Naturally
I helped some birders from Utah find Waldo amid a slew of warblers at a state park. The beauty of the warblers (mostly American redstarts), orchard orioles, indigo buntings and Swainson’s thrushes enthralled us. I didn’t have enough eyes to go around.
I’d gotten photos from a column customer in St. Paul. They were of a yellow-eyed hawk peering through a window into a break room located on the 9th floor of an office building. It was a red-tailed hawk, a raptor that in its first year has pale yellowish eyes and as an adult has dark brown eyes. The color change from yellow to brown happens over several years and more quickly in some birds than in others.
A grackle enjoyed the peanuts in the shell I put out for the blue jays and red-bellied woodpeckers. He grabbed one, flew to the ground and pecked the shell open to find the prize inside. How did the grackle repay me? It did a drive-by dropping of droppings that hit the tip of my sandal, missing my toe by the width of a pencil stroke. That’s what happens when you put your best foot forward. Then the bird went off to chase a squirrel.
Q&A
“Do cats kill rats?” They could, but most cats avoid doing so. Cats and rats are more likely to ignore or avoid each other than engage in conflict. Given the choice between attacking a large rat, a bird or a mouse, cats tend to opt for the latter two.
“Are bees unable to see red?” Bees see a range of colors, but not red. While we see colors as combinations of blue, green and red, bees see combinations of blue, green and ultraviolet.
“How do I make hummingbird nectar?” Use a 1:4 ratio of refined white sugar to water. You need water just hot enough to dissolve the table sugar you're mixing in. Don’t use organic, natural or raw sugars. Avoid honey and red dye.
“How did the dragonfly get its name?” In “Folklore of the Dragonfly: A Linguistic Approach” it’s theorized the name dragonfly came about because of an ancient Romanian folktale in which the devil turned a horse ridden by St. George into a giant, flying insect. The Romanian names the people used for this giant insect translated into St. George’s horse, devil’s horse or devil’s fly. The Romanian word for devil was “drac,” also the word for dragon. The book suggests the Romanian name for the devil’s fly evolved into the English “dragonfly.” Swedish folklore holds the devil uses dragonflies to weigh people’s souls.
“Do ladybugs sleep?” Yes, mostly at night, but they don’t close their eyes and fall asleep as we do. They enter a resting period, during which they remain still and unresponsive for hours in tree bark, logs, bushes, cracks in trees, leaves, dense vegetation and ground cover.
“Are owls able to turn their heads all the way around?” As I walked a trail recently, I heard a barred owl call its distinctive "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you-all?” Owls can rotate their heads 270 degrees in either direction without damaging blood vessels or cutting off blood flow to the brain. The owl has bone and vascular structures running along its neck and into its skull that keep the blood flowing even when the head is swiveled up to 270 degrees. If an owl were human size, the eyes would be the size of grapefruits. Owl eyes face forward and are immovable, providing great binocular vision. Owls compensate for immovable eyes by the ability to rotate their heads. Owls have excellent vision both in daylight and at night.
“Are spiders insects?” They are arachnids as are harvestmen, mites, ticks and scorpions. All arachnids have eight legs, and unlike insects, they don't have antennae.
“Why do bucks shed their antlers?” The prime reason bucks have antlers is to fight with other bucks for dominance. Once the deer breeding season is over, they don’t need them. The antlers become excess weight. When testosterone levels drop, so do antlers.
“How many quills does a porcupine have?” Around 30,000.
Daniel and Kim Otten of Hayward saw a raptor take an adult wood duck and wondered about its identity. It was a peregrine falcon. Other predators of adult wood ducks are the raccoon, fox, great horned owl, barred owl and goshawk. On the subject of peregrine falcons, a Peregrine Falcon nest cam at the Mayo Building in Rochester can be seen at https://www.earthcam.com/usa/minnesota/rochester/falcon/?cam=falcon_mn Another riveting nest cam is the Decorah North Bald Eagle Cam found at
https://youtu.be/VlNV1L9qnrk
Thanks for stopping by
“Spring: the music of open windows.”—Terri Guillemets
“The day the Lord created hope was probably the same day he created Spring.”—Bernard Williams
Do good.
©Al Batt 2021
Red fox kits/pups/cubs are cuter than a bug’s ear. Photo by Al Batt