Naturally

 The weather was civilized, but cold. It was giving me mixed signals. As I walked outside on that -15 degree morning (I knew right away it wasn’t July or August because I’m that sharp) and stepped onto the freshly fallen snow, I heard a “squeak” with every step I took, and it had nothing to do with my digestive tract. If I walk upon an accumulation of light, I hear the breaking of the snowflakes as a squeaking sound. When temperatures are warmer, there is more water mixed in with the snowflakes, which allows them to slide past each other instead of breaking. The temperature needs to be 14 degrees or colder to cause the squeak. Temperatures above that increase the water-to-snowflake ratio, making it quieter.
 A half dozen starlings, a mini-murmuration nearing its minimum, kept me company on my squeaky walk. A murmuration is a flock that keeps starlings warm, fed, protected, and able to survive without having cellphones. Starlings are handsome birds that aren’t welcomed by everyone, but then, who is? They can mimic other birds. On this day, puffed up against the cold, they appeared to be mimicking cold birds.
 Bill Knish of Waseca wrote, “I don't know if I am becoming more observant in my advancing years or what, but, in the last couple of days I have been seeing Eurasian tree sparrows at my feeders just outside of town.” You are a sharp-eyed fellow, Bill. I’m fortunate enough to have a couple of them hanging around with the house sparrows in my yard this winter. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology says that in 1870, a shipment of European birds from Germany was released in St. Louis, Missouri, in order to provide familiar bird species for newly settled European immigrants. The shipment included 12  Eurasian tree sparrows, and the chestnut-capped, white-cheeked sparrows prospered in the hedges and woodlots of the region, ultimately spreading throughout northeastern Missouri, west-central Illinois, and southeastern Iowa—and Hartland and Waseca, Minnesota. Cornell said nothing about Hartland and Waseca, but I’m sure they meant to. Unlike its relative, the house sparrow, it isn’t a bird of cities, preferring farms and lightly wooded residential areas. Birds make the world beautiful and both bigger and smaller at the same time.

Q&A

 Dan Paczkowski of Glenville had five trumpeter swan cygnets on a pond last summer, and then they all vanished, leaving their parents cygnetless. He wondered what could have happened to them. According to the Trumpeter Swan Society, on average, about 50% of cygnets don’t survive the first three months after hatching, due to predation by snapping turtles, bald eagles, coyotes, mink, great horned owls, dogs, humans and other predators. Another 25% of swans may perish before they are three years of age.
 “I was reading about the owl irruption. Have you ever seen a boreal owl?” I have and count myself fortunate to have seen the tiny owl. It’s the approximate weight of a mourning dove.
 “Do both fox squirrels and gray squirrels cache foods?” Both species are scatter-hoarders, meaning they hide food in many small caches scattered across a landscape. Fox squirrels are the largest tree squirrels that are native to North America and are calmer than the smaller grays, which are more squirrelly. The agility and skittishness of a gray squirrel have given it the nickname “cat squirrel,” which I’ve heard it called in the South. The University of California at Berkeley published a study in the journal Royal Society of Open Science that found tree squirrels use a mnemonic technique called "spatial chunking" to sort and bury nuts by size, type and perhaps nutritional value and taste. They can remember where to find what they are hungry for. It’s a meticulous preparation needed to survive a harsh winter. One squirrel can bury up to 3,000 to 10,000 nuts in a season and has a tremendous spatial memory and an excellent sense of smell that allows it to retrieve 26 to 95% of the nuts it had squirreled away, depending upon the study. Central Connecticut State University research reported that an eastern gray squirrel engages in deceptive caching by digging a hole and pretending to drop a nut it was holding in its mouth into the hole, covers up the empty hole, and runs off to another secret-stashing place. They do this to fool other squirrels who might be watching. I’ve seen squirrels perform these covert actions many times in the yard. Caches are moved by the owners and by thieves. An interesting aside is that squirrels listen to the sounds of birds like robins, jays and chickadees, and use them as alarms or all-clear signals.

Thanks for stopping by

 “Blessed are the curious, for they shall have adventures.”—Lovelle Drachman.
 “And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.”—John Muir.
 Do good.

©Al Batt 2025

The red-tailed hawk is the most common hawk in the U.S. The red-tailed hawk’s average weight is 2 to 4 pounds. I typically see a pair of these hawks perched close together around Valentine’s Day. They usually maintain pair bonds until the death of a partner, and both incubate the eggs. Photo by Al Batt