract them and an acquaintance calls them tacoraptors.
“Where do the vultures in Minnesota winter?” Turkey vultures are wonderfully adapted to the life of a scavenger. They winter in the southern U.S., Mexico, Central America and South America.
“Was Woody the Woodpecker based upon a pileated woodpecker?” As happens in cartoons, the creators used artistic license to develop Woody. For years, I thought he was based on a pileated, but some reports claim he was inspired by a noisy acorn woodpecker that disrupted his creator, animator Walter Lantz's honeymoon by persistently calling and drumming on the couple's cabin. I’ve heard the collective noun for acorn woodpeckers is a bushel. That might have been said in jest. One of the acorn woodpecker's commonly heard calls is a loud, repeated waka-waka, but a case could be made that Woody sounds more like a pileated woodpecker. Woody once said he was a “Campephilus principalis.” That’s an ivory-billed woodpecker. One episode showed a picture of an ivory-billed and it looked like Woody. It’s safe to say Woody is a generic woodpecker and not an exact representation of any one species. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has declared the ivory-billed woodpecker extinct. Woody is doing OK.
“What is digging up my lawn?” It may be the guys replacing your septic tank. Or raccoons and skunks tearing up the lawn night after night, pulling back chunks of turf in search of grubs to eat. Raccoons roll up a lawn while searching for grubs and other larval insects. Skunks make small individual holes when they search for insect larvae. Squirrels dig holes when they bury food during the day.
Thanks for stopping by
“A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and in all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably with the circumstances of life, knowing that in this world no one is all-knowing and therefore all of us need both love and charity.”—Eleanor Roosevelt.
“Just before the death of flowers, and before they are buried in snow, there comes a festival season, when nature is all aglow.”–Emeline B. Smith.
Do good.

©Al Batt 2021

The past summer’s Baltimore Oriole nest.

This goldenrod has lost its gold, but it remains a beauty.