It’s always time to listen to the birds

Naturally
Roadkill goes unmourned in the crisp, autumn air, unlike someone’s dented car.
The warblers have left. The tiny birds live lives of perpetual spring and summer. Birds of passage and winter residents arrive more subtly than those in the spring.
Juncos, with pink bills and white outer tail feathers, are apt to feed on the ground. The earliest arrivals tend to rank higher in the pecking order than those arriving on later flights.
I strolled along the Mississippi River at Winona. Parts of 31 states plus two Canadian provinces drain into the Mississippi River. I walked in awe.
I’m cuckoo for this timepiece
My father-in-law, Gene Nelson, gave me a bird clock in 1997. It’s a field guide, featuring images of birds and authentic recordings from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. A different songbird gives voice to the top of each hour. The bird singing at noon is a house finch, an American robin sings at 1, northern mockingbird at 2, blue jay at 3, house wren at 4, tufted titmouse at 5, Baltimore oriole at 6, mourning dove at 7, black-capped chickadee at 8, northern cardinal at 9, a white-throated sparrow whistles at 10 and a white-breasted nuthatch heralds 11 o’clock. Darkness deactivates the sounds, allowing ears to sleep. I know when I hear the house finch, it’s either time to eat or to go to bed. When I hear the Baltimore oriole, it’s time to eat or to think about getting out of bed. When I hear the chickadee, it’s time to smile. The clock was a change from the cuckoo clocks I’d heard here and there in my youth. We weren’t fancy people, but an aunt gave us a used discount cuckoo clock that took a few hours off each day to rest up so it could utter a sound as if it were choking on a peanut butter on Wonder Bread sandwich. I’d miss the sounds of those birds if the clock my father-in-law gave me wasn’t hanging on a wall of my home. I miss my late father-in-law. It helps to listen to his birds.
Q&A
Mary Guggisberg of Freeborn asked where the nesting trumpeter swans near her spend the winter. Most Minnesota swans remain here through the winter months. They are short-distance migrants to sites where there is open water and an abundant food supply. Some, fueled by wanderlust, have been documented wintering as far south as Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas.
“Do hummingbirds migrate by riding on the backs of Canada geese?” No, it’s a myth. Other persistent myths include: Parent birds abandon a nestling touched by humans. Purple martins regularly eat 2,000 mosquitoes a day. An owl can spin its head completely around. The fruit of an Osage orange tree repels spiders. I’ve visited Osage orange trees in my travels and have seen spiders on the fruits (called Osage oranges, hedge apple, monkey ball, horse apple, hedge ball, mock orange or spider ball). I detected no panic in any of the arachnids. I suspect this misbelief began because spiders are in natural decline at the time of the year when the softball-sized hedge apples fall to the ground in September and October. Be careful around the fruit as its juice could irritate the skin. I have a pen made from hedge apple wood. It makes a great pen, but it doesn’t repel spiders either. The Osage orange tree, also known as bow-wood, bodark, prairie hedge, yellow-wood, naranjo chino, boduck and bois d’arc, is a durable hardwood used for many things including fence posts, archery bows, cutting boards and musical instruments. It was once used for railroad ties, wagon wheels and natural fencing.
“What are crows eating in the harvested fields?” What aren’t the opportunistic omnivores eating? They eat insects, spiders, snails, worms, frogs, snakes, carrion, garbage, seeds, grain, berries and fruit.
Jodi Bolinger of Osage saw bald eagles in a farm field near what looked like a pile of gravel and wondered what they were doing there. Lime (limestone) put on fields lowers the acidity of the soil and the eagles are likely feasting on a carcass—deer, opossum, etc. Birds of prey don’t need grit for the digestion of their food, but some falcons ingest and later regurgitate small stones for unknown or speculative reasons.
Thanks for stopping by
“That soft, autumnal time. The year’s last, loveliest smile. Thou com’st to fill with hope the human heart, and strengthen it to bear the storms awhile, till winter’s frowns depart.”—John Howard Bryant, often credited incorrectly to his brother William Cullen Bryant.
“Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect.”—Jonathan Swift.
Do good.

©Al Batt 2021