Christmas Naturally

 I remember being a Christmas tree wrangler. The tree had been hog-tied and brought home on the roof of our Pontiac. My job was to carry the conifer into the house and place it into a red tree stand with green legs. I tightened screw bolts to hold the tree’s trunk firmly in place. The stand also acted as a watering bowl to prevent excessive needle drop. “Excessive” meant it dropped every single needle. It looked like a rescue tree, but when it was tinseled and precious ornaments from the Ben Franklin store put in place, it’d be a beauty.
 I stepped back to admire my work, something done often by those who do little work worth admiring. It was then that I saw it. A red feather, tinged with gray, stood at attention as if someone had purposely placed it there. It was from a cardinal. We didn’t have a cardinal on the farm. We bought the tree from a tree lot, but I didn’t know where the tree had originated.
 The feather was a choir of angels singing without the choir of angels or the singing, but it was close.
 I can’t give all the credit to a single feather of a handsome redbird, but I can’t deny its complicity in making it a most memorable Christmas. I wish you simple pleasures. Merry Christmas.

Wabi-sabi pheasants and deer

 Wabi-sabi is a Japanese concept that directs us to search for beauty in imperfection and accept the more natural cycle of life. Welcome to wabi-sabi winter weather.
 Rarely does a pheasant die of old age. Its average life expectancy is less than 1 year as a result of being a prey species. Pheasants Forever offered these figures: Survival Rate—Mild winter, good habitat: 95% survive. 
Survival Rate—Severe winter, good habitat: 50%.
Survival Rate—Mild winter, poor habitat: 80%.
Survival Rate—Severe winter, poor habitat: 20%.
 State Farm estimated there were over 1.8 million animal collision insurance claims in the U.S. between July 1, 2023, and June 30, 2024. These states have the highest risk of animal collisions: West Virginia (1 in 40 chance of a driver hitting an animal in a year), Montana (1 in 54), Michigan (1 in 59), Pennsylvania (1 in 61), Wisconsin (1 in 63), Mississippi (1 in 65), Iowa (1 in 68), South Dakota (1 in 69), Virginia (1 in 73), and Rhode Island (1 in 75). Minnesota is 11th with 1 in 79 odds. The animals most often involved in animal collisions are deer, followed by unidentified animals (maybe Sasquatch). Most deer-vehicle accidents happen at dawn and dusk, between 5 and 8 in the morning and in the evening. The most dangerous months for animal collisions are, in order, November, October and December.

Q&A

 Ken Nelson of Clarks Grove asked when deer came to Minnesota. The white-tailed deer's original range was limited to the hardwood forests and prairies of southern Minnesota. In pre-settlement times, white-tailed deer were present throughout the wooded river valleys and woodlands of central and southern Minnesota, and most abundant in the hardwood forests (maple, basswood, oak). The cutting of the hardwood forests, the development of agriculture and year-round hunting following the rapid settlement of southern Minnesota were primarily responsible for the decline in deer populations. By 1880, deer had become rare in their original range. The state’s attempts to regulate hunting failed, leading to a ban on hunting in southern Minnesota in 1923. The conifer forests of the north were a haven for moose and caribou and unfavorable to white-tailed deer because the lack of undergrowth in there meant little food and cover for deer. When tree cutting flourished in northern Minnesota, so did deer. By 1950, deer inhabited all 87 counties.
 “When do owls nest in Minnesota?” Here are the nesting times of the three most common owls in the state. The great horned owl is Minnesota's earliest nesting bird, some laying eggs in January. Barred owls and eastern screech owls begin nesting in March. Only two of our Gopher State owls have brown eyes: the barred owl and the uncommon barn owl. A great horned owl weighs 3-5 pounds and has eyes about the same size as ours. If that owl were the size of a human, its eyes would be the size of oranges. Enormous eyes help owls see in near darkness, and one of its ear holes is higher than the other, helping it identify the source of a sound.

Thanks for stopping by

 “The forest was shrinking but the trees kept voting for the axe for the axe was clever and convinced the trees that because his handle was made of wood he was one of them.”—Turkish proverb.
 Spider Grandmother’s Two Rules in Hopi mythology are: Don’t go around hurting each other. Try to understand things.
 Do good.

©️Al Batt 2024

This peregrine falcon has a second job as an education bird. It’s a teacher whose first job is being a peregrine falcon, which may reach speeds of 200 mph during a hunting stoop. The name derives from "falco peregrinus"—"pilgrim falcon" in Medieval Latin. Photo by Al Batt.