Become a birder watcher



Naturally

  Cottonwood seed fluff wafts through the air starting in May and lasting through mid to late June. 

  I peered through the glass to see samaras. More commonly referred to as helicopters, whirlers, twisters, spinners or whirligigs—samaras are the winged seeds produced by maple trees. Maple trees produce these winged seeds, but red, silver and Norway maples produce the largest quantities. Silver maples drop theirs in late spring. Red maple in late spring or early summer and fall. Sugar maple samaras ripen from early summer into fall. Red maple samaras are red, in contrast to those of sugar maple, which are green in spring. Box elder samaras are 1 to 1-1/2-inch-long V-shaped pairs that are winged and similar to those of a sugar maple but smaller and ripen in late summer or early fall; often staying on trees all winter. Maples have a baseline number of seeds they produce each year. Most are eaten by squirrels, chipmunks and other animals. Every few years, maples produce a glut of seeds, which give the trees a better chance of producing viable seedlings and the seed eaters more than enough food. The theory is this overwhelms the animals that eat the seeds.

Snappers

  Snapping turtles are Minnesota’s largest turtle. They can weigh 65 pounds with upper shells (carapace) that measure 20 inches from front to back, but that size is rare. Most snapping turtles weigh 10 to 35 pounds and have shells ranging from 8 to 14 inches long. Male snapping turtles are bigger than females and their tails are proportionally longer. Snapping turtles are sexually mature when their shells are about 8 inches long and that takes 8-10 years. A clutch of 20-30 eggs is laid in May and June on sandy riverbanks, open fields, road embankments, trails, muskrat houses and lawns. Most nesting activity occurs in the early morning or late evening, especially on warm rainy days. Females use their hind legs to dig a 4-8-inch-deep nest. The white eggs have a tough, leathery shell and are shaped like ping-pong balls. Eggs take 55 to 125 days to hatch depending upon the weather, but most hatch in 60 days. Hatchlings have a shell length of about one inch. Many of the eggs are eaten by raccoons, skunks, coyotes, opossums or foxes in the first day or two. I’ve read that only 5% of eggs hatch and only 1% survive to a reproductive age. Female snapping turtles can live to be 50 years old. 

Frequent flyer miles

  Blackpoll warblers are long-distance athletes and hold the record for the longest over-water flight for a songbird. Each fall, these half-ounce warblers migrate 1,800 to 2,000 miles across open water without stopping. They sometimes fly more than 80 hours at a time until they reach their Amazon wintering grounds.

A painted bunting

  Ben Marti was riding his bike through Mankato’s Rasmussen Woods and on the Red Jacket Trail when he came upon people pointing or using binoculars and cameras. He stopped and was told that a rare bird was being seen—a painted bunting. The painted bunting is split into two geographically isolated populations. One breeds across a wide swath of the south-central United States and in Northern Mexico, with a range covering parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas, and parts of Mississippi, Kansas and Missouri. The much smaller eastern population occurs along a narrow strip of the Atlantic Coast, from Florida to North Carolina.

  Ben didn’t have to look long. The bunting landed on the trail. The strikingly colored male painted bunting has a blue head, red underparts and yellow-green back. This dazzling bird turns the heads of birders and nonbirders alike. 

  Did this make Ben a birder? Not yet. Maybe he’ll become a birder one day, but for now, he’s a birder watcher. He plans on stopping his pedaling whenever he sees a group of them. No telling what he might see.

Q&A

  “Am I seeing a swift or a swallow?” Swifts are gray-brown with bodies often referenced as “flying cigars.” Their narrow and curved wings move with quick, shallow wingbeats. Their tails are short and squared at the tip. Swifts can be confused with swallows. If you see flashes of blue or orange, that’s probably a swallow. If the bird has long, skinny wings that look like they’re fluttering, that’s a swift. If they have thick wings tapering near the ends, that’s a swallow. Swifts tend to hunt high above, over buildings or trees, while swallows are likely to swoop low.

Thanks for stopping by

  “Only if we understand, can we care. Only if we care, we will help. Only if we help, we shall be saved.”―Jane Goodall.

  “Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.”—Mother Teresa.

  Do good.

©️Al Batt 2023

The double-crested cormorant was a common and abundant breeding bird throughout much of Minnesota in the presettlement era but was nearly extirpated by the late 19th Century. Because their feathers are not waterproof, double-crested cormorants often spread their soaked wings to dry after a dive. This incomplete waterproofing helps reduce buoyancy, a valuable attribute for a diving bird. Their aquamarine eyes are arresting. Photo by Al Batt

Upsy daisy, you lovely oxeye daisy.

You can see that carpenter ants have been working here. They left a couple of Phillips screws as clues.

Monarch butterfly caterpillars. They grow up so fast.

Something tells me there’s something good about seeing a black squirrel that’s seeing me.

How does a baby cowbird know it’s a cowbird?

Naturally

 I saw so many deer, I expected to see one at the gas pumps. Karl Miller, Professor of Wildlife Ecology at the University of Georgia School of Forest Resources and a foremost authority on whitetail deer, says the U.S. deer population was estimated to be 25-30 million in Christopher Columbus' time. Hunting and habitat loss greatly reduced deer populations through the years. By 1900, their numbers had declined to 350,000. Since then, deer populations have surged to about 30-35 million as a result of the elimination of predators (like wolves), wildlife conservation efforts and controls on hunting.
 I heard a barred owl call. “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?” Harriet Tubman 
is known for her work on the Underground Railroad and as a scout, spy, guerrilla soldier and nurse for the Union Army during the Civil War. She was also a naturalist who used the call of an owl to alert refugees and freedom seekers to come out of hiding and continue their journey of escape from slavery. The call used was believed to have been that of the barred owl, sometimes called a hoot-owl. 
 Would you like to see hummingbirds? Go to West Texas to see them without going to West Texas. You’ll find busy feeders here https://www.allaboutbirds.org/cams/west-texas-hummingbirds/?

Q&A

 “Can birds see in total darkness?” Nocturnal birds such as owls have amazing night vision that allows them to hunt at night, but it’s believed that birds aren’t able to see in total darkness. Owls have forward-facing eyes, a feature they share with many predatory animals. Prey animals tend to have eyes on the sides of their heads, which gives them a wider field of view and a better chance of spotting predators. An owl’s enormous eyes help it take in enough light to see and make up as much as 5% of the bird’s total body weight. For comparison, our eyeballs are about 0.0003% of our total weight. Some owls can hunt by sound alone and can catch prey in a pitch-black environment.
 “Would a plastic owl keep squirrels away from my deck?” No, squirrels have a good sense of smell. It may look like an owl, but it smells like a discarded Lego.
 “What kind of duck is called a ‘butterball’?” It’s the bufflehead. The bufflehead name refers to the duck having a head like a buffalo, large and blocky. Other nicknames include little black-and-white duck, bumblebee duck, buffalo-headed duck, little dipper and spirit duck. The bufflehead is so cute, it could be the chickadee of ducks.
 Neil Opstad of Albert Lea asked where the Baltimore orioles go. Some nest in your neighborhood, but they breed from Louisiana through central Canada. They leave as early as July for wintering grounds in Florida, the Caribbean, Central America and South America’s northern tip.
 “Why do so many people hate wolves?” I think much of it is because of fairy tales like Little Red Riding Hood. 
 Roger Truax of Albert Lea wondered what the most common hawk is in Minnesota. Red-tailed hawks are here year-round, are the most commonly seen raptor in the Gopher State and are the most common hawks in North America. They’re the large highway hawks that find roads to be excellent hunting grounds.
 “How does a baby cowbird know it’s a cowbird and not its host species?” This bird is an obligate brood parasite. It lays its eggs in the nests of other species. Scientists discovered fledgling cowbirds leave their foster parents’ care at night to sleep away from them in open fields, where they learn the ways and songs of fellow cowbirds. Research found a cowbird’s brain is hard-wired to recognize a sound that triggers the start of its journey to cowbird identity. The researchers call this a chatter password, which is the sound female cowbirds make when visiting the nest areas of their young ones. This special password guides species-specific recognition.
 “Why do some birds hop and others walk?” In general, small birds that spend most of their time in trees, where they hop from branch-to-branch feeding, will also hop when on the ground. Birds that spend much of the time feeding on the ground or at ground level rather than in trees, tend to walk. There are exceptions and most birds are capable of doing both.
 “Do pigeons mate for life?” Generally, they do. Parents take turns incubating eggs and feeding the squabs a crop secretion called pigeon milk. 

Thanks for stopping by

 “If love is in the air, it must surely be a bird.”—Jesus Antonio Moo Yam.
 “We cannot protect something we do not love, we cannot love what we do not know, and we cannot know what we do not see. Or hear. Or sense.”—Richard Louv.

  Do good.

©️Al Batt 2023

The orchard oriole is smaller than the Baltimore oriole and less often encountered in yards or parks. The orchard oriole’s bubbly song is a sweet, musical warble, more delicate and less repetitive than a robin’s. This photo of a male orchard oriole by Al Batt.

How big is hope? It’s the size of a hummingbird.

Naturally

 Colorful spring birds are part of nature’s sneaky plan to get us to pay attention.
 If you're on a country road and see random lilac bushes, there was likely a house or farm there once. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew lilacs in their gardens. Margaret Millar wrote, “The smell of moist earth and lilacs hung in the air like wisps of the past and hints of the future.”
 How big is hope? It’s the size of a hummingbird. I hope to see one each of the days they should be here. A pine siskin joined the goldfinches at the Nyjer feeder in my yard. It was welcomed with open beaks. A concert performed by whistling rose-breasted grosbeaks thrilled me. Those birds are said to sound like a robin that has had singing lessons.
 A pair of red-headed woodpeckers continues to enjoy the complimentary breakfast provided by their humble servant each day. The scarlet tanagers landed and monarch butterflies fluttered by. A few warblers here and there—more there than here.
 Air rushing over the Wilson's snipe's outspread tail feathers created the haunting hu-hu-hu winnowing sound. They usually produce the sound when they dive.
 I heard “Look at me. Way up high. Over here. In a tree.” That’s a mnemonic for the red-eyed vireo. According to Guinness World Records, a red-eyed vireo holds the record for singing the most songs, with 22,197 sung in 10 hours.
 Lake Sagatagan is in the St. John’s Abbey Arboretum. The surface area is 176 acres with a maximum depth of 40-42 feet. Lake Sag is a natural kettle or pothole lake with no direct water inputs or outputs and is recharged by underground springs plus rain and snow from the surrounding land. The lake was originally called Lake Saint Louis after King Louis of Bavaria and changed to Sagatagan, an Ojibwe word meaning punk or fungus outgrowth on trees used for tinder. I walked the trails there and listened blissfully to sandhill cranes calling back and forth, and hearing wood thrush sing, “Frito-Lay.” Aldo Leopold described the songs of a crane as, “High horns, low horns, silence, and finally pandemonium of trumpets, rattles, croaks, and cries that almost shakes the bog with its nearness, but without yet disclosing whence it comes.” In Greek mythology, the alphabet was said to have been invented by the god Mercury while observing cranes. Thoreau described the sound of the wood thrush this way, “It lifts and exhilarates me. It is inspiring. It changes all hours to an eternal morning." I took the time to feed the mosquitoes. My blood will grow baby mosquitoes that might bite me someday.

Q&A

 “Who raises the most sunflowers?” North Dakota was the largest producer of sunflowers in the United States in 2022, followed by South Dakota and Minnesota. Russia and Ukraine are the two countries that grow the most sunflowers.
 “Is the mourning dove the ‘rain crow’?” The yellow-billed cuckoo is a rain crow, sometimes called a storm crow because of the bird's habit of calling on hot days, often presaging thunderstorms. Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary says rain crow is the black-billed or the yellow-billed cuckoo and the rain dove is a nickname for the mourning dove.
 “The stripes on the heads of white-throated sparrows vary in color. Why?” The striking stripes on the heads of white-throated sparrows are white or tan. Author Pete Dunne said, “White-throated Sparrows come in two plumages—stunning and shabby.” The two color forms are genetically determined. The males prefer females with white stripes and the females prefer tan-striped males. 
 “When do wild turkeys nest?” The breeding season is April and May. Hens lay 8-15 eggs and don’t incubate until they lay the last egg. It takes 28 days to hatch and the chicks leave the nest within a day. The young, called poults, can fly in three or four weeks, but stay with their mother up to four months. Renesting after losing eggs is normal.
 “Did ‘take a gander’ come from a gander?” The use of gander to mean look comes from the long, flexible neck of the goose (like a gooseneck lamp). A rubbernecking gander plays sentinel, craning his neck to examine any intruder. 

Thanks for stopping by

 “No man treats a motorcar as foolishly as he treats another human being. When the car will not go, he does not attribute its annoying behavior to sin; he does not say, ‘You are a wicked motorcar, and I shall not give you any more petrol until you go.’ He attempts to find out what is wrong and to set it right. An analogous way of treating human beings is, however, considered to be contrary to the truths of our holy religion.”—Bertrand Russell.
 “Those who pass through life without stopping to admire the beauty, organization, melody or habits of birds rob themselves of a very great share of the pleasures of existence.”–Jacob Giraud.
 Do good.

©️Al Batt 2023

“In all of  North America, only a handful of animal calls have the power to stir the human soul as profoundly as these crane calls.  The yodeling of loons on a northwoods lake, the bugling of elk across a misty meadow, the lugubrious howling of a wolf pack in a wilderness forest—these are sounds that bypass the ears to sink their teeth into a nerve deep within the listener, these and the ancient gurgling cries of cranes echoing over a dark river.”—“The Cry of the Sandhill Crane” by Steve Grooms. Photo by Al Batt.

How do seagulls find my tractor when I’m working in the field?

Naturally

 The alarm sounded. A rooster pheasant had crowed “cow-cat.”
 The Nyjer feeders were weighed down with a gazillion lemony goldfinches—maybe fewer. 
 I listened to a brown thrasher sing about his experiences. His song was a clear and melodious set of repeated phrases sung with gusto, with one mnemonic spoofing a phone conversation, “Hello! Hello! Yes, yes. Who is this? Who is this? I should say! I should say! How’s that? How’s that?” Al Sack of Harmony sent me a photo of a brown thrasher nest in a roll of old barbed wire.
 I attended a visitation for LaMoyne Heidemann of Albert Lea. His wife Marge told me the grosbeaks and orioles were back in their yard. She’d always alerted her husband when that happened and he hurried to the window where they looked at the birds together. How fortunate we are when we have someone willing to look in the same direction we are.
Reports of Baltimore orioles
 Rick Mammel of Albert Lea saw a couple of Baltimore orioles in his yard. He put orange halves and grape jelly in an oriole feeding station he’d constructed. He said it hadn’t taken two minutes before two orioles began feeding. 
 Maren Holst of Lake City had seen some orioles late in the day. At 10 minutes before midnight, she put out oranges for them. She’d forgotten to do that earlier and wanted to make sure the birds had breakfast.
 Denny Tostenson of Albert Lea had asked me to send him some Baltimore orioles. He called later to say he wanted some, not the whole flock. He wondered if he could afford to feed them all.

Q&A

 “Why do I see bald eagles and turkey vultures hanging around together?” They are both scavengers and soar on thermals. They could unknowingly help the other find food. An eagle might catch a fish or other prey item and not clean its plate, leaving tidbits for a vulture. Vulture talons aren’t meant for transporting food, so they carry it in their crops to regurgitate for their ravenous chicks. The vulture may look ominous when standing in a spread-winged stance called the horaltic pose. The stance likely serves multiple functions: drying the wings, warming the body and baking off bacteria.
 “Why do swans congregate in Monticello in the winter?” Up to 3,000 trumpeter swans gathered in the water of the Mississippi River kept open by warm water discharged from a power plant. In 1986, a swan showed up on the river outside Sheila and Jim Lawrence's front door. Sheila, "The Swan Lady," began feeding the swans. Every day, she did swan chores, feeding over 1,500 pounds of corn from plastic buckets. Geese and ducks found their way to that trough too. Sheila died of cancer in 2011. Her husband continued the meals until the artificial feeding program ended in 2020 as wildlife officials encourage the swans to feed naturally. Trumpeters were driven to near extinction from the widespread destruction and degradation of wetlands and hunting. By the 1880s, trumpeter swans were extirpated from Minnesota. By the 1930s, only 69 trumpeter swans remained in the lower 48 states. Thanks to the good work of many, there are now 30,000 trumpeter swans in Minnesota. A male swan is a cob, a female swan a pen and a baby a cygnet. They have a 7–8-foot wingspan and an all-white plumage—the much smaller snow goose has black wingtips. In the movie “Heartburn,” an account of Nora Ephron’s ill-fated marriage to Carl Bernstein (played by Jack Nicholson), the distressed protagonist (played by Meryl Streep) told her father of her husband’s infidelities. He advised, “You want monogamy? Marry a swan.” Trumpeter swan pairs stay together throughout the year and are assumed to mate for life, but some individuals do switch mates and some males that lost their mates don’t mate again.
 “How do seagulls find my tractor when I’m working in the field?” Although most people call them seagulls, that term is taxonomically wrong and misleading. Gulls are found nearly everywhere, especially where there is a landfill. The term gulls is better, but if you say “seagulls,” I’ll know what you mean. So, the gulls are flying high overhead. This means they can see a large area. A flock has many eyes to look for food. If they see other birds feeding, they check it out. If they see your tractor moving across a field, they have learned that it uncovers worms, insects and mice for eating. Curious, hungry and intelligent gulls find tractors worth following.

Thanks for stopping by

 “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”—Dalai Lama.
 "We learn from our gardens to deal with the most urgent questions of the time: How much is enough?"—Wendell Berry.
 Do good.

©️Al Batt 2023

Male red-bellied woodpeckers have red foreheads, caps and napes. Females have red napes and a touch of red at the base of their bills. This male sticks out its tongue nearly 2 inches past the end of its beak. The tip is barbed and the bird’s spit is sticky, making eating grape jelly a snap. Males have longer, tongues with wider tips than females, allowing a pair to forage in different places. Photo by Al Batt.

Nature by the yard



Nature by the yard

 It rained pitchforks and angleworms. “Rain, rain, go away. Come again another day.” This was one of those another days. We weather storms. Birds help. I become a sunflower seed dispensary as I fill the feeders. I rely on glass therapy and stare out the windows. As the violets and dandelions bloomed profusely, the flying flowers included rose-breasted grosbeaks, red-headed woodpecker, orchard orioles and Baltimore orioles. Palm warblers and house wrens foraged fetchingly. Yellow warblers provided the background music as they sang about their sweetness. A mnemonic for their song is, “Sweet sweet sweet I’m so sweet.” I felt properly birdified.
 The yard was blessed with white-throated sparrows, white-crowned sparrows and Harris’s sparrows today. The Lincoln’s sparrows were dwarfed by the Harris’s. 
 A Eurasian collared-dove male gave his distinctive koo-KOOOO-koo song to defend territories and attract mates. When excited or alarmed, they react with a loud hwaah, a call they also give just before alighting.
Naturally
 I regularly drive 2 1/2 miles on the country road that takes me everywhere before turning onto another rural road. In that 2 1/2 miles, I typically see five American kestrels perched on utility wires. The kestrel is North America’s smallest falcon, about the size of a blue jay. Two kestrels per mile. That’s decent falcon mileage. 

Q&A

 “If mockingbirds mimic other birds, how do they find a mate?” Northern mockingbirds have their own calls, and multiple other sounds they mimic, like car alarms and squeaky gates. A male may have several hundred phrases in his repertoire, with some in heavier rotation than others. A typical song is equally divided between mimicked phrases and mockingbird-specific vocalizations. The male sets up a territory and then advertises his availability. He does this by singing his extensive song list and showing off his flashy wings. Females recognize they’re listening to a male mockingbird because he repeats his calls two to six times before changing his tune. Brown thrasher males repeat their calls twice. I have a couple of questions I’d like answered. Do females prefer males that have a larger repertoire of mimicked phrases? How do young mockingbirds learn mimicked phrases—from adult mockingbirds or directly from the mimicked species? I don’t know.
 “How old are pelicans before they breed?” In late winter, an American white pelican grows an ornamental fibrous plate, called a nuptial tubercle, on the upper part of its bill. After the breeding season is completed, this knob falls off. Pelicans don’t grow the nuptial tubercles until they are three years of age and that is their breeding age. Colonies are mainly on isolated islands, often also occupied by gulls and cormorants. At 2 to 3 weeks old, chicks leave their nests and form into groups called creches.
 Jack May of Mankato asked for help identifying a bamboo-like plant growing here. Scouring rush horsetail is a native plant with rigid, rough, hollow, vertical-ridged, jointed-and-segmented, bamboo-like, dark green stems that can be popped apart. It’s a tough character and tolerates a great range of soil types. The unbranched stems are rough and durable (due to a high silica content), and were called “scouring rushes” because early pioneers used them to scrub pots and pans.
 “What are buffalo gnats?” Black flies bite people and many animals. They can drive one to madness. Only the females bite in their search for a meal of blood. Black flies are also called gnats, Turkey gnats, white socks or buffalo gnats. Thirty species of black flies occur in Minnesota. Repellents aren’t always effective but may provide some help. I’ve found vanilla works for me. Black flies are found around fast-flowing rivers and streams. Their larvae live in the water, anchored to rocks where they filter food from the current. They are most numerous in the Mississippi and Rum Rivers with smaller numbers occurring in the Minnesota and Crow Rivers. They are active from May to October.
 “How many times will a house sparrow nest each year?” They could have two or three broods. House sparrows sometimes build nests so close to one another that the neighboring nests share walls. They often reuse their nests.
 “What birds eat milo? Do house sparrows?” On Cornell Lab of Ornithology seed preference tests, the western ground-feeding Steller’s jays, curve-billed thrashers and Gambel’s quails enjoy eating milo. In another study, House sparrows did not eat milo (sorghum), but cowbirds did. I don’t see the house sparrows in my yard chowing down on milo, which resembles a BB.

Thanks for stopping by

 “We are stardust; we are golden, and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.”—Joni Mitchell.
 “Wherever life leads you, find the time to stop and take a good look around. Notice things. Enjoy the view. Your eyes are likely to land upon something breathtaking.”—Me.
 Do good.

©️Al Batt 2023

The white-throated sparrow is a dapper bird with a black-and-white-striped head, a bright white throat and yellow between the eye and the gray bill. There is a less boldly marked form that has tan stripes instead of white ones. This sparrow whistles a lovely tune that sounds like “Oh, sweet Canada, Canada” or “Old Sam Peabody, Peabody,” except when in Minnesota when it sings, “Old Sven Peterson, Peterson.” Photo by Al Batt.

A subtle double rainbow.

This pair is hanging out with Mallards. They are a bit larger than a wild Mallard and have some domestic fowl hybridizing thing going on. Lovely birds.

A White-throated Sparrow with a little extra white on its head.

Momma trying to get her ducklings in a row. Photo by Al Batt.

A red-at-both-ends feeder filled with sunflower seeds is a great disappointment to a hummingbird.

A summer tanager as a spring tanager



Naturally

 On an unseasonably seasonable day, the birds act as cheerleaders. The white-throated sparrows whistled, “Old Sven Peterson, Peterson, Peterson” and chorus frogs sounded like a thumbnail running down the teeth of a comb. 
 There was a first spring male summer tanager in my yard at the end of April. I thanked him. A Cooper’s hawk hunted the yard. Birds flee or freeze in place when this happens. The first bird to return to the feeders is almost always a chickadee.
 As I fled a store, I heard a purple martin cheerleading practice and looked up to see American white pelicans flying low enough that the nuptial tubercles on their bills were exceptionally evident and above them, a red-tailed hawk circled. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology says the pelican’s wingspan reaches 114 inches and the hawk’s stretches to only 52 inches. I love being astonished.
 Dragonflies, brown thrashers and song sparrows kept me company as I looked at anthills in sidewalk cracks. I used to wonder while wandering what it’d be like to fall into an anthill. It would have been a tight fit, no doubt. I listened to Canada geese playing their vuvuzelas. I love this time of the year when the blue-winged teal bloom wherever there is a puddle and the drakes entertain me with their enthusiastic peeping. The joy of being a birder is immeasurable.
 I watched grackles and red-winged blackbirds mob a crow in the air, forcing the bigger bird to the ground. As the crowd dispersed, the crow flew into a spruce tree. Bad decision. The tree was filled with blackbirds, most of whom joined the fray and chased the crow from the scene. Later, I saw a crow bothering a bald eagle in flight and buzzing the tower of an American coot feeding on the grass.
 My yard welcomed red admiral butterflies and their black, orange and white coloration. They came from the southern United States. Red admirals can’t survive the cold, so each fall they flee south, spending the winter in the deep south. They lay eggs, die, the eggs hatch and when spring comes, a new generation begins migrating north at 30-40 miles a day, repopulating the northern states. Stinging nettles are the host plant that the butterfly lays its eggs on and the caterpillars feed upon.

Q&A

 “Why do red-tailed hawks soar in circles?” Hawks often travel on thermals or rising air currents to conserve energy. A thermal is a column of warm air that rises from the ground. The heat from the sun causes the air to rise and a hawk rides the thermal upwards, staying in the air for long periods without expending much energy. This allows them to hunt over a large area. That’s why they fly in circles. When a hawk spots its prey, it dives and catches it with its sharp talons.
 “How many sports teams have bird nicknames?” I haven’t a decent guess, but I think birds and members of the cat family have the most teams named for them. In the MLB it’s the St. Louis Cardinals, Toronto Blue Jays and Baltimore Orioles. The NBA has the Toronto Raptors, Atlanta Hawks and New Orleans Pelicans. The NFL has the Arizona Cardinals, Baltimore Ravens (the mascots are named Edgar, Allan and Poe), Philadelphia Eagles (mascot is named Swoop), Atlanta Falcons and Seattle Seahawks. There is no such thing as a seahawk, so an augur buzzard is the live mascot. The NHL has the Anaheim Ducks and Pittsburgh Penguins. The Toledo Mud Hens minor league baseball team was made famous by Max Klinger in the show “MASH.” When he wasn’t wearing dresses, Klinger wore the team’s gear. Other minor league teams are Rochester Red Wings, Idaho Falls Chukars, Sioux Falls Canaries, Akron RubberDucks, Delmarva Shorebirds and Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks. Some interesting nicknames for college teams include Rice Owls, UTSA Roadrunners, North Florida Ospreys, Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens, Delaware Blue Hens and Oregon Ducks. The Virginia Hokies have a turkey for a mascot because no one knows what a Hokie is, the University of Iowa's mascot is Herky the Hawk, and Louisville’s mascot is Louie the Cardinal. The Miami Hurricanes have Sebastian the Ibis as a mascot because folklore maintains that the ibis is the last to take shelter before a hurricane and the first to reappear after the storm. I wish the U of M Gophers would become the Marsh Hawks or Minks. Then they wouldn’t have a 13-lined ground squirrel as a mascot.
 “When do pocket gophers breed?” They breed in the spring and produce one litter of up to six pups. One adult is found in each burrow system except during breeding.

Thanks for stopping by

 “Be not forgetful to cherish the gifts each moment brings.”—Mother Teresa.
 “The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.”—Ralph Waldo Emerson.
 Do good.

©️Al Batt 2023

This first-spring male summer tanager visited my yard.  One day, it will molt into a completely red adult. The summer tanager’s breeding range extends into the southern half of Iowa. Some males wander into Minnesota during spring migration. This bird is noted for eating bees and wasps it catches in flight. It kills its prey by slamming it repeatedly against a branch and removes the stinger by wiping the insect on the branch.  Photo by Al Batt

I look forward to seeing goslings each year. The Canada Goose gander eschews cigars and passes out stern looks instead.

Take me out to the ball game, take me out with the crowd. Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack—and scuba gear. Catch the wave at the New Richland, Minnesota, baseball field.

What’s the difference between a birdwatcher and a birder?

Naturally

 My yard is unlike any other place on earth. So is yours. So is your favorite park. My yard is a place where I go to forget the clock, to forget the calendar. The secret is to notice things and have the willingness to be amazed by what I notice. I try to take in the view and be astonished by what I see or hear. What lies beyond the horizon provides less interest to me. Where I am is beyond the horizon for others. There were so many blackbirds, each had to take a number before landing. I listened to the sounds of construction—woodpeckers at work. A brown thrasher recycled his songs, singing exuberantly, trying to wring its repertoire dry.
 A shaking branch showed a pair of crows had flown from the scene. One crow and a male red-winged blackbird double-teamed a red-tailed hawk. They attacked from above to avoid the raptor’s talons. It was the Justice League in action. After the hawk left the scene, the red-winged blackbird turned its anger on the crow. Little birds mobbing bigger birds. It’s the law of the jungle.

Q&A

 Bev Jackson Cotter of Albert Lea found 46 eggs in a wood duck box. None had hatched. She wondered what was going on there. The normal brood size for wood ducks is 6 to 16 and the extra eggs result from egg dumping or intraspecific brood parasitism, which occurs when a female wood duck, frequently a first-year breeder, follows another hen to nest sites during the egg-laying period. The visitor is stimulated to lay eggs in the nest of the other hen. The expression, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” applies here. A hen whose nest has too many eggs may abandon it.
 “Do skunks have poor eyesight?” I’ve never seen one wearing eyeglasses, but a skunk has poor vision and combined with a dark coloring and crepuscular activity leads to many skunks becoming victims of automobile collisions. Their eyesight is limited to about 10 feet of sharp vision, but they have excellent hearing and smell. I talk to skunks I encounter in my yard. By speaking, it allows the skunk to gauge my location and avoid me.
 “Do ducks migrate at night?” Most waterfowl migrations occur at night. Studies indicate migratory movements intensify shortly after sunset, peak in the middle of the night, and decline thereafter. The result can be an impressive increase in local waterfowl numbers overnight. Most waterfowl fly at speeds of 40 to 60 mph, with many species averaging roughly 50 mph. With a 50-mph tailwind, migrating mallards could travel 800 miles during an eight-hour flight. Studies found a mallard needs to feed and rest for three to seven days to replenish the energy expended during this eight-hour journey.
 “Is a dog’s mouth cleaner than a human’s mouth” According to the American Kennel Clubthe answer is no.
 “Am I seeing a white-throated sparrow or a white-crowned sparrow?” A white-throated sparrow has a white throat patch and a yellow spot between the eye and the bill that a white-crowned sparrow lacks. 
 “What’s the difference between a birdwatcher and a birder?” I’ve heard often that a birdwatcher looks at birds and a birder looks for birds. You can be either one or both. You define it the way you want. I’m both.
 “Do I need to add red color to my hummingbird nectar?” The best and least expensive solution for a hummingbird feeder is a 1:4 solution of refined white sugar to tap water—that’s ¼ cup of sugar in 1 cup of water. Bring the high-octane solution to a boil and let it cool before filling a feeder. You can make a larger batch and refrigerate it. Bring it to room temperature before refilling the feeder. Red coloring isn’t necessary. There is no reason to add red dyes to sugar water as natural flower nectar is clear. The red dye is a waste of your trust fund money. Nectar-producing flowers that exhibit color in the warm ultra-violet spectrum (yellow, pink, peach, orange, red and purple) yield nectar with a sweetness level of 19 to 21 percent. Many hummingbird feeders have red caps, bases or floral decorations more than sufficient to attract the birds, but the color has less attractiveness than what is put into the feeder. Don’t use brown sugar, honey, molasses or artificial sweeteners. In hot weather, the feeder should be emptied and cleaned twice a week. In cooler weather, once per week is enough. It’s a swell idea to have feeders that are easy to clean.

Thanks for stopping by

 “Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”—Marcel Proust.
 “Every moment is a new opportunity to be amazed.”—Jonathan Colman.
 Do good.

©️Al Batt 2023

The white-faced ibis is a rare regular in Minnesota. It has a long decurved bill, which makes it difficult for the bird to smile. It appears black in subdued light, but has  iridescent green and reddish tones, with a white border on a reddish face, red eyes and reddish legs. Photo by Al Batt.

Every tree has a story. Branch direction can serve as a compass. Leaves with a pale, central streak mean that water is nearby.

Could a private eye put a tail on a cardinal?

Naturally

 I’ve never met anyone who has had a bat tangled in her hair.
 Voles are primarily vegetarians, feeding on grasses, tubers and seeds. They can girdle young trees by removing a continuous strip of bark and cambium around the circumference of the tree. This can kill the trees. 

Q&A

 “What is a thousand-legger?” Millipedes, commonly called “thousand-leggers”, have elongated, cylindrical bodies with 25+ pairs of short legs, two pairs per body segment. The legs are held beneath a light brown to black body and appear to ripple in waves as it moves. They feed on decaying vegetable matter. Millipedes do a mini-migration when it’s too hot, too cold, too wet or too dry. Centipedes are commonly called “hundred-leggers”, with elongated, flattened bodies with fewer than 25 pairs of long legs that project laterally from the body. Just behind the head are jaws that contain venom glands used to paralyze insects and spiders. Centipedes are beneficial because they control insect populations.
 “How many times can a skunk spray?” Skunks can’t run over 10 mph, so they spray instead. Skunks warn perceived predators by stomping their feet, clicking their teeth and raising their tails. They hold their ground or run directly toward a threat. Skunks can spray at about a month old. Skunk spray can be smelled a mile and a half away. Skunks can spray 5 or 6 times before needing to replenish, taking 8 to 10 days to refill. Skunks aren’t thought of as being vocal other than Flower or Pepe Le Pew but can squeal, chirp, whimper, whine, grunt and smack their lips. Tomato juice isn’t an effective way to get rid of a skunk’s stench as it only masks the smell. Mix ¼ cup baking soda, 1 quart of 3% hydrogen peroxide and 1 to 2 teaspoons of liquid dish detergent. Keep out of eyes and don’t store. 
 “How long does it take bald eagles to build a nest?” From 1 to 3 months. A pair often uses it year after year, adding sticks and making repairs.
 “What causes dust devils?” Jackalopes. They run 50 mph during a breeding season limited to lightning flashes. They’re most often seen by taxidermists. The jackalope is a mythical animal described as a jackrabbit with antelope horns and their name is a portmanteau of jackrabbit and antelope.
 “I saw a cardinal this winter with no tail. Will it grow back?” The cardinal might have avoided capture, had its tail frozen to a perch or been caught in something. During a fright molt, all the tail feathers are simultaneously ejected from their follicles in an escape, leaving the predator with a mouth or talon full of feathers or a puff of feathers behind. The tails grow back quickly. If a feather is broken, it remains broken until the next molt, but if a feather is pulled out at the root, regrowth starts immediately. Tailless birds can survive this slight disadvantage.
 “What are the black things wrapped around power poles?” The plastic wrap on utility poles discourages the ascent of squirrels and other adventurous climbers such as raccoons and cats. It’s UV-stabilized to withstand prolonged sun exposure and prevents animals from accessing vital equipment and causing power outages. 
 “When was the last wolverine seen in Minnesota?” The last official record of a wild wolverine in Minnesota was a specimen taken in 1899 in Itasca County. The University of Minnesota says wolverines were more common in northern Minnesota until nearly extirpated by trappers by the 1920s. The Wolverine Foundation says the most recent verifiable record of wolverine occurrence in Minnesota was from 1899; but mentions a documented record from northeastern Minnesota in 1965. A wolverine shot and killed in North Dakota in 2016 was the first wolverine reported in that state in almost 150 years. 

Bird cams

 Young eagles https://explore.org/livecams/bald-eagles/decorah-eagles
 Probable nesting sandhill cranes near Steamboat Springs, Colorado. https://coloradocranes.org/crane-nest-camera/

Thanks for stopping by

 “A man has to live with himself, and he should see to it that he always has good company.”—Charles Evans Hughes.
 “Teach the children. We don’t matter so much, but the children do. Show them daisies and the pale hepatica. Teach them the taste of sassafras and wintergreen. The lives of the blue sailors, mallow, sunbursts, the moccasin-flowers. And the frisky ones–inkberry, lamb’s-quarters, blueberries. And the aromatic ones–rosemary, oregano. Give them peppermint to put in their pockets as they go to school. Give them the fields and the woods and the possibility of the world salvaged from the lords of profit. Stand them in the stream, head them upstream, rejoice as they learn to love this green space they live in, its sticks and leaves and then the silent, beautiful blossoms. Attention is the beginning of devotion.”—Mary Oliver.
 Do good.

©️Al Batt 2023

Hepatica blooms in April and May and is named for its three-lobed leaves, which resemble the three lobes of the human liver. Early herbalists believed plants with shapes resembling parts of the human body were an effective treatment for diseases of those parts. This “Doctrine of Signatures” suggested the three-lobed leaves of hepatica would prove effective in liver diseases. That hasn’t proven to be correct. Some people call hepatica “liverwort,” but it shouldn’t be confused with the non-vascular plants called liverworts. Photo by Al Batt

I’m a sucker for photos of birds perched on handles and/or the heads of plastic owls. This book is a classy class on photography.

It used to be a grain bin.

They may look guilty, but Blue-winged Teal have never once been arrested for littering.

There was a headless rabbit in my yard. Was it Colonel Mustard in the library with a candlestick?

Naturally

 The morning brought the sounds of birds as they celebrated making it through the night.
 The elegant and eloquent American goldfinches begin to resemble their “wild canary” nickname.
 I watched two squirrels fight over a buried acorn one had unearthed. Storage wars.
 An Eaglewatch Cam is offering a live view of the Mississippi River at the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, Minnesota. Watch eagles catch fish, soar over the river, perch on trees and more at https://www.nationaleaglecenter.org/eaglewatch-cam/

Q&A

 “What is a group of cedar waxwings called?” A flock. Other collective nouns are museum and earful.
 Jerry Viktora of Ellendale asked why the wild turkeys disappeared from his yard. Turkeys like large, older trees with substantial horizontal branches—just the kind Jerry’s property provides. Oaks are perfect and they like white pines where they can find them. In spring, summer and fall, hayfields, pastures and open woods are important forage areas for insects, berries and seeds. Young turkeys need high-protein insects during their first couple of months of life. By late fall, turkeys depend on acorns, grains, fruits and berries. They flock together for safety. Acorns are a staple of their winter diet and waste corn in fields can be another. South-facing slopes are important foraging and resting areas as increased snowmelt exposes food. Manure spread on fields provides an additional source of grain. Turkeys struggle when powdery snow depths exceed 10 inches for 20 consecutive days. South- and east-facing slopes are preferred by roosting turkeys for early sunlight and for feeding areas sheltered from northwest winds during winter. Turkeys don’t always roost in the same place and are like deer in that they shift to different parts of their home range throughout the year. They spend more time roosting in favored locations than anywhere else. There is a greater roost site loyalty shown by turkeys in open terrain than by turkeys in heavily forested areas. A great horned owl turned out to be the thing making his turkeys nervous enough to go absent with leave.
 “There was a headless rabbit in my yard. Was it Colonel Mustard in the library with a candlestick?” I’d put nothing past Colonel Mustard, but when folks encounter such a sight and perform a thorough crime scene investigation, they come up with a list of usual suspects (cat, celebrity chef and Colonel Mustard). I’d take Colonel Mustard off that suspect list and guess that the culprit was an owl. A great horned owl’s signature method when dealing with large prey is to behead the victim before it’s taken to the owl’s nest or eating perch. Out of 28 owl kills in a study conducted in Kansas, 60% of the prey items were decapitated. A great horned owl has a deadly grip and uses its bill and talons to cleave a bunny head as fast as a rodeo cowboy can rope a steer. Apparently, rabbit brains and eyes are a delicacy for owls and are nutritious by being full of fats and proteins.
 “I heard you talk about a godwit on the radio. What is the origin of that name?” The origin of its mysterious moniker is obscure. Some have suggested the name comes from the Old English gōdwiht, corresponding to good +‎ wight (“creature”). The Oxford English Dictionary considers the term likely to have been imitative of the bird's call. Most etymological sources find the origin of the godwit name to be unknown.
 “What is a spongy moth?” Spongy moth was adopted as the new common name for the moth species Lymantria dispar (formerly known as the gypsy moth) by the Entomological Society of America. The new name comes from a translation of a French name based on the destructive forest pest's sponge-like egg masses. 
 “Why does the snow on the south side of my shed melt faster than the snow on the north side of the shed?” It’s the tilt of the Northern Hemisphere away from the sun during the winter. This angle allows more sunlight to hit the south side of buildings in winter, which helps to melt away ice and snow. The north side receives less direct sun and casts a shadow. This makes the temperatures cooler north of your shed and keeps the ice and snow around longer than on the opposite side of the structure.

Thanks for stopping by

 “Everything is simpler than you think and at the same time more complex than you imagine.”—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
 “As of today, you have 100 percent of your life left.¨—Tom Landry.
 Do good.

©️Al Batt 2023

The blue-winged teal is the second most abundant duck in North America, behind only the mallard. They are dabbling or puddle ducks. These three drakes feed by dabbling—skimming food from the surface of the water, dipping their bills just below the surface or by tipping their bodies into a bottoms-up position. Photo by Al Batt

Colonel Mustard had nothing to do with this either.

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Do owls eat carrion? Do flickers eat ticks?

Naturally

Geese aren’t afraid of public speaking. I listened to them talk on stubble-covered farm fields lowered by the disappearance of snow.
What do the first migrants think of in the spring? “Too soon?” Many consider strutting grackles the jerks of the bird world. An unfair assessment.
An American white pelican has up to a 114-inch wingspan. A red-tailed hawk’s wings stretch to 52 inches.

Q&A

“Am I seeing trumpeter or tundra swans?” If you see them nesting here, they are trumpeters. Trumpeter swans are larger than tundras, but the difference in size is apparent only if the two species are right next to one another. A fluffed tundra might look bigger than a trim trumpeter. I listen to calls. Trumpeter swan calls are trumpet-like, which sound like a junior high French horn player warming up to me. Lewis and Clark, during their expedition, provided the first written description of tundra swans, where the birds’ whistle-like calls prompted Meriwether Lewis to dub them “whistling swans.” Trumpeters sound remarkably low-pitched and nasal in comparison. If you hear something whistling the theme song to “The Andy Griffith Show,” it will be a TV and not a tundra swan. Tundra swans stay in flocks except when on breeding territory in the arctic. If you see a pair or a few swans, they’re likely trumpeter swans.
“Where do crows nest?” American crows hide their nests in a crotch near the trunk of a tree or on a horizontal branch toward the top third of a tree, preferring to nest in evergreens, but will nest in deciduous trees when evergreens are unavailable. Both members of a breeding pair build the nest and the young from the previous year might help. The nest is made of medium-sized twigs with an inner cup lined with pine needles, vegetation, bark and/or animal hair.
“Do owls eat carrion?” Owls aren’t thought of as scavengers, but the behavior is more widespread than believed, according to University of Illinois researchers. Most of the carcasses fed upon were mammals, especially those with hooves. I’ve seen an owl on a dead deer.
“Do birds have taste buds?” Birds have up to 500 taste buds, while adult humans have 2,000 to 10,000. Parrots have 300 to 400 and chickens have only 24. Birds can taste sweet, sour and bitter, and learn how combinations of those tastes warn them of toxic foods or invite them to feed. Fruit-eaters can detect when fruit is ripe and hummingbirds taste differences in sugar concentrations found in flowers.
“What animals store food?” Mammals, birds and insects (ants, bees and wasps are famous for doing this) cache food to use later. Seeds lend themselves to storage. Nuthatches, chickadees, titmice, jays, crows, falcons, many owl species, shrikes, nutcrackers and some woodpeckers cache. Rodents, foxes, bobcats and mountain lions cache food. Moles store living earthworms, immobilized after having their heads bitten off, for the winter. Moles don’t hibernate and are busiest finding and storing foods during summer’s rainy periods.
“What kind of sandhill cranes do we have in Minnesota?” There are two separate populations, both are greater sandhill cranes with expanding populations. The cranes breeding in eastern Minnesota winter in north and central Florida, and the cranes nesting in northwestern Minnesota winter along the Gulf Coast of Texas. Sandhill cranes that gather along the Platte River in Nebraska primarily winter in Texas, New Mexico and Mexico. According to Nebraska Game and Parks, most of those birds are lesser sandhill cranes, the smallest subspecies. The Canadian or intermediate sandhill crane makes up about 15% of the birds staging along the Platte, and the greater sandhill crane comprises about 5%. Lesser sandhill cranes are birds of the high arctic, nesting across the northern reaches of Canada and Alaska, with some crossing the Bering Strait into eastern Siberia.
“How far will a great blue heron travel for food?” Studies found most nesting herons stay within a 2-mile range, but will travel as far as 18 miles.
“Do flickers eat ticks?” I don’t think so. Flickers feed on the ground, hammering on soil as other woodpeckers do on wood, looking for ants, which are 45% of their diet. A flicker’s tongue darts out 2 inches beyond the end of its bill to snare prey. They feed on beetles and corn borers and occasionally catch insects in the air. Other invertebrates eaten include flies, butterflies, moths and snails. Flickers switch to eating seeds; fruit and berries from poison ivy, dogwood, sumac, wild cherry, grape, bayberries, hackberries and elderberries; and sunflower seeds at feeders in the winter. Wild turkeys and opossums eat ticks.

Thanks for stopping by

“The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things.”—Henry Ward Beecher.
“Everything is simpler than you think and at the same time more complex than you imagine.”—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
Do good.

©️Al Batt 2023

This is a female downy woodpecker. A male has a small red patch on the back of his head. Male and female downy woodpeckers divide winter foraging areas. Males feed more on small branches and weed stems, and females feed on larger branches and trunks. Males keep the females from foraging in the more productive spots. Photo by Al Batt.

Juncos make toy ray gun sounds. Pew, pew, pew!

Naturally

 It’s good to hear the red-winged blackbird males singing on territory. They returned in time for the annual meeting. The earlier males had quietly traveled through on their way farther north. 
 Winter had been a keeper whether we wanted to keep it or not, but there are beautiful things in the yard. Juncos make toy ray gun sounds. The gray birds with white bellies and outer tail feathers come with the season. They are joined by American tree sparrows that look as if they’re wearing tie tacks without neckties. I watch the runways to the airports that are my feeders. I welcome the company of nuthatches. A red-breasted nuthatch is about half the size of a white-breasted nuthatch and is smaller than a chickadee. Red-bellied woodpeckers are common and have expanded their range northward in recent decades. Their population increased by an estimated 0.8% per year from 1966 to 2019, according to the North American Breeding Bird Survey, while the red-headed woodpeckers declined by over 1% per year, resulting in a cumulative decline of 54%. Non-migratory resident birds such as northern cardinal, Carolina wren, tufted titmouse and red-bellied woodpecker appear to be the most adaptable and have expanded their ranges the most. This seems to be primarily driven by warmer winters and, for some species, is further augmented by bird feeders.

Q&A

 “What do robins eat during the winter?” They eat berries and fruits persisting on shrubs, trees and vines—hackberry, buckthorn, crabapple, hawthorn, mountain ash and others. Frozen or fresh fruit such as apple slices, raisins, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries and cherries could be placed on the ground. Young robins learn in robin school that fruit grows on trees and shrubs. They don't expect to find it elsewhere. They may not be common feeder birds, but that doesn’t mean they never visit feeders. A platform feeder offering raisins, crushed peanuts or mealworms might be welcomed. Some folks say robins eat cranberries in a feeder, but they ignored the domestic cranberries I’ve put out for them no matter how enticingly the berries were arranged. In my yard, I see robins feeding on suet fallen from a suet cake feeder. I crumbled some and placed it on the ground. The robins gobbled it down. I’ve seen a few robins eating hulled sunflower seeds (sunflower hearts) and they will eat jelly. A heated birdbath is a major draw.
 “Can I compost sunflower seed shells?” Yes, but you might want to do so in limited amounts. The entire plant contains chemicals that may inhibit the growth of other plants. There is little research on whether the allelopathic chemicals of sunflower seed shells negatively impact the compost. Alternatively, they may be used as weed-suppressing mulch. Sunflower seed shells contain a plant growth inhibitor, so some people recommend you don’t place raked-up hulls on compost piles that will be used in gardens. However, this compost may help keep weeds at bay when placed between garden rows. 
 “How many times do deer defecate daily?” In 1940, researcher Logan Bennett found deer defecate 12.6 times per day. Observations today find that during fall and winter, most whitetails empty their bowels 10 to 15 times per day. In spring and summer, this frequency spikes, fluctuating between 20 and 30 times. And they do all of that without using a single sheet of toilet paper.
 Lisa Kaye of KTOE Radio in Mankato asked how brood patches on birds form?” Birds need to transfer and preserve heat to their eggs and nestlings by brood patches, bare areas of skin on the belly that lose their feathers toward the end of the egg-laying period. Most birds shed automatically, but some pluck their brood patch and use the plucked feathers to make an insulating lining for their nests.
 “Is there a hunting season on sandhill cranes in Minnesota?” Mark Heinemann of Albert Lea was golfing in Wisconsin when sandhill cranes flew over. He said they were the rib eyes of the sky. His fellow golfers sniggered and mocked him unkindly. Yes, there is a season on cranes. The hunting area includes portions of Kittson, Roseau, Marshall, Pennington, Red Lake and Polk counties. 
 “The inside of a window of my house has many flies on it. What are they?” If they are grayish black and resemble house flies, they are cluster flies, which are found in homes in fall and spring, and occasionally during winter when mild temperatures occur. They don’t harm people or property and don’t reproduce indoors. They are parasites of earthworms.

Thanks for stopping by

 “Because the heart beats under a covering of hair, of fur, feathers, or wings, it is, for that reason, to be of no account?”—Jean Paul Richter.
 “If loons invented the music of being lonely, cranes invented the music of being together.”—Kim Heacox.
 Do good.

©️Al Batt 2023

The opossum has thumbs and 50 teeth. The female is called a jill, the male a jack and a baby is a joey. Photo by Al Batt.

BIRDING WITH BATT

If you missed “Birding With Batt” on the airwaves this week, you can hear it any time you like via the free KMSU radio streaming app. The app is available for Apple and Android devices, allowing you to livestream 89.7 the Maverick, find playlists and listen to shows on-demand.

Why do little birds mob bigger birds?

Naturally

 I saw a turkey vulture on March 15, not in Hinckley, Ohio, but in Minnesota. Baby steps into spring. It was a wonderful birthday present. It was a birthday present for me. I’ve no idea when the vulture’s hatch date was. 
 No fiery horse with a speed of light, no cloud of dust, and no hearty “Hi-Yo, Silver!” The Lone Common Grackle continues to saunter about the yard with his faithful companion, a winter-weary starling. A deer with an injured foot comes regularly to feed under the bird feeder. The starling landed on the deer’s back. The bird had always wanted a pony. Starlings are mimics and can be taught to talk. I imagined it saying, “Giddy up!”
 I filled the feeders with black oil sunflower seeds. I’ve found the nutritious seeds to be appealing to the birds in my locale. If you find house sparrows overwhelming your feeders, you might switch to the larger striped sunflowers seeds, which have shells more difficult for house sparrows to open. Cheap birdseed isn’t economical. It doesn’t have enough active ingredients because it has too much filler—things birds don’t eat. 
 A skunk bulldozed snow because of its short legs and a low body. Its feet left small pits. Striped skunks avoid the colder spells of winter by slowing their metabolism and entering into a state of torpor inside dens and have been found cohabitating with opossums and raccoons. The trail in the snow was likely made by a male in search of a mate. Male skunks travel as much as 2.5 miles a night.
 Audubon's Rowe Sanctuary's Crane Camera in Gibbon, Nebraska, features spectacular views of the sandhill crane migration along the Platte River. The five-mile stretch of river covered by this camera is a densely populated sandhill crane roost with 100,000-200,000 cranes at the height of migration. Groups of cranes stay around three weeks once they arrive here and the best viewing times are early morning and evening. Here’s the link to this cam: https://explore.org/livecams/national-audubon-society/crane-camera

Q&A

 “Why do little birds mob bigger birds?” No one has come up with a complete explanation. It may prevent predators from taking smaller birds by surprise or an attempt to drive away danger. I watch crows mob an owl and they seem to use it as an enjoyable bonding experience.
 “Do nuthatches mate for life?” White-breasted nuthatch pairs remain together on nesting territory all year and may mate for life. In a courtship display, the male raises his head, spreads his tail, droops his wings, sways back and forth, and bows deeply. He also performs courtship feeding of the female.
 “Why do birds throw seeds out of a feeder?” Much of it could be birds discarding the hulls covering the seeds they have eaten. It could be done accidentally. Birds could be searching for their favorite seeds or seeds without a shell. Some birds, like native sparrows, scratch by habit. They feed in a platform feeder as they do on the ground when they do a double scratch to unearth goodies from under the detritus. Birds might toss out milo or wheat, fillers birds don’t like. They could throw out wet, spoiled, moldy, old, germinating or poor-quality seeds. 
 “When are a white-tailed deer’s antlers fully grown?” They are by mid- to late August. A buck sports its largest rack when it’s 4.5 or 9.5 years old, with 5 to 7 years being typical. 
 “Is it a good idea to put out dryer lint for birds to use in their nests?” Dryer lint quickly loses its fluffiness and structure when wet, becoming unsustainable in the rain, crumbling and leaving holes in a nest. Wet lint is sticky and can coat birds’ legs, feet and feathers. Chemicals from perfumed and dyed detergents are possibly toxic to baby birds. 
 “Why do deer yard up?” Yarding is another term used when deer congregate in one area and demonstrates the power of food. It occurs during times of severe cold and decreasing food sources. Common places to see deer yard up are south- and east-facing slopes, agricultural fields with waste grain, late-season food plots, cedar thickets and anywhere else they can find shelter from the elements and food. Deer reduce their food intake during the winter by 30% and activity by 50%.
 “Do mothballs keep mice away?” It’s a myth that mothballs repel snakes, squirrels and mice. Scattering mothballs is ineffective and damaging to the environment. Exposure to mothball vapors isn’t healthy. If you can smell the mothballs, you’re breathing in a pesticide.

Thanks for stopping by

 “There are some four million different kinds of animals and plants in the world. Four million different solutions to the problems of staying alive.”—David Attenborough.
 “To walk in nature is to witness a thousand miracles.”—Mary Davis.
 Do good.

©️Al Batt 2023

This singing European starling might be saying “Giddy-up.” Then again, it might not be saying that. The starling is a gifted mimic, so it could be imitating a hawk, a ringtone, a car alarm, a killdeer or a meadowlark. Photo by Al Batt.

BIRDING WITH BATT

If you missed “Birding With Batt” on the airwaves this week, you can hear it any time you like via the free KMSU radio streaming app. The app is available for Apple and Android devices, allowing you to livestream 89.7 the Maverick, find playlists and listen to shows on-demand.

How can I tell a male red-tailed hawk from a female?

Naturally

Savoring the day, my wife and I were awed by the Venus-Jupiter conjunction (they appear close together) in the western sky early in March. Both were bright but Venus was brighter.
March can be moody. It was snowing. Winter doesn’t meet its demise on March 1 or March 20. Snow brought a concert of silence broken by the honking of Canada geese flying overhead. I saw pairs of that species battling over nest sites.
Spring comes early to the southern side of buildings. I watched a chickadee and a downy woodpecker peck holes into goldenrod galls on a prairie and extract the insect larvae from within. Prairie comes from the French word for meadow. Among the noble citizens of the backyard, the squirrels have been stripping bark from maple trees. They use the bark and buds as food and may use the bark in their nests. Red-osier dogwood looks a bright red, giving it the nickname of the veins of spring. Weeping willows have a golden-yellow glow that seems to grow brighter by the day. Short-tailed weasels are turning from the white winter coats of ermines to the brown summer ones of weasels. Woodchucks are walking around. I’ve seen quite a few kestrels in March. The tiny falcon is about the size of a blue jay.
There was a bald eagle perched on a snowbank along a thin dredge ditch. The young eagle, hoping to be bald one day, might have been looking to feed on carrion partially buried under the snow.
I was dashing through the slush and on a 50-mile drive, I saw three red-tailed hawks on different large green signs showing mileage to cities. Another sign hosted an American kestrel and two crows perched on another. Crows like to keep track of things and they had likely found a menu item to their liking at the Roadkill Cafe.

Q&A

“How can I tell a male red-tailed hawk from a female?” If you see a hawk laying an egg, that’s a female. The plumage color and pattern of this hawk are highly variable, but male and female red-tailed hawks are similar in appearance. As with most birds of prey, the females are larger. It’s called reversed sexual dimorphism. There are several theories. The females' larger size protects them from aggressive males. Another hypothesis proposes that the size difference allows the two sexes to hunt different prey and thus reduce competition for food. A third plausible reason is that females need to be larger because they must accumulate reserves to produce eggs. A female usually spends more time incubating eggs and rearing chicks than her partner, and if she’s bigger she might be able to protect her young more effectively. Not all red-tailed hawks have red tails. Adults typically have red feathers on their tails, while juveniles’ tails are a darker brown. The younger birds molt into adult plumage (including a red tail) at the beginning of their second year. The red-tailed hawk has a loud, high-pitched raspy scream often heard in film, TV shows and commercials as the call of eagles and other raptors because it sounds more majestic than that of other raptors.
“How does the success rate for hawks that hunt birds compare to those hawks that prey on mammals?” Some data indicates the hunting success of bird-chasing raptors is about half that of the raptors preying on mammals and one-sixth of the raptors eating insects.
“I found a deer shed that had been chewed by something? What does that?” Antlers are a rich source of calcium and other minerals and nutrients. The antlers are recycled to build strong bones and teeth for many mammals. Mice, squirrels, voles, raccoons, chipmunks, porcupines, dogs, opossums, foxes, rabbits, coyotes, otters, beavers, bears and wolves have been observed gnawing on deer sheds. Some animals might also gnaw on sheds to wear down their continuously growing teeth. I suspect groundhogs gnaw on deer sheds as I’ve had them chew on the shed where I store the lawn mower.
“Why are domestic turkeys white?” Those white turkeys didn’t become common until the late 1930s and early 1940s. Farmers bred white turkeys because the white feathers are less visible on dressed carcasses and those birds have a lighter skin color, which appeals to consumers.
“How can I attract cardinals?” Plant berry bushes and evergreens. Put black oil sunflower seeds and safflower seeds into bird feeders.
“Do hibernating animals age?” Hibernation doesn't stop aging, but scientists have learned it may delay the effects of aging slightly and thereby slow aging.

Thanks for stopping by

“I dressed and went for a walk—determined not to return until I took in what Nature had to offer.”—Raymond Carver.
“Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.”—E. B. White.
Do good.

©️Al Batt 2023

If you want to be different, make the common grackle your favorite bird. The grackle looks like a blackbird that has been stretched on the rack. Its song has been described as “kree del eeeek.“ It’s seldom played on Contemporary Hits Radio. Photo by Al Batt.

BIRDING WITH BATT
 If you missed the “Birding With Batt” on the airwaves this week, you can hear it any time you like via the free KMSU radio streaming app. The app is available for Apple and Android devices, allowing you to livestream 89.7 the Maverick, find playlists and listen to shows on-demand.

Some of the photos in this lovely book caused me to smile. Others made me to feel as if I were looking in a mirror. Every image was awe-producing.

I know when I have an empty bird feeder because I subscribe to a fox squirrel alert that pops up on my windows.

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

I watched a follow-me wave of chickadees

Naturally

 I watched a follow-me wave of chickadees lead nuthatches, downy woodpeckers and cardinals on a foraging expedition through shrubs and trees. I saw a downy woodpecker use a small tree crevice as a vice to hold sunflower seeds and crack them open to eat. Opossums fed below the feeders (a male is a Jack, the female a Jill).
 A blizzard modifies the plot line. Tree trunks had absorbed the heat from the sun and melted the surrounding snow, leaving dark circles around the base of trees. A suet feeder rocked in the wind like an amusement park ride. The woodpecker held on tight. It should have been wearing one of those pole-climbing safety straps. Four fox squirrels ate near one another on the snowy ground during a lull in a blizzard. They tolerated the company of one another but chased a fifth one away. It tried repeatedly to join the crowd but was repelled each time. I guess the four had enough for a card game. I threw corn to the fifth squirrel at another location. It found it.
 The rough-legged hawk is a buteo of open habitats. Named for its feathered legs, it breeds throughout the arctic and sub-arctic regions of North America. Compared to a red-tailed hawk, it appears delicate, with small feet and small bill, an adaptation that helps keeps bare parts less vulnerable to cold weather exposure. When perching in trees, it sits on the small twigs at the top of trees, appearing too heavy for frail branches. The plumage is variable. Light morphs pale with a dark belly and dark patches on "wrists." Dark morphs have brown or blackish bodies with banded tails and striking white flight feathers. They can hover when hunting.

Q&A 

 “How long does nyjer seed stay fresh?” When nyjer seed dries out, birds find it easy to ignore. I try to avoid waste by purchasing nyjer in a quantity I'll use in a month or two. Nyjer used to be called thistle seed, but it’s not a noxious weed and the USDA requires all imported nyjer seeds to be heat-treated to sterilize the seed. Nyjer seed has a shell but is vulnerable to spoilage while in a feeder. Check for clumping and mold. If present, a 10% bleach/water solution should be used to clean the feeder.
 “How many eggs can a brown-headed cowbird lay?” The cowbird is a brood parasite that could lay 40 eggs per season.
 “How do birds know when they have laid enough eggs?” Scientists removed eggs soon after they were laid. Some birds replaced them right away. A house sparrow laid 50 replacements, while a flicker laid 71 in 73 days. Birds that keep laying after eggs are removed are called indeterminate layers. The number of eggs is tied to the brood patch, bare skin on a bird’s underbody that transfers body warmth to the eggs. The tactile sensation in this process determines clutch size. Determinate egg layers will not lay extra eggs in response to egg removal or stop laying eggs if eggs are added to their nests.
 “How many eggs does a pheasant nest have?” Hens lay an average of 12 eggs, which hatch in 23 to 25 days, with the chicks leaving the nest in a few hours. If a hen loses her clutch before it hatches, she lays another albeit smaller clutch. Re-nesting attempts could hatch as late as the end of August or early September. A hen hatches one brood per breeding season. Hens will not re-nest if they lose a brood.
 “Do both parent bald eagles incubate eggs?” Both the male and female have brood patches and take turns sitting on eggs, but the female being larger, takes the longer incubation periods overnight and during cold weather and storms. Incubation begins after the first egg is laid, meaning that in a nest with more than one egg there will be the oldest eaglet and the youngest. The eggs are rolled regularly to make sure the lighter yolk doesn’t rise, touch and stick to the shell and kill a developing chick. 
 “When do bald eagles attain a white head and tail?” Approximately 25% of the birds acquire adult plumage at 4 ½ years, but most bald eagles gain adult plumage by 5 ½ years of age. This doesn’t consider any aberrant plumages.

Thanks for stopping by

 “I believe that the first test of a truly great man is his humility. I do not mean by humility, doubt of his own powers. But really great men have a curious feeling that the greatness is not in them, but through them. And they see something divine in every other man and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful.”—John Ruskin.
 “Wildlife in the world can only be protected by the love of compassionate hearts in the world!”―Mehmet Murat ildan.
 Do good.

©️Al Batt 2023

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology says a red-bellied woodpecker can stick out its tongue nearly 2 inches past the end of its beak. The tip is barbed and the bird’s spit is sticky, making it easier to snatch prey from deep crevices. Males have longer, wider-tipped tongues than females, possibly allowing a breeding pair to forage in slightly different places on their territory and maximize their use of available food.

Photo by Al Batt.

Woodpeckers find timber with a good timbre

Naturally

Current events include woodpeckers find timber with a good timbre. They drum on resonant wood, tattooing communication to other members of their species. Goldfinches gather yellow around their faces, barred owls become more vocal, red osier dogwood becomes the red veins of spring and weeping willows glow.
I spoke to a wonderful group called the Bronx River Sound Shore Audubon. The organization’s president, Sandy Morrissey, told me that her brother had died recently. Before he shuffled off this mortal coil, he’d built two bluebird boxes. The boxes were placed in a local park. When Sandy visited that park, there was a bluebird perched on one box. The sight made her happy beyond words with the precious memories it carried.
I saw a superabundance of raccoon tracks. They were paw prints with five long, finger-like toes that connect to a C- shaped palm pad. They resemble tiny human handprints, measuring two to three inches across. Raccoons leave a trail with side-by-side tracks with each pair of prints composed of a front paw alongside a hind paw as the rear foot lands next to the opposite front foot when the animal takes a step. The back footprint has a more forward-pointing "thumb" and a larger C-shaped palm pad.
Look for snow fleas. They bear resemblance to specks of black pepper on the snow. These primitive insects are about 1/10-inch long and a dark blue-gray. Snow fleas are wingless but can jump several inches. A snow flea has a forked appendage at the end of its abdomen called a furcula that allows it to jump and gives it the name “springtail.” Snow fleas live in the soil and leaf litter where they eat microscopic fungi, algae and decaying organic matter. They go unnoticed during the summer, but have a high tolerance for colder temperatures compared to most other insects. As the snow begins to melt in late winter, they move up through breaks in the snow. You could find them on top of the snow in potentially large numbers, especially around the base of trees. Snow fleas are harmless to people and are beneficial because they help break down organic matter, enriching the soil. They are a curiosity. People are surprised to see insects active on the surface of the snow during winter.

Q&A

Mike Bonner of Courtland asks when bluebirds return. Some migrants return as early as February, but most arrive in early March. They nest from late March to early August.
“There is a Carolina wren coming to my feeders. What could it be eating?” They eat mealworms, sunflower chips, suet, peanut butter and peanut pieces.
I spoke at the Prairie Smoke Annual Meeting in Chatfield and delighted in spending time in the company of such good folks. Several of those people mentioned seeing American kestrels this winter. One asked what they eat. Most of the Minnesota breeding population of kestrels migrates south for the winter. Males, on average, winter farther north than females. Some kestrels seen here in the winter could be northern birds that have migrated south to our area. The trend has been a general decrease in American kestrel numbers. Evidence comes from the North American Breeding Bird Survey, the Christmas Bird Count, nest box surveys and counts at migration watch sites. Predation by other raptors, herbicide and pesticide exposure, loss of habitat and competition for nest cavities likely contribute to the decline. The American kestrel, often called "sparrow hawk" in the past, isn’t a hawk. The tiny bird of prey with pointed wings and beautiful plumage is a falcon, and the smallest falcon in North America at 10 inches long, about the size of a mourning dove. I don’t think any other bird of prey in North America is as richly colored. Both sexes have a pair of black vertical slashes on the face, like sideburns and tears. Male kestrels have slate-blue wings and the wings of the females are reddish brown. They often bob their tails when perched. Unlike other falcons, which capture most of their prey in the air, kestrels capture much of their prey on the ground. Their diet includes young ground squirrels, gophers, shrews, voles, mice, young rabbits, rats, small birds, grasshoppers, crickets, beetles, butterflies, moths, dragonflies, worms, snakes, salamanders, frogs and toads. They prefer open habitats and are seen perched prominently on tree branches or utility poles while hunting. On their migration over Hawk Ridge in Duluth, kestrels catch dragonflies on the wing and eat the insects as they fly.

Thanks for stopping by

“There is no gardening without humility. Nature is constantly sending even its oldest scholars to the bottom of the class for some egregious blunder.”—Alfred Austin.
“Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.”--Joseph Addison.
Do good.

©️Al Batt 2023

A mallard drake has a yellow bill and a mallard hen has a dirty orange bill. If it sounds like a duck, it’s a hen. The standard “quack” of a duck is produced by the female mallard. The male mallard makes a rasping or grunting sound. Photo by Al Batt.

Cool Hand Luke or Cool Behind Bird?

Naturally

I watched robins feed on persistent fruit in trees. They dine on the berries of hackberry and other trees at this time of the year.
A house sparrow in the yard was missing a tail. She shivered when a cold tailwind blew. The movie "Cool Hand Luke," starring Paul Newman, made the line, "What we have here is failure to communicate," famous. Luke may have had a cool hand, but this little bird had a cool behind.
I saw blue snow in the yard not far from the tailless sparrow. It looked as if someone had stepped on a Smurf, spit out mouthwash or spilled antifreeze. Rabbit droppings came out of the blue. When rabbits feed on the invasive plant buckthorn, they excrete a chemical in their urine that turns blue when exposed to sunlight. Rabbits have round droppings while deer pellets are oval-shaped with one pointed end. I’ve heard that deer produce blue urine, but I’ve noticed deer avoid eating invasive species like buckthorn, garlic mustard and Japanese barberry. I’d never say they never sample those plants. They likely try it to see if they like it. Every kid had to do that, so why wouldn’t deer? I’m not sure if foraging is deterred because deer find them unappetizing or because buckthorn has thorns. Overbrowsing of native plants by large deer populations in some areas has enabled invasive species to flourish and displace native species. Deer don’t bother ferns much either, but extreme hunger tosses out the diet rulebook.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources eagle cam began in 2013. It’s nature’s soap opera. Eagles typically lay eggs in February that are incubated for around 35 days.

Q&A

“What is a gibbous moon?” It’s a moon having the observable illumination part greater than a semicircle and less than a circle. The eight phases of the moon are, in order: new moon, waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full moon, waning gibbous, third quarter and waning crescent. A moon headed toward a full moon is waxing, getting bigger and growing brighter. A moon headed toward a new moon is waning, getting smaller. I was taught that if the moon is D-shaped, it’s waxing or developing. If it’s C-shaped, it’s waning or concluding. I hope you have a great day from morning to moonbeam.
“What’s the difference between a woodchuck and a groundhog?” A woodchuck chucks wood and groundhogs are crack meteorologists. They are the same animal, also called whistle-pigs.
“There is a small cup nest in a shrub in my yard. What bird could have made it?” Here are a couple of likely prospects. The yellow warbler nest is typically within 10 feet of the ground in an upright fork of a shrub or sapling and is lined with plant fibers, fur or feathers. The indigo bunting nest is often 3 feet or lower from the ground in the crotch of a shrub or low sapling. It’s lined with grass, roots, bark strips, thistledown or deer hair. The chipping sparrow nest is 3-10 feet off the ground on the tip of a branch. It might be lined with cattle, deer, horse or pet hair. The American goldfinch nest can be found around 15 feet off the ground, usually in the crotch of the plant and is lined with plant down from thistle, milkweed and cattail.
Randy Heideman of Albert Lea saw small squirrels in his yard for the first time. They weren’t much bigger than chipmunks. He wondered if they were red squirrels because their fur showed some gray. That sounds like red squirrels. They live throughout this country’s snowbelt, in mountainous regions and in Canada. They are most associated with coniferous woods but hardwoods and thickets also provide habitat. The squirrel builds a leaf nest or uses a tree cavity. The red squirrel is not a passive observer. It’s an aggressive and vociferous mammal that is a rusty reddish-brown, orange-red, ginger, brownish or olive-gray color, with some fur colors subject to seasonal changes. Its underside is white to grayish-white and its sides can show gray. In Longfellow's “Song of Hiawatha,” the red squirrel is called Adjidaumo. I’ve read that this is an Ojibwe word meaning "mouth-foremost" because squirrels descend trees head first. I checked the Ojibwe People’s Dictionary and found that ajidamoo means a red squirrel.

Thanks for stopping by

“Thirty days has September, April, June and November. Unless a leap year is its fate,February has twenty-eight. All the rest have three days more, excepting January, which has six thousand, one hundred and eighty-four.”—Brian Bilston.
“Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.”—P. J. O'Rourke.
Do good.

©️Al Batt 2023

A cardinal makes a winter day much better. Photo by Al Batt

This House Sparrow shivers when cold, tailwinds blow. Luke may have had a cool hand, but this little bird had a cool behind.

This House Sparrow shivers when cold, tailwinds blow. Luke may have had a cool hand, but this little female had a cool behind.

This fox squirrel is the king of the mountain.

BIRDING WITH BATT

 If you missed the “Birding With Batt” on the airwaves this week, you can hear it any time you like via the free KMSU radio streaming app. The app is available for Apple and Android devices, allowing you to livestream 89.7 the Maverick, find playlists and listen to shows on-demand.

Naturally

I’ve heard from many people in the Twin Cities about the flocks of robins they are seeing. They are winter robins as they are showing no fighting or singing. A good number of deciduous trees are demonstrating marcescence this year, refusing to drop their leaves. Marcescence means withering but persistent. A good number of Minnesotans become marcescent at this time of the year. Blue jays can migrate, but it occurs to me that many stay in an area where they cached food. Why store it if you’re not going to use it?
As Valentine’s Day nears, skunks come out looking for love and to paw-deliver Valentine’s Day cards. They like highways. It’s easier than walking in deep snow. They need to use them to cross the road. Sometimes food is on the road—carrion.
Dark-eyed juncos hop or walk as they move along the ground. They are social during fall and winter, spending the days in flocks. These flocks mix in with other native sparrows, particularly American tree sparrows here.

Q&A

“Were starlings brought to this country because of Shakespeare?” I’ve thought so all my life and have passed on the story that European starlings were introduced to North America in 1890 and 1891 by the American Acclimatization Society (dedicated to introducing European flora and fauna into North America) and the man responsible for it was Eugene Scheiffelin. That is true, but it likely had nothing to do with Shakespeare. Starlings were mentioned once in Shakespeare’s works, Henry IV, because of their ability to mimic. The findings of John Miller of Allegheny College, assisted by a student, Lauren Fugate, showed starlings were released in the U.S. multiple times in the 1870s and 1880s. Wild flocks were reported during that time. Edwin Way Teale in his book, “Days Without Time” published in 1948, had popularized the Shakespeare angle. I read Teale and enjoy his writing. He wrote that Scheiffelin had the curious hobby of introducing all the birds mentioned in the works of William Shakespeare. The American Acclimatization Society releases in 1890 and 1891 weren’t their first, having released starlings at least once before in the 1870s. The first assertion of Shakespeare’s influence on those releases happened nearly 60 years after the last release. Despite the starling’s success and large numbers, its population is in steep decline in North America. The current population is half the size it was 50 years ago—down from an estimated 166.2 million breeding birds in 1970 to 85.1 million. The species is declining in Europe, too. Starlings are common and widespread, but their population has decreased by over 1% per year for a cumulative decline of about 50% between 1966 and 2019 according to the North American Breeding Bird Survey.
“How long can a ring-necked pheasant go without food?” According to the DNR, during extreme winter weather, pheasants can go up to two weeks without feeding. They accomplish this by reducing their metabolism and energy requirements.
Kent Spellman of Albert Lea asked why the birds that feed so heavily in bad weather, leave the feeders early in the day. They might have gotten enough to eat and needed to find a warm place to hunker down and ride out the inhospitable weather. Some of the nomadic feeder birds might have a considerable distance to travel and require an early start.
“Why do crows flock to cities in the winter?” There is more light, which makes it easier to spot owls, their sworn enemies and proficient predators. Cities are a bit warmer than rural areas. Being in a flock spreads the risk of a crow being picked off by an owl. And there are places where the crows could pick up breakfast on their way out of town.
“I have a neighbor who doesn’t like me feeding the birds. What can I tell him?“ You could tell him that you don’t like the color of his house or the make of his car.
“How did house finches end up in the Midwest?” House finches were originally a bird of the western US and Mexico. In 1940, some house finches were released in Long Island, New York, after failed attempts to sell them as caged birds called “Hollywood finches.” The population became established and spread throughout the country. House finches are about the same size as house sparrows, but more slender. Most adult males are rosy red around the face and upper breast, with a streaky brown back, belly and tail. Adult females aren’t red but are grayish-brown with indistinctly marked faces.

Thanks for stopping by

“Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you.”― Wendell Berry.
“When it comes to life, the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.”— G. K. Chesterton.
Do good.

©️Al Batt 2023

Blue jays frequently mimic the calls of hawks, especially the red-shouldered hawk. This may warn other jays that a hawk is around or deceive other species into believing a hawk is present and eliminate competition at a feeder. Photo by Al Batt.

Snood, wattle, dewlap, caruncles and slicing

NATURALLY


 The owl flew as if its wings were oars, rowing through the air. I watched a fox squirrel carrying an ear of corn excavated from the snow in the middle of what had been a large cornfield. There were no trees and only a few utility poles where a hunting hawk might perch. Not much later, I spotted a red fox carrying what appeared to be a cottontail rabbit. Red and gray foxes are similar in name and appearance. Gray foxes have black-tipped tails and red fox tails are tipped in white. The red fox is an opportunist that eats many other things besides rabbits—rats, mice, ground squirrels, birds, snakes, fish, insects, turtles, frogs, berries, fruits, nuts and seeds. Red foxes hunt primarily at night and hide uneaten food under litter or bury it to be eaten later. 
 I slowed to a crawl as 16 wild turkeys walked or flew in front of my car. They traveled across four lanes of traffic. No turkeys were hit. Jerry Viktora of Ellendale sent me a video of turkeys fighting in January. In the fall, turkeys segregate into groups—young males (jakes) in one group, adult males (toms) in another and the females in a third. Jake groups tend to hang out close to hen flocks. It seems I see more squabbles among the jakes than with the toms or hens. The young birds are trying to find their places in the pecking order. The groups dissolve in the spring. Turkeys survive the winter by feeding on mosses, buds, seeds, fern spores, acorns, scattered corn left after the harvest, seeds beneath birdfeeders and manure piles. Other than an adequate supply of food, they need a safe place to roost in the winter. They try to roost in trees giving thermal protection—pine or oak trees. If they have fed well, they can take the bitter cold. They struggle in deep powdery snow, which makes foraging for food and escaping predators challenging. They can scratch through 6 inches of fluffy snow and a foot of packed snow. When the ground is covered with powdery snow, flocks congregate in stands of pine and other softwoods, trees that hold snow in the canopy, leaving less on the ground for the turkeys to contend with. 
 The snood is the fleshy flap of skin that hangs off a turkey's beak. The wattle is a fleshy flap of skin under the turkey's chin. Some people call it a dewlap. A male turkey has a beard that hangs from its chest. It’s made of coarse, rough feathers. A beard is 3-4 inches long on a young male and can grow 10 inches or longer on a turkey at least 3 years old. A small percentage (10-20%) of female turkeys have beards. Male turkeys have sharp spurs on the back of their legs that they use when fighting with other turkeys. Caruncles are bumpy patches on a turkey's neck. The caruncles may play a role in attracting a mate. 

Q&A

 “How long do red-tailed hawks live?” Red-tailed hawks could hang around for a good spell, but most don’t live long. More than 70% survive until fledging. The survival rates plummet after that. More than half of the young hawks perish during the first year and 20% die each year thereafter, based on banding data. The oldest known wild red-tailed hawk was at least 30 years, 8 months old when it died in Michigan in 2011. It had been banded in that state in 1981. Most live less than two years.
 “I went to a raptor show and the bird handlers were giggling about slicing. I know what slicing is in golf, but what were they talking about?” Slicing is a term used by falconers and other raptor folks to describe the way a hawk defecates. Bird poop is brownish, the white pasty excrement is uric acid, the equivalent to a mammal’s urine. Eating mostly fish results in mostly white droppings because fish can be absorbed almost completely. This leads to whitewashing. Hawks, falcons and eagles forcefully eject their droppings, shooting them away from the nest to keep things sanitary. This process is called slicing. 
 “What kind of insect is a white sock?” It’s another name for the black fly, buffalo gnat or turkey gnat. Black flies develop in rivers and streams, can fly 10 miles away and be carried farther on the wind. Rubbing imitation vanilla extract on the skin repels them for some people.

Thanks for stopping by

 "Our mental life, like a bird's life, seems to be made of an alternation of flights and perchings."—William James.
 “Have I gone mad? I'm afraid so. You're entirely Bonkers. But I will tell you a secret, all the best people are.”―”Alice in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll.
 Do good.

©️Al Batt 2023

The tail feathers of this lovely hen ring-necked pheasant are showing some winter wear. Photo by Al Batt.

What do you do when you’re diagnosed with cancer and lose your dream job? You hit the bottom in a pit with 200,000 snakes, and discover the pit isn’t the bottom but is the peak. Pat maintains the childhood wonder and amazement in our natural world and that made all the difference. As one who has had cancer, I found the book not only interesting, but inspiring.

The birds were moving left to right on my radio dial

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.