The great horned owl has been called the tiger of the sky, the tiger of the night, the tiger with wings, the tiger of the night sky, the winged tiger, the tiger of the air, the tiger of the woods and the tiger owl, but never Tiger Woods.
Naturally
The sun brought a wind with it, causing the shadows of grasses to dance on the unblemished new snow.
Blue jays and cardinals are the flowers of our winter gardens. I watched a blue jay, obviously at the top of the jay pecking order, take its time shelling peanuts at the feeder as four other jays waited in a shrub nearby. The jay was like the guy ahead of you in line at a busy convenience store who takes his time scratching off the lottery tickets he’d purchased before getting out of a long line.
A caller referred to nuthatches as “nuthatchers.” She knew they were white-breasted nuthatches, but “nuthatchers” was her term of endearment.
The yard’s feeders become incredibly busy with the snow and cold weather, bustling right before snarling weather hits as birds are nature’s barometer. They need more calories in bad weather and attack the feeders as if the food holders were offering a Black Friday sale. The extended nice fall weather had made them more likely to travel and go out to eat at natural places.
Q&A
“Do crows migrate?” Some stay where they are and tackle the winter. Others move to warmer areas, returning when the cold had faded. Researchers at Hamilton College studied crows in New York and California, finding crows migrate to escape burdensome weather or to breed—with 73% of western crows and 86% of eastern crows migrating. American crows are considered partially migratory—some populations migrate, some populations don’t, and in other groups some individual crows migrate. Crows in the southern parts of their range aren’t likely to migrate but may adjust foraging and roosting territories. Crows migrate out of the northernmost parts of their range. Migratory and resident crows both move to urban heat islands during the winter.
Duane Swenson of Waseca noticed something had chewed on the plastic of his farm tractor’s lights and wondered who might be the culprit. Mice and rats can cause problems by chewing wires, but this sounds like squirrels. They chew on plastic, hard rubber and metal wires to slow the rate of their tooth growth.
“I watched a bird wiping its bill on a branch. Why is it doing that?” It’s because it has no napkins or sleeves. Feaking is a word used by falconers. It describes the act of a raptor wiping its bill on an object to clean it after eating. Bill-wiping is a behavior I witness in my yard after birds have been feeding on suet. A bird’s bill is made of keratin, the same stuff as our fingernails. There is observational evidence that some species wipe their bills to maintain the shape of their bills (beaks). Birds have oil glands for preening their feathers. This oil contains chemicals that may send scent signals to potential mates. A male might wipe oil onto branches with his bill to drum up female interest.
“How big a territory does a great horned owl have?” This owl doesn’t build its own nest, commandeering the nests of hawks, crows, ospreys, squirrels and bald eagles. They do no maintenance on the nest because they cannot watch instructional videos on YouTube. Because of that, they use most nests for only one year to prevent eggs or young from falling through the holes in a dilapidated nest. They will nest in hollows and on broken snags or manmade structures. Great horned owls vigorously defend their nesting territory from other owls and hawks. The nesting territories can range in size from one-third to 2 square miles.
“Why are they called cranberries?” Early German and Dutch settlers called them "crane berries” because their pink blossoms resembled the head and bill of a crane. Wet harvesting of cranberries is done by taking advantage of the buoyancy of the berries by flooding the bog with water. The floating cranberries are collected from the water’s surface by the collectors of cranberries. The berries are tart, but a fellow told me he enjoys eating them raw after dipping them into caramel.
“I’ve heard Minnesota has too many mosquitoes. How many is that?” One.
Christmas gift suggestions for nature nuts
Minnesota state park sticker/pass/permit, which allows unlimited visits to the 75 state parks and recreation areas in Minnesota. It’s $35 for a year and is available at any Minnesota state park.
Books, warm mittens, bird feeders and bird feed.
Thanks for stopping by
“I suppose it all started with the snow. You see, it was a very special kind of snow. A snow that made the happy happier, and the giddy even giddier. A snow that'd make a homecoming homier, and natural enemies, friends, natural.”—narrator from “Frosty the Snowman.”
“Remember, this December, that love weighs more than gold.”—Josephine Dodge Daskam Bacon.
Do good, watch out for jaywalking deer and have a Merry Christmas.
©Al Batt 2021
Minnesota State defeated Southwest Minnesota State 96-74. The Mavericks were led by Destinee Bursch with 20 points, Joey Batt (with basketball in photo) added 18 (4 steals and 3 assists), Maddy Olson 17 and Emily Russo 17. The Mavs record improved to 11-0.
A December tornado in Minnesota made a withdrawal from the local bank. The original portion of this bank building was constructed in 1912.
A December tornado in Minnesota made a withdrawal from the local bank. The original portion of this bank building was constructed in 1912.
This building was Hartland Hardware during my salad years. I called it Einar’s Hardware because Einar was the owner. My brother owned the business years later. No one dreamed a tornado would ever tear down Christmas decorations in Minnesota as it did on Dec. 15.
This building was Hartland Hardware during my salad years. I called it Einar’s Hardware because Einar was the owner. My brother owned the business years later. No one dreamed a tornado would ever tear down Christmas decorations in Minnesota as it did on Dec. 15.
A motor home that will not be joining the snowbird migration south. It was struck down by Hartland, Minnesota’s December tornado.
A motor home that will not be joining the snowbird migration south. It was struck down by Hartland, Minnesota’s December tornado.
The back of the Hartland Post Office. Thanks to an inconsiderate tornado, the nearest post office is now 7 miles away.
I took a photo of a lovely Northern Cardinal female, unaware it had been photobombed by a mischievous House Sparrow.
Einar’s Hardware had everything I’d be getting
The weather was up to something. It always is.
My parents took me to town where Santa Claus (who resembled a neighbor named Merle Wakefield) set up shop at the Hartland fire hall. I’m not sure where he parked the reindeer. I was part of a group of humble, snot-nosed (we were snot walruses) children who needed to be prodded to ask Santa for things we weren’t sure we deserved. I asked Merle, who claimed to be Santa even after he responded when I’d said “Hi, Merle,” for what I wanted for Christmas, making sure it was available at Einar’s. Santa’s helpers gave every kid a brown paper bag filled with ancient peanuts, a mushy red apple whose skin (thicker than that of presidents) lodged between our teeth, and cavity-inducing candy so hard the city used it to fill potholes.
Money can’t buy everything. You need credit cards to do that and Dad didn’t use a credit card. When it came to my father’s shopping habits, there were things money could buy as long as they were at Einar’s Hardware. If Einar didn’t have it, I wasn’t getting it from my father for Christmas. Work gloves were a regular gift. They were both handy and hints. There was little difference between my father’s subtle hints and a freight train.
My mother told me nuts don’t fall far from the tree. It’s true, I live a mile from where I was hatched. My father had a strong sense of place and never considered home to be a place he needed to get away from and go somewhere else, but I couldn’t wait to get away after high school graduation and once away, I couldn’t wait to come back home.
The December weather had been sublime with temps into the 60s. It made people uneasy. I heard people say, “It’s too nice.” I don’t think Minnesotans are fatalistic, but it worries many when the weather does nice things in December. It was a righteous concern.
The weather changed. On December 15, 2021, a tornado tore down Christmas decorations in Hartland. With apologies to every wonderful English teacher I’ve had, that ain’t right. The December tornado was an unprecedented event in the state’s weather history. There were winds up to 115 mph from an EF2 tornado. The tornado touched down a mile southwest of the city and tracked northeast, on the ground for 2.17 miles.
It was as J.R.R. Tolkien wrote, “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door.”
The weather suggested Rossini’s William Tell Overture, a piece of music I listened to for years while shaving before giving up the habit in fear of decapitating myself in orchestral zeal. Like the tornado, the music begins peacefully before chasing up a wind that encourages threatening weather and culminates in a raging storm. The galloping finale of the overture is readily recognizable as being the famed theme for the Lone Ranger. Many galloped into Hartland to help—firefighters, police, utility crews, various government entities, volunteers, media, charitable organizations—the list is endless. Their good work gave the legion of woe no chance to form. Everything was a big thing. There are those important chores not thought of by everyone—as an example, using a magnetic sweeper to clear metal road debris.
A 3000-gallon poly tank from Hartland rolled into the rural yard of my neighbors and parked itself near their home. It left a path just as the tornado had.
Minnesota is the land of unseasonable weather. The unseasonably warm weather took the snow away, the tornado took away parts of Hartland. The bank, built in 1912, was severely damaged. The post office has temporarily closed. It had provided in-person interactions, the best kind of social media. Many customers must travel 7 miles to the New Richland post office to pick up mail and packages. Homes, businesses and vehicles were wounded. Hartland is my hometown and my home. I hurt when it hurts.
If my father still walked this earth, he’d have a tough time doing his Christmas shopping. The Einar’s Hardware building, years after it had ceased being Einar’s Hardware, was damaged.
The tornado left the scene. There were no injuries, which was a wonderful Christmas gift.
©️Al Batt 2021
The good kind of Christmas blues.
New Ulm native Joey Batt leads by example for No. 21 Minnesota State
https://www.keyc.com/2021/12/25/new-ulm-native-joey-batt-leads-by-example-no-21-minnesota-state/