Naturally
It was above 30° in January, skunks and raccoons were moving around in the warm weather.
I look at the natural world with wonder and wonder what I’m looking at. I counted goldfinches and house finches at the feeders. I hoped for redpolls, siskins and purple finches. Birding is a game of finches.
I saw a few flocks of snow buntings on roadsides. Snow buntings have an overall white appearance. Dark-eyed juncos often migrate to the same area every winter and stay within 10 to 12 acres. There is a social hierarchy to the winter flocks. Males are dominant over females and adults are dominant over the younger birds. Males tend to winter farther north than females.
A Kentucky cogitation
I recall gathering around the radio. I gathered, because there was always something crawling on me. I twisted the dial until I heard the legendary Cawood Ledford call the Kentucky Wildcats basketball game over the crackling of an AM radio prone to chronic static. Ledford began by saying, “Hello, everybody, this is Cawood Ledford.” He likely originated the now commonplace description that goes something like this: “The Wildcats will be moving left to right on your radio dial.” The radio was a magical thing filled with information and imagination. It caused me to want to visit the Bluegrass State.
It was a Chamber of Commerce day. I worked at Kenlake State Resort Park in western Kentucky near the Land Between the Lakes, a 170,000-acre nature paradise. Kentucky Lake, found there, has the longest shoreline of any manmade lake in the eastern U.S. I enjoyed seeing the elk and bison prairie. Kentucky has the highest elk population of any state east of the Mississippi River with 11,000 animals.
Cawood Ledford had shuffled off this mortal coil. It’d be difficult to see him. I thought about that as I walked a trail. I had something else I wanted to see—birds. I saw just enough. They were moving left to right on my radio dial. Dreams do come true. Kentucky was a great place to see a Kentucky warbler.
Q&A
“When is the breeding season for coyotes?” The mating season begins in January and lasts through February. After breeding, females search for dens, either digging one in loose soil or enlarging the den of another animal. Five to seven pups are born in April. When they're eight to 12 weeks old, the female teaches them to hunt. From fall to mid-winter, the pups leave the den and search for territories.
“Why do some people call cicadas ‘locusts’?” Some people associated the emergence of cicadas with the Biblical plague of locusts. While cicadas might be colloquially called locusts, they're a different species. Locusts are a type of short-horned grasshopper and belong to the order Orthoptera along with other grasshoppers and crickets, while cicadas are Hemipterans, which are true bugs and related to aphids and leafhoppers. Locusts swarm in large groups and are more damaging than cicadas, eating substantial amounts of vegetation. Cicadas don't destroy crops and feed on juices from trees. In 1970, the buzz saw-like calls inspired Bob Dylan to write the song “Day of the Locusts.” Dylan heard the cicadas while receiving an honorary degree from Princeton University. The cicadas inspired these lyrics: “As I stepped to the stage to pick up my degree and the locusts sang off in the distance. Yeah, the locusts sang such a sweet melody. Oh, the locusts sang off in the distance. Yeah, the locusts sang and they were singing for me.”
A group of cicadas carries a reminder of its incorrect moniker as it’s called a plague or a cloud.
“I watched my chickens preen. Why do they need to waterproof their feathers?” Preening is a bird's way of grooming its feathers to keep them in good condition. Preening removes dust, dirt and parasites from their feathers and aligns each feather in the optimum position relative to adjacent feathers and body shape. This alignment optimizes insulation, creates a more attractive mate, makes for more efficient flight and reduces friction and wear. The oil produced by the uropygial or preen gland found near the base of the tail helps with friction reduction. This gland produces an oily, waxy substance that adds waterproofing to feathers and keeps them flexible and strong. This helps the feathers withstand the stress of flight. Birds spread this oil to their feathers. Preen oil is a major source of avian body odor. Emus apparently don’t have a preen gland. They look as if that is ticking them off, but I can’t say for sure.
Thanks for stopping by
“Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads.”—Marianne Moore.
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”—F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Do good.
©️Al Batt 2023
A house finch takes a nap during a blizzard. Perhaps it dreams of warm days and green things. Photo by Al Batt.