I know when I have an empty bird feeder because I subscribe to a fox squirrel alert that pops up on my windows. Photo by Al Batt.
Naturally
March is named for the Roman god of war, Mars. March brings the vernal equinox and daylight saving time. December 1 is the start of meteorological winter, which makes March 1 the start of meteorological spring, June 1 introduces summer and September 1brings fall. Blizzards were once common at the time of the March basketball tournaments. I hope March has gotten over that. No month has an exclusive on bad weather.
Some may think spring is just around the next snowstorm or snowdrift, but I’ve seen signs of spring. A flock of quiet male red-winged blackbirds landed in my yard on March 1 and continued their migration north. If you hear a lot of singing and defending of territories by male redwings, those are resident birds. My wife has been feeding her Peeps habit. She prefers the Peeps candy confections made of a soft marshmallow rolled in colored sugar in either yellow, pink, blue, lavender or green and shaped like baby chickens. I don’t eat them, but I’m fond of saying, “Oh, for Peeps’ sake.”
I tossed out scratch grain for the blackbirds. That joyful task brought two quotes to my mind. “If you can hear the birds singing, you’re in the right place,” by Benny Bellamacina and “I don’t feed the birds because they need me; I feed the birds because I need them,” by Kathi Hutton.
I watched a red-tailed hawk mantling prey. Mantling involves the hawk spreading its wings and covering its prey in an attempt to hide it from the eyes of other animals that may want to steal its catch. This hawk was giving a dirty look at several crows standing nearby as if they were jackals at a lion kill.
I spotted three bald eagles feeding on a road-killed deer and four crows feeding on another deer nearby. Those birds love venison and carrion makes for easy hunting.
Barfing blue jays
No, Barfing Blue Jays isn’t a band name. I shouldn’t say that. It might be. The late Lincoln Brower studied monarch butterflies for six decades. When he was a biology professor at Sweet Briar College in Virginia, he’d taken a photograph of a “barfing blue jay,” which had suffered a distasteful experience dining on a monarch. Why did it upchuck? Monarchs feed on milkweeds, plants that contain chemicals called cardiac glycosides that the insects absorb. While the toxins don’t harm the butterflies, they taste bitter and can cause vomiting in birds that chow on monarchs.
Q&A
“What are baby groundhogs called?” Young groundhogs are called kits, pups or sometimes, chucklings. I’m still chuckling about that last one.
“Why does a squirrel eat only the white tip of a kernel of corn and why does it hang upside down from my feeder?” I see them doing that acrobatic stunt at my feeders too. They hang by their back feet because that frees their front paws to hold food while the squirrels eat. Squirrels eat only the nutrient-dense heart or germ of a kernel of corn, casting aside the rest for other hungry creatures. The germ has a moderate concentration of lipids (oils and fat) and a variety of proteins that are used during seedling growth. The rest of the kernel is mostly starch, which the squirrel either doesn't need or want.
“What is a pussy willow?” The pussy willow (Salix discolor) is a native shrub that is one of the first plants to flower in the early spring, does so on bare stems and is a valuable source of pollen for native bees. Pussy willows are usually found growing in damp to wet soil and have a distinctive type of flower that is fuzzy, with no fragrance or petals, and is called a catkin. The word catkin comes from the Dutch word for kitten (katteken), as they resemble a cat’s tail. The pussy willow is dioecious, meaning that the male and female flowers are on separate plants. Both male and female catkins produce nectar, while only the male catkins provide pollen.
“What were quills for writing made of?” A quill is the hollow stem of a bird’s feather that is used as a writing instrument. Goose feathers were the principal source of quills, but quill pens were also made from the feathers of swans, crows, eagles, owls, hawks and turkeys. The best feathers for making a quill are the first five flight feathers (primaries). Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, was a prolific writer who raised geese at Monticello to supply feathers for his quill pens.
Thanks for stopping by
“The grackles are here and that is quite clear. The morning is ringing, not with their singing, but with their talking, they’re piping and squawking.”—Clarence Hawkes.
“Keep a green tree in your heart and … perhaps a singing bird will come.”—Chinese Proverb.
Do good.
©️Al Batt 2023