Enjoying a sunflower seed on ice.

April 4, 2020

Fox Sparrows are ripping up the dance floor of my yard. They bring joy to one deep in self-care.

A showdown at a river nowhere near the O.K. Corral.

The house sparrow is thinking, “Well, here we go again with the April snow.”

April 3, 2020

Maybe the best thing to do is to sleep through an April snow.

“This has got to be the third snow on my tail. Let spring begin.”

Not everyone is happy to see a common grackle. They need to expand their PR department.

March 31, 2020

I’ve learned that no brown-headed cowbird will ever replace a good cow dog.

Could it be? Does this cardinal see spring?

The gold that spring promises is the change in the color of a goldfinch’s plumage.

March 29, 2020

“Look at me,” said the male red-winged blackbird.

A sandhill crane couple goes shopping. Toilet paper is not on their list.

A tufted titmouse spent the winter in my yard. It has left for what I hope are greener pastures. He was good company.

March 28, 2020

Al Batt: How old was the oldest duck you’ve ever seen?

By Al Batt

Email the author

Published 9:00 am Saturday, March 28, 2020

Nature’s World by Al Batt

My neighbor Crandall stops by.

“How are you doing?” I ask.

“Everything is nearly copacetic. I bought a new garden hose. I buy a new one every year.”

“Why do you do that?” I say.

“It’s easier than untangling my old one.”

Naturally

Birds enliven the yard. In early spring, a woodpecker excavates a nest cavity in a dead tree. It knows it has its hole life ahead of it. A number of readers have reported birds fighting with their mirrored images in windows. That’s what happens when they take anger management classes online.

I visited with Ann Wick of Black Earth, Wisconsin, who monitors 150 bluebird boxes and has banded over 12,000 bluebirds in 24 years..

Ken Vail of Illinois, formerly of Owatonna, had a gift for finding snowy owls in southern Minnesota. His obituary said Ken died surrounded by loved ones and birdsong. It added, “He took regular hikes and rarely went anywhere without his binoculars — even the grocery store. As all birders know, one never can tell where the next lifer will appear.”

Charles St. Charles of Michigan wrote, “You say that the black-capped chickadee whistles ‘Fee-bee,’ but I hear something different. Maybe it’s because I cheerfully feed so many of them throughout the year that what I hear is ‘Feed Me.’ The next time you are out talking to the chickadees at your feeder see if they aren’t saying the same thing to you this spring.”

Bonita Underbakke of Lanesboro and Harvey Benson of Harmony gave me a book titled “Bird Count” for my birthday. It tells the tale of a Christmas Bird Count led by Big Al.

Sandhill cranes

I was in Kearney, Nebraska, trying to see all of the 600,000 sandhill cranes gathered along the Platte River. None nest in Nebraska, but some do in Minnesota. How do the big birds find their way to Nebraska each year? They wing it. The Platte River used to be described as being a mile wide and an inch thick, but has changed over time as have many waterways. The voice of a sandhill crane can be heard 2.5 miles away. As they age, cranes turn grayer and bald. The red crown is skin and acquired in its first year. Cranes don’t perch in trees, they dance elegantly year-round, and live 15 to 25 years in the wild. About 50,000 are taken during hunting seasons in various states. A crane cam is at https://rowe.audubon.org/birds/crane-cam

Q&A

“My uncle said pigeons produce milk. Is he nuts?” Male and female pigeons and doves produce crop milk for their young. The crop is a structure at the base of a bird’s neck, which is used to store and moisten food before digestion. Shortly before pigeon eggs hatch, both the parents’ crops become engorged with fluid-filled cells. They regurgitate this milky goop into the mouths of the squabs. This crop milk remains the squabs’ only food for several days after hatching. Crop milk is extremely rich in proteins and fats. Flamingos and emperor penguins also produce crop milk.

“How old was the oldest duck you’ve ever seen?” It’s Donald Duck, who hatched on June 9, 1934 according to Disney. Daffy Duck’s hatch date was April 17, 1937.

The event calendar

Listen for the high-pitched peep of the spring peeper, which has a distinct, dark X on its back and can be heard a mile away, or a long “cree-ee-eek” sound, as if a fingernail was dragged across the teeth of a comb, made by the western chorus frog.
Woodcock males, also called timberdoodles, dance.

Tundra swans migrate through on their way to breeding grounds in the Arctic tundra.

I’ve been reading

This from “Big Wonderful Thing: A History of Texas” by Stephen Harrigan about Texas Governor James Hogg around 1869: “He was in a state of deep despondency until one day, while walking alone in the woods, he heard the song of a mockingbird. He was probably not the first Texan to feel restored to life by the piercing, ricocheting musicality of Mimus polyglottos, no doubt part of the reason it became the Texas state bird. (Although that did not happen until 1927, when the legislature declared with unbothered anthropomorphism that the mockingbird ‘is a singer of distinctive type, a fighter for the protection of his home, falling, if need be, in its defense, like any True Texan.’)”

Thanks for stopping by

“Do something wild today. Look at a bird.” — Al Batt

“When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all.” — Edward O. Wilson

“Eight-year-olds should not be asked to become warriors or worriers. Children have much more important work to do: Watch ants. Grow flowers. Dance between the raindrops. This is sacred work, and childhood needs to be preserved just as much as rain forests and wetlands.” — Michael Weilbacher

Do good.

Al Batt of Hartland is a member of the Albert Lea Audubon Society. Email him at SnoEowl@aol.com.

Pictured are some of the 600,000 sandhill cranes along the Platte River not far from Rowe Sanctuary. - Al Batt/Albert Lea Tribune

The song of the western meadowlark carves through the wind and gladdens the soul.

Looking out the window is worth the effort

March 24, 2020

Looking out the window is worth the effort

Published by rkramer@bluffco... on Mon, 03/23/2020 - 10:22am

By :

AL BATT

I had been looking at some blurry photos of birds perched on clear images of tree branches. I searched my photos for something appropriate for requests from magazines and calendars. I couldn't decide, so I went for a walk to clear my head.

In the ordinary process of noticing nature, I find amazement. Nature offers touchstones that help me navigate my life.

Judging by the tracks in the snow, a raccoon had gotten its steps in during the night. Skunks, raccoons and opossums don't hibernate but hole up in sleeping places in burrows and elsewhere if the weather isn't good for foraging or courting.

Red-winged blackbird males returned to call on territory. "No, you shut up," they yell at the other males.

One crow listened to another whose call sounded important before angry voices welcomed me to the yard. The yard crows were indignant at the discovery of a great horned owl. Crows hate owls because owls love to eat crows. Lorine Niedecker wrote, "A monster owl out on the fence flew away. What is it the sign of?” The sign of an owl.

A pair of compact birds, white-breasted nuthatches, moved up, down, and around a tree. I sometimes call a nuthatch a tree mouse. The male called a "who-who-who-who or what-what-what-what." The active and agile birds often start high in a tree and move down it headfirst, probing into bark crevices for food.

I heard the whinnying call of a downy woodpecker. It's a downy — descending at the end. The rattling call of the similar and larger hairy woodpecker doesn't descend in pitch at the end.

Q&A

"Why do some birds stand on one leg more often than others?" They are more ambitious. They want to get a leg up on the competition.

"Do bald eagles wait until they have laid all their eggs before incubating?" No, incubation begins after the first egg is laid, meaning that in a nest where two eggs hatch, there will be the oldest sibling and the youngest sibling.

"Is it possible to tell male and female robins apart?" It can be difficult to tell them apart but there are subtle differences. Males typically have a darker head (often black) and the female has an overall paler color.

"What kind of a stomach does a bird have?" A typical bird's stomach has two parts. The first has acidic juices that are good at breaking down things like soft-bodied insects, worms, soft fruits, and nectar. The second section is the gizzard, which has powerful muscles that crush and grind hard foods like acorns. The gizzard needs help to do its job. This help comes in the form of grit the bird has swallowed. A bird has a crop. The crop stores food temporarily and initiates the digestion process before food enters the stomach. It's a thin-walled pouch at the base of the esophagus where birds store food before sending it to the stomach.

"Why didn't Ben Franklin want the bald eagle to be this country's national emblem?" Charles Thompson, one of the key designers of the Nation’s symbol, wrote that it was “born on the breast of an American Eagle without any other supporters to denote that the United States of America ought to rely on their own Virtue.” Benjamin Franklin was against the bald eagle being a national emblem. He said the bald eagle was a bird of bad moral character because of its tendency to steal fish from other birds and a rank coward when facing a kingbird.

"How far can a baby wood duck jump from a nest box and survive?" A duckling can take a 65-foot leap of faith, maybe more, and waddle away happily into a new world.

Driving by Bruce's drive

I have a wonderful neighbor, named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me, such as: I experienced the sight of empty toilet paper and bread aisles in a store. I drove north on Winter, a street in Wakefield, Neb. Running low on gas, I turned down the radio. That seemed to help. After fueling to my car's content, I taught a couple of writing classes. Brilliant kids. It was a beautiful spring day. Then a terrible thing happened while I was having lunch. Someone claimed winter was over. "No!" I screamed. "Take it back. Say you were just kidding." It was too late. Within a few hours, we had a winter storm complete with sleet, ice and snow. Most everyone who traveled the same path I had described the weather as crappy. I'm going to get myself a snow globe that after I shake it, a tiny snowplow appears and pushes snow. A van ahead of me dispensed copious amounts of snow from its roof. Vans in snowy areas should have A-frame roofs.

A travelogue

I'm fortunate that work has allowed me to travel to many places on this old world. Like Forrest Gump, I’ve been many places. Traveling is wonderful as long as I have a home to return to. Unmoored traveling isn't for me. I haven't been everywhere, but I've been to Louisiana where I learned to never cook an alligator in a crockpot. And Hungary where a collective noun might be a goulash of Hungarians. I visited Kansas and discovered the poor man's banana tastes like a cross between a banana and a mango. It's a paw paw. In Sacramento, Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill designating lace lichen the California state lichen, making California the first to have a state lichen.

I visited Republican City, Neb., named after the Republican River. Why the Republican name? Jefferson and Madison opposed Hamilton’s Federalists, usually calling themselves Republicans or sometimes Democratic-Republicans. A republican was anyone who believed in government without a king or aristocracy. In the 1780s, the river was known to French traders as “Fourche des Republiques”—the Forks of the Republicans. The Republicans were a band of Pawnees living there at the time and the river was given their name.

Nature notes

Looking out the window is worth the effort. Snow hadn’t been elusive or overwhelming. The DNR says January is our snowiest month on average, followed by December, March, November, February and April. When spring comes, can winter be far behind? We need a change of scenery, but we get an in-between season called sprinter.

I listened to a male cardinal sing his spring song. “What-cheer, cheer, cheer, birdy, birdy, birdy, birdy.” A black-capped chickadee whistled, “Spring’s here,” “Sweet-ie,” “Love you,” or “Fee-bee.” A white-breasted nuthatch celebrated the increasing daylength by giving voice to “Wha-wha-wha.” Blue jays voiced a musical queedle-queedle. Drumming woodpeckers provided a percussive accompaniment.

I heard a house sparrow cheep. I’ve heard them called cheap birds. In India, the Nature Forever Society has tried to rally conservation interest by declaring March 20 World Sparrow Day and naming it the state bird of Delhi. The Society’s president said, “The house sparrow is one bird which is seen by everyone, by kids, by adults, by people from various socioeconomic strata. It is a bird of the common man.” The house sparrow is the default little brown bird we see in parking lots and yards, on street corners and sidewalks, and on farms.

Snow melts first at the foot of the trees because the dark color of trunks absorbs energy from the sun. This heat energy is absorbed by the snow around the base causing it to melt.

Thank you for stopping by

“If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.” ― Vincent Van Gogh

Do good.

AL BATT/BLUFF COUNTRY READER An American tree sparrow perched in a tree. Snowmelt sends them north to the tundra

I spent part of my day peering through red twig dogwood.

It looks like home to this pair of Canada geese.

Things were tough then too

March 22, 2020

**Seen at The Great Platte River Road Archway Monument over Interstate 80 located three miles east of Kearney, Nebraska,**

Travelers left inspiring or warning messages for those who followed.

Sandhill cranes feeding on waste corn (90% of their diet along the Platte River in Nebraska) lift my spirits.

The song of the western meadowlark cuts through the Nebraska wind.

LeMars, Iowa, was declared the Ice Cream Capitol of the World by the Iowa State Legislature in 1994.

Al Batt: Why didn’t Ben Franklin want eagle for U.S. emblem?

March 21, 2020

Al Batt: Why didn’t Ben Franklin want eagle for U.S. emblem?

By Al Batt

Email the author

Published 9:00 am Saturday, March 21, 2020

Nature’s World by Al Batt

My neighbor Crandall stops by.

“How are you doing?” I ask.

“Everything is nearly copacetic. I had a tough year today. I’m going to stop playing cards with Still Bill. It takes him forever to play a hand. That’s no surprise — his shadow runs off and leaves him behind. If Still Bill can’t sleep, it’s because he hadn’t been doing nothing hard enough. But the reason I’m never playing poker with him again is that he cheats.”

“How can you tell?” I say.

“It’s obvious. He never plays any of the cards I’d dealt him.”

Naturally

In the ordinary process of noticing nature, I find amazement. Nature offers touchstones that help me navigate my life.

Judging by the tracks in the snow, a raccoon had gotten its steps in during the night. Skunks, raccoons and opossums don’t hibernate but hole up in sleeping places in burrows and elsewhere if the weather isn’t good for foraging or courting.

Red-winged blackbird males returned to call on territory. “No, you shut up,” they yell at the other males.

Lorine Niedecker wrote, “A monster owl out on the fence flew away. What is it the sign of? The sign of an owl.”

A pair of compact birds, white-breasted nuthatches, moved up, down, and around a tree. I sometimes call a nuthatch a tree mouse. The male called a “who-who-who-who or what-what-what-what.” The active and agile birds often start high in a tree and move down it headfirst, probing into bark crevices for food.

I heard the whinnying call of a downy woodpecker. It’s a downy — descending at the end. The rattling call of the similar and larger hairy woodpecker doesn’t descend in pitch at the end.

Q&A

“Why do some birds stand on one leg more often than others?” They are more ambitious. They want to get a leg up on the competition.

“Do bald eagles wait until they have laid all their eggs before incubating?” No, incubation begins after the first egg is laid. meaning that in a nest where two eggs hatch, there will be the oldest sibling and the youngest sibling.

“Is it possible to tell male and female robins apart?” It can be difficult to tell them apart but there are subtle differences. Males typically have a darker head (often black) and the female has an overall paler color.

“What kind of a stomach does a bird have?” A typical bird’s stomach has two parts. The first has acidic juices that are good at breaking down things like soft-bodied insects, worms, soft fruits, and nectar. The second section is the gizzard, which has powerful muscles that crush and grind hard foods like acorns. The gizzard needs help to do its job. This help comes in the form of grit the bird has swallowed. A bird has a crop. The crop stores food temporarily and initiates the digestion process before food enters the stomach. It’s a thin-walled pouch at the base of the esophagus where birds store food before sending it to the stomach.

“Why didn’t Ben Franklin want the bald eagle to be this country’s national emblem?” Charles Thompson, one of the key designers of the Nation’s symbol, wrote that it was “born on the breast of an American Eagle without any other supporters to denote that the United States of America ought to rely on their own Virtue.” Benjamin Franklin was against the bald eagle being a national emblem. He said the bald eagle was a bird of bad moral character because of its tendency to steal fish from other birds and a rank coward when facing a kingbird.

“How far can a baby wood duck jump from a nest box and survive?” A duckling can take 65-foot leap of faith, maybe more, and waddle away happily into a new world.

Thank you for stopping by

“If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.” — Vincent Van Gogh

“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.”

— Norman Maclean in “A River Runs Through It”

Do good.

Al Batt of Hartland is a member of the Albert Lea Audubon Society. Email him at SnoEowl@aol.com.

Pictured is an American tree sparrow in a tree. Snowmelt sends them north to the tundra. - Al Batt/Albert Lea Tribune

Pictured is a tree mouse. – Al Batt/Albert Lea Tribune

Al Batt: Is there a most recognizable bird in the world? If so, what is it?

March 20, 2020

Al Batt: Is there a most recognizable bird in the world? If so, what is it?

By Al Batt

Email the author

Published 9:00 am Saturday, March 14, 2020

Nature’s World by Al Batt

My neighbor Crandall stops by.

“How are you doing?” I ask.

“I’m a dollar or two ahead, so I put a down payment on a free lunch. I have a weather rock. It’d been infallible. A dry rock means fair weather, a wet rock means it’s raining, a dusty rock means it’s a drought, a swaying rock means it’s windy, a shadow beside the rock means it’s sunny, a white rock means it’s snowing, and if the rock is underwater it’s a flood. It no longer works.”

“How can that be?” I said.

“I didn’t update it to the newest operating system.”

Naturally

The sun’s strength was impressive. It enticed chipmunks from their burrows. The trees were encompassed by dark circles at the base of their trunks. When the sun shines, a tree absorbs more heat than the surrounding snow does because of the tree’s dark-colored bark. The trunk warms and radiates heat, which melts the snow around the foot of the tree. The same thing happens to telephone poles and fence posts. A red-winged blackbird sang “Look at me!” House finches tried to sing in the spring. These lovely singers, called Hollywood finches when they were sold as caged birds, are year-long residents here and provide needed flashes of color. Some of them undergo short-distance migrations south. Purple finches look similar, but are winter guests in southern Minnesota. The red on a male house finch is concentrated on head and breast. The redness of a purple finch male spreads to most of his body.

I strolled about the yard, adding mud to my boots. Long walks and birdwatching are prescribed by doctors to patients in Scotland’s Shetland Islands as part of treatments for chronic illnesses. The National Health Service Shetland rolled out what has been called nature prescriptions to help treat a range of afflictions, including high blood pressure, anxiety and depression. I wonder if I could send a bill to my insurance company for my walking shoes? Probably not.

I hope there will be enough good weather.

Q&A

“How big a territory does a pair of hawks have?” The red-tailed hawk is the hawk we commonly see. They usually hold a nesting territory of 1.5-2.0 square miles, but could be larger if food was scarce.

“What is the most recognizable bird in the world?” I’m speculating wildly, but I’d guess it would be the peacock, the male peafowl.

“What good are prairie dogs?” In addition to providing food and shelter for associated species, prairie dog burrows enrich the soil and improve vegetative quality by aerating the soil and allowing water to flow underground. Prairie dog activities increase and diversify the composition of grasses and forbs within their colonies, creating habitat favored by other wildlife. Their long-term use of a grassland appears to promote short, perennial grasses.

“Do robins mate for life?” I read that Aristotle considered earthworms to be the intestines of the earth. Robins consider them lunch. Robins don’t mate for life. Pairs generally stay together during a breeding season, which can involve two or three nestings. Sometimes the two return to the same territory and end up together for another year. A robin has about a 50% chance of living through a year.

“Are horned larks a sign of spring?” Maybe, sort of. Somewhat. Horned larks commonly winter in southern Minnesota, with lower populations found shivering farther north. The horned larks that migrated south begin returning north in early February through late March. They can be seen feeding along the graveled edges of rural roads. They fly at a vehicle’s approach before landing in a field and disappearing by blending into the ground. Horned larks have a horizontal posture and their song is a high-pitched tinkling. High breeding densities of horned larks are found throughout the heavily cultivated regions of the western and southern parts of the state.

“How much does a chickadee eat each day?” Smaller birds generally need more food relative to their weight than do larger birds. A black-capped chickadee eats 35% of its weight per day. A blue jay eats about 10% and a hummingbird as much as 100% of its weight each day.

Thanks for stopping by

“I can’t imagine a world without koalas, kangaroos, wallabies, dunnarts, black cockatoos … compassion.” — from the comic strip “Mutts” by Patrick McDonnell

“The beauty of the trees, the softness of the air, the fragrance of the grass, they speak to me. The summit of the mountain, the thunder of the sky, the rhythm of the sea, speaks to me. The faintness of the stars, the freshness of the morning, the dewdrop on the flower, speaks to me. The strength of the fire, the taste of the salmon, the trail of the sun, and the life that never goes away, they speak to me. And my heart soars.” — Chief Dan George

Do good.

Al Batt of Hartland is a member of the Albert Lea Audubon Society. Email him at SnoEowl@aol.com.

Pictured is a male house finch. – Al Batt/Albert Lea Tribune

The Hammer family operated Hammer Motel from 1947 to 1987 in Kearney, Nebraska. A smaller replica of the sign was added to the Great Platte River Archway.

March 19, 2020

Al Batt: Things to look for while awaiting spring

March 18, 2020

Al Batt: Things to look for while awaiting spring

Published by rkramer@bluffco... on Mon, 03/09/2020 - 12:52pm

By :

AL BATT

Bluff Country Reader

My neighbor Crandall stops by.

"How are you doing?" I ask.

"Everything is nearly copacetic. I'm still waiting to see if my morning coffee intake uses its powers for good or evil. I used to be married until she got smart and dumped me. We never fought. I guess I did, but she never fought back."

"How did she control her anger?" I say.

"She cleaned the toilet."

"How did that help?" I ask.

"She used my toothbrush."

Naturally

A tufted titmouse, which fortunately for me had decided to spend the winter in our yard, has fit in well. It even participates in the mobbing of accipiters. I listened to it as it joined chickadees, nuthatches, and blue jays in a verbal assault on a raptor. The birds had mob connections. When smaller birds join forces to ward off larger or predatory birds, it’s called mobbing. The sounds call in the cavalry. Tufted titmice produce fussy, scolding call notes and, when predators are spotted, a harsh distress call that warns others of the danger.

A friend sent me a video of a squirrel burying the blueberries she'd tossed outside. The squirrel was burying the berries in the snow. It was caching food in a refrigerator that would melt. Seems to be a foolish endeavor, but who am I to judge the behavior of a squirrel or anyone else?

Q&A

"Do crows migrate?" Some do. American crows are commonly observed during the winter in the southern two-thirds of the state but are rare in the north. You might notice crows carrying sticks and nesting materials at this time of the year.

"Should bluebird nest boxes face a certain direction?" Research done by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology revealed eastern bluebirds will nest in boxes facing in any direction. In Minnesota and other northern states, nest boxes facing in easterly directions fledged more young on average than boxes facing other directions. This suggests a benefit to east-facing boxes at northern latitudes, where night temperatures tend to be colder. This benefit couldn't be detected in the south.

"Why do birds stand on one leg?" A foot tucked into belly feathers reduces the amount of heat a bird loses through unfeathered limbs. A bird sometimes alternates feet to minimize heat loss and conserve energy. A bird might tuck its beak under its shoulder feathers for warmth and to lessen heat loss.

"Are most spruce trees named Bruce?" Yes.

"What percent of a bag of black-oil sunflower seeds is made up of shells?" The hulls make up 35 to 45 percent of the weight.

"Why are they called cedar waxwings?" The elegant birds were named cedar waxwings because of their strong attraction to the red cedar tree (a juniper) with its blue fruits and due to the bright red on the wing feathers that is waxy red secretions.

"Do bluebirds mate for life?" Sialis.org says, "The answer is probably maybe sometimes." Bluebirds form pair-bonds during the breeding season and are generally socially monogamous — a single male and female form a basic social unit. A study of eastern bluebirds indicated about 95 percent of the time, nestings involved one male and one female.

Things to look for and think about while awaiting spring

1. Maple sap flow is triggered by thawing days followed by freezing nights.

2. Chipmunks are out and about.

3. Migrating Canada geese arrive.

4. Marcescent (withered, but persistent) leaves drop from red oak and ironwood trees.

5. Wild turkeys have started their spring courtship with the toms gobbling, flaring tails, and strutting.

6. The bulk of the noisy, male robins tend to follow the 37-degree average daily isotherm as they move northward. There is a wide variation among individuals, but that temperature means food is available. An isotherm is a line drawn on a map linking places having the same temperature. A customer of this column told me when a robin is sighted near a house, it foretells good fortune for the inhabitants of the house. We should all be lucky folks.

7. House finches sing long, jumbled warbling songs of short notes, which often end with an upward or downward slur, as if the bird was either asking a question or had forgotten its song.

8. Our timepieces spring ahead on March 8. Meteorological spring begins on March 1 and astronomical spring starts on March 19.

Driving by Bruce's drive

I have a wonderful neighbor, named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me, such as: It was springlike in the house, but winter was being an unwelcome companion outdoors. An icy driveway brightens my day like a total eclipse. There was so much ice, I considered getting a polar bear. I decided against it as I'd have to build a polar bear house and I doubt I'd get around to finishing it. It's as the sign on the wall of the cafe read: "We never finish anyth."

There isn’t an off-season for family and friends.

I attended a game in which a group of polite hecklers were bothering an opponent shooting a free throw. "It's not just a boulder, it's a rock," they yelled.

Not long after that my granddaughter, Joey Batt, splashed a three-pointer to help Minnesota State win a game and the courtside announcer proclaimed, "A JB3!" Joey was one of five members of the all-freshmen team for the 16-team NSIC.

I paid my respects to a basketball-playing friend not long ago. I did so by bringing a sympathy card that was too big for its envelope, expressing condolences, hugging, and sharing stories about the deceased. Larry Pence of Albert Lea had been my basketball and softball teammate. I watched Larry play basketball in high school. I was a few years younger and was charged with the task of keeping a shot chart. I was given an official school clipboard and an official school pencil. The Coach gave me the usual advice, "You can lead a horse to water but a pencil must be lead." He'd learned a lot from watching Laurel & Hardy films. The shot chart was made up of letter-sized paper displaying an approximation of a basketball court. Anytime a player shot, I'd jot down the player's number on the paper reflecting the spot on the floor where the attempt occurred. If the shot was made, I circled the number. If the shot was missed, no circling was required. I don't know how I got the job. The responsible students must have been out sick. I kidded Larry that I didn't have to sharpen the official school pencil once during his games because I never needed to circle his shots. That was far from the truth. He was a fine player and a fine friend.

Nature notes

The blue jays were talkative. Mark Twain wrote, “You never saw a blue jay get stuck for a word. He is a vocabularized geyser.”

A snowplow grumbled by. It sounded tired. I was happy to see it. February was cold, but its warm sunlight melted snow. It had given itself plenty of snow to melt. “Light tomorrow with today!” said Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Freed from home by the snowplow’s good work, I drove around entertaining my camera. Most of the miles were on rural roads — some gravel and some hard surface. The snow gave a soft wind visibility. I saw more bald eagles than cows. How times have changed. You could say I drove the wrong roads, but it’s what I saw.

I saw a few pheasants. The loss of food due to a persistent cover of snow and/or ice is a killer. Waste grain, an important food source, becomes unavailable under a deep accumulation of snow. I read once that 300 kernels of corn per day maintains a pheasant’s weight. Captive pheasants have been able to survive several weeks without food, but they don’t expend energy avoiding predators and staying warm. A healthy wild pheasant could go three days without food. The annual survival rate of ring-necked pheasants is around 50 percent. Hens are more likely to succumb to starvation than roosters as the females enter winter in poor condition due to the high energy demands of nesting and rearing chicks. Strong winds can sometimes be beneficial to pheasants as they might free feeding areas of snow. Another problem for pheasants is the lack of suitable winter cover.

Meeting adjourned

"Kind words are like honey — sweet to the soul and healthy for the body." — Proverbs

Do good.

AL BATT/BLUFF COUNTRY READER Trumpeter swans in a heated discussion not involving the presidential primary.

Seen at The Archway in Kearney, Nebraska. The pioneers had arduous journeys. And I find a flat tire painful.

Seen at Bethany Lutheran College in Mankato, Minnesota.

Subarus do not come from the factory with bumper stickers on them. It just seems like it.

March 18, 2020

Al Batt: Long walks and birdwatching to enjoy spring-like weather

Published by rkramer@bluffco... on Mon, 03/16/2020 - 1:36pm

By :

AL BATT

My neighbor Crandall stops by.

"How are you doing?" I ask.

"I'm a dollar or two ahead, so I put a down payment on a free lunch. I have a weather rock. It'd been infallible. A dry rock means fair weather, a wet rock means it's raining, a dusty rock means it's a drought, a swaying rock means it's windy, a shadow beside the rock means it's sunny, a white rock means it's snowing, and if the rock is underwater it's a flood. It no longer works."

"How can that be?" I said.

"I didn't update it to the newest operating system."

Naturally

The sun's strength was impressive. It enticed chipmunks from their burrows. The trees were encompassed by dark circles at the base of their trunks. When the sun shines, a tree absorbs more heat than the surrounding snow does because of the tree's dark-colored bark. The trunk warms and radiates heat, which melts the snow around the foot of the tree. The same thing happens to telephone poles and fence posts. A red-winged blackbird sang "Look at me!" House finches tried to sing in the spring. These lovely singers, called Hollywood finches when they were sold as caged birds, are year-long residents here and provide needed flashes of color. Some of them undergo short-distance migrations south. Purple finches look similar but are winter guests in southern Minnesota. The red on a male house finch is concentrated on head and breast. The redness of a purple finch male spreads to most of his body.

I strolled about the yard, adding mud to my boots. Long walks and birdwatching are prescribed by doctors to patients in Scotland's Shetland Islands as part of treatments for chronic illnesses. The National Health Service Shetland rolled out what has been called nature prescriptions to help treat a range of afflictions, including high blood pressure, anxiety and depression. I wonder if I could send a bill to my insurance company for my walking shoes? Probably not.

I hope there will be enough good weather.

Q&A

"How big a territory does a pair of hawks have?" The red-tailed hawk is the hawk we commonly see. They usually hold a nesting territory of 1.5-2.0 square miles, but could be larger if food was scarce.

"What is the most recognizable bird in the world?" I'm speculating wildly, but I'd guess it would be the peacock, the male peafowl.

"What good are prairie dogs?" In addition to providing food and shelter for associated species, prairie dog burrows enrich the soil and improve vegetative quality by aerating the soil and allowing water to flow underground. Prairie dog activities increase and diversify the composition of grasses and forbs within their colonies, creating habitat favored by other wildlife. Their long-term use of a grassland appears to promote short, perennial grasses.

"Do robins mate for life?" I read that Aristotle considered earthworms to be the intestines of the earth. Robins consider them lunch. Robins don't mate for life. Pairs generally stay together during a breeding season, which can involve two or three nestings. Sometimes the two return to the same territory and end up together for another year. A robin has about a 50% chance of living through a year.

"Are horned larks a sign of spring?" Maybe, sort of. Somewhat. Horned larks commonly winter in southern Minnesota, with lower populations found shivering farther north. The horned larks that migrated south begin returning north in early February through late March. They can be seen feeding along the graveled edges of rural roads. They fly at a vehicle's approach before landing in a field and disappearing by blending into the ground. Horned larks have a horizontal posture and their song is a high-pitched tinkling. High breeding densities of horned larks are found throughout the heavily cultivated regions of the western and southern parts of the state.

"How much does a chickadee eat each day?" Smaller birds generally need more food relative to their weight than do larger birds. A black-capped chickadee eats 35% of its weight per day. A blue jay eats about 10% and a hummingbird as much as 100% of its weight each day.

Driving by Bruce's drive

I have a wonderful neighbor, named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me, such as: I had a neighbor named Claude Bias. Claudie, as most called him, was one of those people who not only didn't try to keep up with the Joneses, he was most comfortable lagging far behind them. Claudie didn't have electricity on his farm. He had countless canines instead. He had so many dogs, I feared Claudie would succumb to a Roverdose. He didn't.

The legend of Gene Dodge

I headed down the Hog Highway — I-90. It's used to haul hogs to Hormel or to ride hogs to Sturgis. I was on my way to watch a basketball game in Sioux Falls. I listened to a tournament game on the radio. The skilled announcer painted effective word pictures. He talked of referees working with the official timekeeper to make sure there wasn't a second too many or too few on the clock. Being an official of any kind at an athletic event can be challenging. Fans yell, coaches yell, and a few gifted players might consider themselves above fouling. They don’t realize that a star is nothing but a mass of compressed gas.

You've heard the reports. A coach said something harsh to a referee. The referee responded, "What did you call me?"

The coach replied, "Guess. You've guessed at everything else."

Another coach asked a ref, "Would you call a technical foul on me if I thought you were the world's worst referee?"

The official replied, "Definitely not. I'm no mind reader."

"Good," said the coach, "because I think you are the worst."

I had a coach who offered his eyeglasses to a ref saying, "Here, you need these more than I do."

Gene Dodge was a fine man, proprietor of Dodge's Hardware, and heavily involved in community affairs. He was a responsible, well-mannered citizen, but got his blood up during high school basketball games. He had one-sided, strident discussions with referees he found flawed. The story goes that to curb his badgering of the arbiters of fouls and other violations, the school made him the official timekeeper, a serious position.

It worked well until a game when Gene couldn't take it anymore. A referee had become an example of all that was wrong with the world. After taking a heap of heckling, the frustrated referee said to Gene, "I thought you were supposed to be the timer?"

Without missing a beat, Gene said, "And I thought you were supposed to be a referee."

Thoughts during a timeout

If you want your home to be more wildlife-friendly, leave a door open.

If your cellphone battery lasts a long time, you probably have a life.

The ancient Egyptians worshiped cats. Anyone who has been online knows we do too.

Good moods don't need reasons.

Putting money into a vending machine demonstrates optimism.

Nature notes

Winter isn’t an easy companion. The citizens of the yard stay busy because they need to eat. Goldfinches generally become more common customers at the feeders during the second half of winter, as if inspired by a coach’s halftime talk. Juncos trilled as if it were the next season. Horned larks fed on roadsides. The darling of the yard and my minimum daily bird requirement, a chickadee, sang of spring.

I stumbled outside into a day exactly my size and found an owl pellet. Owls swallow small prey whole. The gizzard is a thick-walled organ that uses digestive fluids and grit to grind and dissolve the usable tissue from the prey. The types of tissue that can be dissolved by an owl's digestive system include muscle, fat, skin and internal organs. Bones, teeth, feathers, fur and insect shells collect in the gizzard. The bird regurgitates the indigestible materials as pellets.

Meeting adjourned

This was part of the obituary for a friend, Jack Moon of Kiester: "In honor of Jack, kiss your sweetheart, hug your kids, entertain your grandchildren, go for a long ride in the country, practice your faith, read a good book, sing a song, volunteer in your community, tell a joke (over and over again), enjoy nature, be a good neighbor and live every day as the blessing it is."

Do good.

AL BATT/BLUFF COUNTRY READER Shown is a purple finch male.

It’s a pleasant walk to and from the blinds in the early morning at the Rowe Sanctuary in Minden, Nebraska. It’s a great spot to see some of the 600,000 sandhill cranes there.

If I’m leading a birding trip, it leads to good food at places like Burchell's White Hill Farmhouse Inn outside Minden, Nebraska.

These were cranes I saw in Nebraska. I don’t believe they were sandhill cranes.

Speakers from a drive-in movie theater as seen at The Archway in Kearney, Nebraska.

Batt: Go outside: don’t tell anyone and don’t bring your phone

March 5, 2020

By :

AL BATT

I went outside to turn over a few rocks. Not literally. As a boy, I'd turn over real rocks. It was amazing what I found under them. Now I think of seeing nature's marvels as turning over rocks.

The house sparrows chirped like 76 trombones. They could see spring from where they were perched. I welcomed the change of sounds. Mary Oliver wrote, "In winter all the singing is in the tops of the trees."

Q&A

"Do pheasants and chickens cross?" Different species of pheasants are known to mate, and there are instances of pheasants and chickens reproducing. About 10% of the 10,000 known bird species have mated with another species.

"What is a cactus buck?" A cactus buck is a deer with an unbalanced testosterone level, which results in velvet persisting on antlers and growing throughout the year.

"Do weasels dance?" There was this kid in junior high who was a definite weasel and he put John Travolta to shame on the dance floor. But I'll bet you're asking about a four-footed animal. Weasels perform a war dance when they’ve cornered prey. They bob and hop in a dance possibly meant to intimidate prey. One theory is the weasel’s twisting and darting about distracts, confuses and/or hypnotizes prey. A research study in the U.K. concluded some rabbits had died of fright after being subjected to the dance. Occasionally, a weasel dances without prey as an audience. Perhaps it's practicing.

"How did the myth of hummingbirds migrating on the backs of geese start?" People have hinted that John James Audubon believed that. I didn't know the man, so I can't say if that's true. It's difficult to understand how such a myth started and why it endures. I've never talked to a single waterfowl hunter who found a hummingbird hitchhiking on a goose. If I were a hummingbird, I'd want a free ride, but it wouldn't work as hummingbirds and geese don't migrate at the same time or to the same places. And geese don't serve meals on their flights. There isn't an overwhelming amount of data about the migration of hummingbirds. I suspect it was because people couldn't get their mind around the fact that such a tiny bird was able to fly such long distances on its own power.

"How do scientists weigh a whale?" At a whale-way station, of course. It's a combination of math, experience and estimation (a good guess). They can use boat slings for live or freshly deceased whales. I walked a beach on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. My walk took me near a beached whale that had a death smell strong enough to gag an entire county. I wouldn't be willing to even guess its weight. Drones are used to photograph the length and width of a whale to determine its volume, which is converted to weight. The blue whale is the largest animal ever known. This marine mammal is up to 100 feet long and weighs as much as 200 tons. Its tongue can weigh as much as an elephant and its heart as much as an automobile.

From the mailbag

Bill Brummond of Truman sent a 1924 Fairmont newspaper clipping stating the Weiderhoft Brothers of Truman had grown an ear of corn with 1514 kernels suitable for seed. Bill added all normal ears have an even number of rows.

You are either into ice fishing or ice evasion

By this time of the winter, the bloom is off the rose. I walked like a penguin on the icy road or like Artie Johnson's character Tyrone, the dirty old man on "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" TV show. Slipping and falling on the ice was funny when we're little, but not funny when we're big. Ice is nice in lemonade, but not nice under shoes without skate blades. The good news is that I'm saving a lot of money on sunscreen.

Thoughts at a stoplight

When I was a youngster, social media was a note passed in class.

If I think someone is being judgmental, am I being judgmental?

Keep your friends close and your lefse closer.

How often do you have to feel your toothbrush because you couldn't remember if you'd brushed your teeth? If you do that often, I've got bad news for you. You're normal.

I used a host's bathroom to wash my hands before dining. Towels were labeled "His" and "Hers." There were ornamental towels that should have carried the message "Don't touch."

Nature notes

Squirrels find food under the snow by smell and memory. Studies suggest that squirrels bury food in a series of locations that help form a cognitive map of storage locations. A study done at the University of Richmond found squirrels recover about 26 percent of the nuts they bury. Squirrels are likely to bury red oak acorns because they are less likely to decay in the ground. Squirrels generally consume acorns of white oaks immediately because they germinate in the fall and as they germinate, grow a thick taproot that squirrels don't like.

Solitary coyotes travel over large areas, up to 60 square miles. Dispersing young coyotes often travel 50 to 100 miles (with up to 400 miles documented) in search of a vacant territory or a mate. Adults could move 10 miles a night throughout their territory.

Thanks for stopping by

“Go outside. Don’t tell anyone and don’t bring your phone. Start walking and keep walking until you no longer know the road like the palm of your hand, because we walk the same roads day in and day out, to the bus and back home and we cease to see. We walk in our sleep and teach our muscles to work without thinking and I dare you to walk where you have not yet walked, and I dare you to notice. Don’t try to get anything out of it, because you won’t. Don’t try to make use of it, because you can’t. And that’s the point. Just walk, see, sit down if you like. And be. Just be, whatever you are with whatever you have, and realize that that is enough to be happy. There’s a whole world out there, right outside your window. You’d be a fool to miss it.” – Charlotte Eriksson

Do good.

PHOTO BY AL BATT American goldfinches are beginning to show more yellow in their feathers.

A blue jay sticking around.photo by Al Batt

Winter weary but hopeful. Photo by Al Batt

AL Batt: How did myth of hummingbirds migrating on backs of geese start?

February 29, 2020

By Al Batt

Albert Lea Tribune

Published 9:00 am Saturday, February 29, 2020

Nature’s World by Al Batt

My neighbor Crandall stops by.

“How are you doing?” I ask.

“Everything is nearly copacetic. I’ll remember your birthday this year because it falls on garbage day. I even went to the Dollar Dump to see if I could find you a birthday present. They had circus peanuts only six years old. I know you don’t like them, so I got you two bags.”

Naturally

I went outside to turn over a few rocks. Not literally. As a boy, I’d turn over real rocks. It was amazing what I found under them. Now I think of seeing nature’s marvels as turning over rocks.

The house sparrows chirped like 76 trombones. They could see spring from where they were perched. I welcomed the change of sounds. Mary Oliver wrote, “In winter all the singing is in the tops of the trees.”

Q&A

“Do pheasants and chickens cross?” Different species of pheasants are known to mate, and there are instances of pheasants and chickens reproducing. About 10% of the 10,000 known bird species have mated with another species.

“What is a cactus buck?” A cactus buck is a deer with an unbalanced testosterone level, which results in velvet persisting on antlers and growing throughout the year.

“Do weasels dance?” There was this kid in junior high who was a definite weasel and he put John Travolta to shame on the dance floor. But I’ll bet you’re asking about a four-footed animal. Weasels perform a war dance when they’ve cornered prey. They bob and hop in a dance possibly meant to intimidate prey. One theory is the weasel’s twisting and darting about distracts, confuses and/or hypnotizes prey. A research study in the U.K. concluded some rabbits had died of fright after being subjected to the dance. Occasionally, a weasel dances without prey as an audience. Perhaps it’s practicing.

“How did the myth of hummingbirds migrating on the backs of geese start?” People have hinted that John James Audubon believed that. I didn’t know the man, so I can’t say if that’s true. It’s difficult to understand how such a myth started and why it endures. I’ve never talked to a single waterfowl hunter who found a hummingbird hitchhiking on a goose. If I were a hummingbird, I’d want a free ride, but it wouldn’t work as hummingbirds and geese don’t migrate at the same time or to the same places. And geese don’t serve meals on their flights. There isn’t an overwhelming amount of data about the migration of hummingbirds. I suspect it was because people couldn’t get their mind around the fact that such a tiny bird was able to fly such long distances on its own power.

“How do scientists weigh a whale?” At a whale-way station, of course. It’s a combination of math, experience and estimation (a good guess). They can use boat slings for live or freshly deceased whales. I walked a beach on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. My walk took me near a beached whale that had a death smell strong enough to gag an entire county. I wouldn’t be willing to even guess its weight. Drones are used to photograph the length and width of a whale to determine its volume, which is converted to weight. The blue whale is the largest animal ever known. This marine mammal is up to 100 feet long and weighs as much as 200 tons. Its tongue can weigh as much as an elephant and its heart as much as an automobile.

From the mailbag

Thanks for stopping by

“Go outside. Don’t tell anyone and don’t bring your phone. Start walking and keep walking until you no longer know the road like the palm of your hand, because we walk the same roads day in and day out, to the bus and back home and we cease to see. We walk in our sleep and teach our muscles to work without thinking and I dare you to walk where you have not yet walked and I dare you to notice. Don’t try to get anything out of it, because you won’t. Don’t try to make use of it, because you can’t. And that’s the point. Just walk, see, sit down if you like. And be. Just be, whatever you are with whatever you have, and realize that that is enough to be happy. There’s a whole world out there, right outside your window. You’d be a fool to miss it.” — Charlotte Eriksson

“I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this.” — Emo Phillips

Do good.

Al Batt of Hartland is a member of the Albert Lea Audubon Society. Email him at SnoEowl@aol.com.

American goldfinches are beginning to show more yellow in their feathers. Photo by Al Batt

Batt: February decided it'd be no more mist and ice guy

February 25, 2020

By :

AL BATT

My neighbor Crandall stops by.

"How are you doing?" I ask.

"Everything is nearly copacetic. All my life I wanted fame and fortune. I've given up on the fortune, but I finally have fame."

"How so?" I say.

"Google Earth has put me on the map."

Naturally

Inspired by The Old Farmer's Almanac saying winter’s back breaks around the middle of February, I trudged outside into the land of Mark Trail. Mark Trail is a newspaper comic strip created by Ed Dodd in 1946, which centers on environmental and ecological themes. The snow was deep as February had decided it'd be no more mist and ice guy. The trees appeared solemn in the storm. When the sun arrived the next day, each tree had a single follower, its shadow.

I love what is near. I treasure the familiar. I don't wonder where my sense of wonder went. I carry it with me. The jays cried "Here, here, here" and nuthatches traveled briskly up and down the trunk of a tree. I found enchantment in a pair of cardinals. Their name comes from the red plumage resembling the robes of the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church. The word comes from the Latin cardo, meaning pertaining to a hinge. Things with cardinal qualities are principal, chief or essential.

A reader reported a barred owl perched on a shepherd's hook in the yard and wondered why it was there. Barred owls eat many kinds of small animals, including a winter menu of squirrels, mice, voles, rabbits and birds. They hunt by perching on an elevated perch and using their sharp senses to scan for prey. They'll also perch near water and drop down to catch fish. Barred owls swallow small prey whole and large prey in pieces, typically eating the head first and then the body. They occasionally store prey temporarily in a nest, on a branch, or on a snag to eat later.

I walked past an old Toyota Tercel in town. A tiercel or tercel is the male of any of the raptors used in falconry. It caused me to think of other old cars carrying bird names. Ford Thunderbird, Ford Falcon, AMC Eagle, Buick Skylark, Pontiac Firebird, and Plymouth Roadrunner.

Dorothy Nielsen of Albert Lea spotted seven trumpeter swans in February. Swans nested not far from Dorothy's home. Swans were once hunted for their meat, skins and feathers. By the 1880s, trumpeter swans disappeared from Minnesota and by the 1930s, only 69 trumpeter swans remained in the lower 48 states (in Montana). The DNR Nongame Wildlife Program released 21 swans in 1987 near the Tamarac National Wildlife Refuge in Becker County. One of the most beautiful sights I've seen in Alaska, a place filled with beautiful sights, was a pair of swans flying soundlessly through a mist over the Chilkat River. The white plumage in the haze and against the blurred mountains was breathtaking.

Q&A

Vern and Kay Rasmussen of Albert Lea asked where cardinals roost. They prefer thickets and evergreens for roosting. Dense shrubbery and brush, and tangles of grapevines, honeysuckle and cedar are ideal

"Is rhubarb native to Minnesota?" Rhubarb is from Central Asia. Records date back to 2700 BC in China where rhubarb was cultivated for medicinal purposes. Marco Polo found rhubarb on his travels to China in 1271. Pie plant came to America when a Maine gardener obtained seed or rootstock from Europe in 1790-1800. He introduced it to growers. It became popular and by 1822 it was sold in markets.

"What bird migrates the farthest?" The Arctic tern, a 4-ounce bird, follows meandering, round-trip routes between Greenland and Antarctica each year, racking up 44,000 to 59,650 frequent flier miles. This tern lives up to 30 years,

"What owls are seen at the Sax-Zim Bog?" The Bog, three hours north of Minneapolis, 50 minutes from Duluth, and 40 minutes from Hibbing, has a bird list of 240 species. Possibilities are great gray, northern hawk, great horned, snowy, barred, long-eared, short-eared, boreal, and northern saw-whet owl. The species vary from common to uncommon to rare. A barn owl was seen at the Bog this year, where there are 30 to 40 days a year of below zero temperatures.

Things Mark Trail wants you to see

1. Goldfinches have been shopping for yellow feathers.

2. Shrews make small tunnels into the snow beneath bird feeders.

3. Weeping willows are a golden-yellow.

4. Pussy willow catkins are early signs of spring.

5. In German: "Der Spatz in der Hand ist besser als die Taube auf dem Dach." That means, "The sparrow in the hand is better than the dove on the roof."

Driving by Bruce's drive

I have a wonderful neighbor, named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me, such as: I used my pen to fill in all the capital O’s and zeroes on the papers in front of me as I sat at a desk waiting for a phone call from a radio station. I typically limit my filling to those two things. It’s not a compulsion, it’s just a thing I do.

I'd gotten to the hotel in Lincoln somewhere between late night and early morning. Getting to my room, I discovered the TV was on and there was no remote control. I checked the TV and found no on/off switch. I went back downstairs to the desk clerk. He gave me the remote from the lobby TV. It worked on mine.

Commercials with a little football mixed in

A friend of mine has a radio show. Dennis Green, who was the coach of the Minnesota Vikings at the time, was her guest. My friend, not knowing much about sports, asked Green to sign her Homer Hankie, which promoted the Minnesota Twins. He did.

A guy asked how I liked the Super Bowl. He bushwhacked me because he didn't say anything about the weather first. Common etiquette says you should never ask a man a question until you've mentioned the weather. I was stumped for an answer and said, "I took the good and left the rest."

I didn't watch the Super Bowl. I loved playing football but watching can be a challenge for me – especially an NFL game. The Super Bowl runs four hours with 15 minutes of action.

I realize people watch the Super Bowl for reasons other than football. There are parties, betting, music and ads. I saw some of the commercials. Some were funny. I like the movie "Groundhog Day," so I enjoyed the commercial featuring it. Some ads encouraged me to make poor food decisions and others urged me to buy a new vehicle to make friends, family and strangers envious. I'll try to eat healthy while driving a car no one notices.

I enjoy reading George Will who wrote, "Football combines two of the worst things about American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings."

I have people I know and people I love who are athletes. None of them are in the NFL, but I'll watch them instead.

There are two sides to every argument and thousands are online

I used to stop at a Minneapolis cafe and order pancakes. They had a good rating from the Batter Business Bureau, but I came to watch a gifted guy flip the pancakes. I read a newspaper while eating.

A relative gets his news from social media. I tried that one day and now believe in 29 conspiracy theories and am certain the earth is flat. I learned what kind of doughnut I'd be and received more bad advice than a dozen ex-brothers-in-law could give. I discovered there is regular crazy and then there is online crazy. The internet gave my brain a painful twist. There were many sick and tired people commenting on the news. That noted philosopher, Will Ferrell said, "Sleep is so cute when it tries to compete with the internet."

Bill Nye the Science Guy said, "The information you get from social media is not a substitute for academic discipline at all." Everybody knows that. Or do we?

Nature notes

There are winter days when it seems as if everything I'm even remotely interested in had been canceled due to weather. That’s when nature and its great cavalry of things come to the rescue. I watched rabbits dancing by the light of the moon. Red osier dogwood and willows showed color as if they'd been tanning.

February is National Bird Feeding Month. Feeders attract many species of birds, each an unexcelled beauty. American tree sparrows fed under the feeders. Poorly named, this sparrow nests on or near the ground. Woodpeckers drummed on resonant wood, making Pinocchio nervous.

Red squirrels moved through shallow tunnels in the deep snow. Traffic backed up. One squirrel peeked out of a hole, checking for those on its enemies’ list, when another squirrel goosed it from behind. The lead squirrel shot from the subway as if it were a miniature rocket launched from Cape Canaveral.

Thanks for stopping by

"All my life through, the new sights of Nature made me rejoice like a child." – Marie Curie

"Hate is a dead thing. Who of you would be a tomb?" — Kahlil Gibran

Do good.

PHOTO BY AL BATT The bill of the starling is beginning to turn yellow – a sign of lengthening days.

It was a pleasant pheasant day. Photo by Al Batt

Al Batt: The different owls that can be found at Sax-Zim Bog in Minnesota

February 23, 2020

Al Batt: The different owls that can be found at Sax-Zim Bog in Minnesota

By Al Batt

Published 9:00 am Saturday, February 22, 2020

Nature’s World by Al Batt

My neighbor Crandall stops by.

“How are you doing?” I ask.

“Everything is nearly copacetic. All my life I wanted fame and fortune. I’ve given up on the fortune, but I finally have fame.”

“How so?” I say.

“Google Earth has put me on the map.”

Naturally

Inspired by the “Old Farmer’s Almanac” saying winter’s back breaks around the middle of February, I trudged outside into the land of “Mark Trail.”

“Mark Trail” is a newspaper comic strip created by Ed Dodd in 1946, which centers on environmental and ecological themes. The snow was deep as February had decided it’d be no more mist and ice guy. The trees appeared solemn in the storm. When the sun arrived the next day, each tree had a single follower, its shadow.

I love what is near. I treasure the familiar. I don’t wonder where my sense of wonder went. I carry it with me. The jays cried “Here, here, here” and nuthatches traveled briskly up and down the trunk of a tree. I found enchantment in a pair of cardinals. Their name comes from the red plumage resembling the robes of the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church. The word comes from the Latin cardo, meaning pertaining to a hinge. Things with cardinal qualities are principal, chief or essential.

A reader reported a barred owl perched on a shepherd’s hook in the yard and wondered why it was there. Barred owls eat many kinds of small animals, including a winter menu of squirrels, mice, voles, rabbits and birds. They hunt by perching on an elevated perch and using their sharp senses to scan for prey. They’ll also perch near water and drop down to catch fish. Barred owls swallow small prey whole and large prey in pieces, typically eating the head first and then the body. They occasionally store prey temporarily in a nest, on a branch, or on a snag to eat later.

Dorothy Nielsen of Albert Lea spotted seven trumpeter swans in February. Swans nested not far from Dorothy’s home. Swans were once hunted for their meat, skins and feathers. By the 1880s, trumpeter swans disappeared from Minnesota and by the 1930s, only 69 trumpeter swans remained in the lower 48 states — in Montana. The DNR Nongame Wildlife Program released 21 swans in 1987 near the Tamarac National Wildlife Refuge in Becker County. One of the most beautiful sights I’ve seen in Alaska, a place filled with beautiful sights, was a pair of swans flying soundlessly through a mist over the Chilkat River. The white plumage in the haze and against the blurred mountains was breathtaking.

Q&A

“Is rhubarb native to Minnesota?” Rhubarb is from Central Asia. Records date back to 2700 BC in China where rhubarb was cultivated for medicinal purposes. Marco Polo found rhubarb on his travels to China in 1271. Pie plant came to America when a Maine gardener obtained seed or rootstock from Europe in 1790-1800. He introduced it to growers. It became popular and by 1822 it was sold in markets.

“What bird migrates the farthest?” The Arctic tern, a 4-ounce bird, follows meandering, round-trip routes between Greenland and Antarctica each year, racking up 44,000 to 59,650 frequent flier miles. This tern lives up to 30 years.

“What owls are seen at the Sax-Zim Bog?” The Bog, three hours north of Minneapolis, 50 minutes from Duluth, and 40 minutes from Hibbing, has a bird list of 240 species. Possibilities are great gray, northern hawk, great horned, snowy, barred, long-eared, short-eared, boreal, and northern saw-whet owl. The species vary from common to uncommon to rare. A barn owl was seen at the Bog this year, where there are 30 to 40 days a year of below zero temperatures.

Things ‘Mark Trail’ wants you to see:

1. Goldfinches have been shopping for yellow feathers.

2. Shrews make small tunnels into the snow beneath bird feeders.

3. Weeping willows are a golden-yellow.

4. Pussy willow catkins are early signs of spring.

5. In German: “Der Spatz in der Hand ist besser als die Taube auf dem Dach.” That means, “The sparrow in the hand is better than the dove on the roof.”

Thanks for stopping by

“All my life through, the new sights of Nature made me rejoice like a child.” — Marie Curie

“Hate is a dead thing. Who of you would be a tomb?” — Kahlil Gibran

Do good.

Al Batt of Hartland is a member of the Albert Lea Audubon Society. Email him at SnoEowl@aol.com.

The bill of the starling is turning yellow — a sign of lengthening days. – Al Batt/Albert Lea Tribune

A Black Crowned Crane leaving the beauty shop.

February 19, 2020

Al Batt: ‘Critter-sizing’ on a quiet afternoon

February 17, 2020

By :

AL BATT

My neighbor Crandall stops by.

"How are you doing?" I ask.

"Everything is nearly copacetic. I'm still getting all my table utensils at Wendy's. The whole political scene thing is something. I haven't seen such a ruckus since Hiram sat on the gopher trap down at the hardware store. I never talk politics with friends because most of them are morons. I'm thinking of taking up running, but I pulled a hamstring just thinking about it. I haven't done that since I ran cross-country in high school. I should have started with a smaller country."

Nature by the yard

It was calm and quiet. There was no eerie groaning caused by the rubbing of one tree or branch against another in winter's bluster. I might have been able to hear a squirrel breathing had I listened hard enough. Squirrels carried on their ancient business. I'm not prone to criticizing. I'm into critter-sizing. I have three species of tree squirrels in the yard – red, fox and gray. The red is the smallest and the fox the largest. As you have already deduced, the gray squirrel is the middleweight entry of the three.

The quiet was disrupted by the sound of a murder of crows feeding on a raccoon carcass. It wasn't death most fowl. It was death by Kia. Folktale says that crows gather to decide the capital fate of another crow. Crows are scavengers, but the term "murder of crows" reflects a time when collective nouns of animals had colorful and poetic names.

A deer or white-footed mouse ran across the snow. I'm surprised it wasn't in someone's house. Their presence is pervasive. They become squatters to find shelter from the elements.

I shoveled snow and considered how parts of Minnesota are blessed or cursed by more or less snow. According to Current Results, which uses weather data collected by the NOAA National Climatic Data Center, Albert Lea receives 37.8 inches of snow each year, Mankato 38.6, Brainerd 46.8, Rochester 51.9, Minneapolis 54, International Falls 71, and Duluth 86.1 inches of annual snowfall.

Indoors, while searching for something else, I came across some seed packets. I wondered if the seeds were still viable. Seed viability varies depending on the plant and how they were stored. They should be stored in well-sealed, watertight containers in cool (50 degrees), dark locations. I could conduct a ragdoll test. The ragdoll is a rolled tube of a moistened paper towel containing the seeds to be checked for germination, placed in a plastic bag, and stored in a warm place for several days. I'd assess the number of seeds germinating over the next few days. If the rate was less than 75 percent, I'd be better off buying new seeds. If the rate was between 75-90 percent, I'd use them but plant more seeds per planting.

Q&A

"How good is a turkey's eyesight?" Wild turkeys have excellent vision during daylight hours. Turkeys see color, have a wide field of vision, and generally, their eyesight is about three times better than ours. You might not see them, but they see you.

"How many kernels on an ear of corn?" The number of kernels per ear of field corn can vary from 500 to 1,200. A typical ear has about 800 kernels. Much of the field corn plants are bred to develop just one large ear. This approach usually yields better production. A bushel of shelled corn weighs 56 pounds.

"Why do dogs turn in circles before lying down?" Robert Benchley observed: "A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down." I've been told that it's an act of self-preservation in that a dog may innately know it needs to position itself to check for threats and to ward off possible attacks. Others have told me wolves sleep with their noses to the wind so they could detect a threatening scent and circle to determine wind direction. Still others think circling is done to roust vermin or to discover any stones or prickly vegetation that might prove uncomfortable. I think the theory that is most credible is dogs are creating a nest for themselves by trampling down grass or perceived grass before settling down for a nap.

Keep an eye and an ear out for

1. Starling bills are dark in winter but begin to turn yellow as the breeding season approaches. They are changing now.

2. House finches singing their exuberant, tumbling song.

3. Cardinals whistling "what-cheer" in honor of a town in Iowa.

4. Wild turkeys gobbling.

5. Red-tailed hawks perching close to one another. This is a sign of Valentine's Day.

Thanks for stopping by

“The point of life is to help others through it” – Peter Matthiessen, "In Paradise"

"The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work." – Robert Frost

Do good.

PHOTO BY AL BATT Why the red-bellied woodpecker is called a red-bellied woodpecker.

The snow shovel was hoping for a day off.

Al Batt: Widdershins is my default direction

February 11, 2020

By :

AL BATT

My neighbor Crandall stops by.

"How are you doing?" I ask.

"Everything is nearly copacetic. I'm already suffering from election fatigue. I've stopped watching reality TV shows. Who needs more reality?"

"Philip K. Dick said, 'Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.'" I add.

"Boy, you slobbered a bibful there. I had a tough day yesterday. I'd gotten the feeling that nobody loved me and the whole world hated me. Then I realized that couldn't be true. There are many people who don't even know me."

Naturally

White-tailed deer change from grazers to browsers in winter.

There were pheasants under the feeders in my yard. It’s a place where I can’t imagine them wanting to be. I saw a hen and a rooster walking through the snow together. It warmed me on a cold day.

Red foxes stay warm with their thick winter coats. An adult rarely retreats to a den in winter, but curls into a ball in the open, using its bushy tail to wrap around its nose and footpads instead. I've looked through spotting scopes and seen foxes nearly blanketed in snow.

The river was open but wrinkled in the wind. I watched a hawk perched in a cottonwood. The hawk had quite a slice and it wasn't anywhere near a golf course. In falconry, a slice is when a hawk propels its droppings out and away from a nest or perch. A bigger bird, like a bald eagle, can add serious velocity to that action. Falconers refer to hawk droppings as mutes. For some reason, I thought of a line from a book I'd read, “The hawk was everything I wanted to be: solitary, self-possessed, free from grief, and numb to the hurts of human life.” I'm guessing Helen Macdonald wasn't thinking about slicing when she wrote that part of her delightful book, "H is for Hawk."

I squinted to see the rabbit on the moon. The man on the moon is a myth. The moon looked yellow, silver or white, but was likely gray in color.

Q&A

"Do carpenter ants eat wood?" No. Termites do. Carpenter ants nest in weakened wood.

"What is the difference between a bird's song and its call?" Songs and calls are the cellphones of the avian world. A bird's song is generally related to mating. Birds may sing to attract mates, claim territory or for pair-bonding. Songs are often sung repeatedly. A call is more flexible in usage. Many calls are short notes or phrases that birds use to convey alarm, provide identification or maintain contact. The dapper black-capped chickadee's "chick-a-dee-dee" call can be used to communicate danger, with research suggesting the number of dee notes increase in proportion to the perceived threat. A chickadee is as good a ventriloquist as Jeff Dunham, so it could be hard to place when it vocalizes without moving its lips.

"Squirrels aggravate me. I wish I could appreciate them more." Your wish is granted, and you still have two wishes remaining. Here are five reasons to treasure squirrels: They eat some insects, they plant trees, they are accomplished acrobats, they run down trees headfirst, and they speak highly of you.

"I like my window feeder, but how do I get the suction cups to stick?" Wash the window, wash the feeder, and place the suction cups in hot water for a few minutes to make the cups pliable. After you've dried the suction cups, apply a little vegetable oil on each cup and then wipe lightly before applying the feeder to a window that has been warmed by the sun or a hair dryer. Don't fill the feeder until you're sure it's securely held in place.

"Do polar bears hibernate?" They definitely don't in Minnesota. The farthest south that polar bears live all year is James Bay, Canada. In winter, polar bears move as far south as Newfoundland and the northern Bering Sea. Pregnant females dig a den in the snow, give birth, and emerge three months later. Females can go up to eight months without eating, but they don’t hibernate in the strictest sense. Adult males and non-pregnant females don’t hibernate or go into torpor.

Echoes from the Loafers' Club Meeting

I got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.

I suppose that put you in a foul mood?

Not until I walked face-first into that wall.

Driving by Bruce's drive

I have a wonderful neighbor, named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me, such as: Far from home, I pulled into a convenience store for fuel. The pump had a TV showing the news. I appreciate a break from the world's problems and loud commercials while pumping gas, so I pushed the mute button repeatedly, but the talking heads refused to stifle. I got my fill of the news long before my car's tank was filled with gas. Not much later, I wiped road salt off my bunion Buicks – my shoes. I had the time to do that because my hotel room wasn't ready yet because it wasn't my room yet. If it had been my room, I'd have had it ready for me.

The delay caused me to dig out a pen and a receipt. If I don't have a notebook, I write things on newspapers, napkins, bookmarks, receipts, and anything else I can scribble upon. I'm a chronic note taker. I write things down. I'm not about to spend my time trying to remember things. I've got better things to do. Things like trying to remember what I wrote on and where I put it.

The sports report

There were 1,100 people at the basketball game. The $5 entrance fee allowed each to become the world's greatest referee.

I walked at halftime, trying hard to stay out of the way of those headed to the concession stand for grub. I aim to walk counterclockwise unless signage says otherwise. Widdershins is my default direction. Widdershins means in a contrary or counterclockwise direction. I try to put on a certain number of steps every day. That number is both too many and not enough. Some days it's more of a challenge than on others. When I was in grade school, I could put on 10,000 steps per day just by walking to the front of the classroom to spit forbidden gum into the wastebasket.

I heard a sports guy on the radio report a heart-wrenching injury during an athletic endeavor. His sidekick said he saw the game and agreed it was heart-wrenching. I shuddered at the thought of a player's ticker being wrenched. It turned out that a knee had been damaged. I shuddered again. I'm sure heart-wrenching has found its way into some dictionaries, but the image of someone using a crescent wrench on a heart is disturbing. Gut-wrenching might be what they meant. Guts do twist, both literally and figuratively. Perhaps they were aiming for heart-rending, which means causing great sadness or distress.

In local news

A 100-year-old man sets off alarm when he tries to leave the historical museum.

Local cheese store owner believes in the Loch Ness Muenster.

Store welcomes its one-millionth annoyed customer.

Local man to marry Rose Thorn after finding a Rose among the Thorns.

Man sells his house for more than his asking price. He was ecstatic, but his landlord was furious.

Nature notes

“Is wild asparagus a real thing?” In the 1960s, Euell Gibbons wrote a book about eating wild edibles titled, "Stalking the Wild Asparagus." I enjoy asparagus. One of my father’s favorite dishes was creamed asparagus on toast. I enjoy asparagus pickles. Our asparagus patch was treated with reverence. It seemed as if everyone grew asparagus. The wild plant we commonly see along roadsides is the same species as tame asparagus – Asparagus officinalis. Wild asparagus produces without human assistance or manipulation. Asparagus plants are insect pollinated and its seeds are spread by birds, allowing domesticated crops to escape into the wild.

“What is Smokey the Bear’s middle name?” The.

“What causes deer to drop their antlers?” Diminishing daylight and falling hormones after the breeding season initiate the antler-weakening process. Testosterone controls the antler cycle, but production of testosterone and the annual antler cycle is ultimately controlled by photoperiod. Large-antlered older bucks typically shed their antlers earlier than young bucks with small-antlers. Weakened bucks may shed earlier than those in better physical condition. Genetics has some effect on the time of shedding.

Meeting adjourned

"There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it." — Edith Wharton.

The black-capped chickadee’s song is a whistled “fee-bee.”

Batt: Scoping out birds in the winter months

February 3, 2020

By :

AL BATT

My neighbor Crandall stops by.

"How are you doing?" I ask.

"Everything is nearly copacetic. I've come to the realization that the only way I'm ever going to get my name in the lights is by changing it to ‘Exit.’ It was so cold that I cracked a tooth. Frozen coffee on-a-stick was a bad idea. I put my sweatshirt on backwards this morning, and I've spent all day going where I'd just been. I've started calling my bathroom the gym. That way I can tell my doctor that I go to the gym every day. I just learned that I'm colorblind. That diagnosis came right out of the yellow."

Naturally

I wanted to go for a walk, but I didn't want to bother the rooster and hen pheasants foraging under the feeders. They were pleasant pheasants. When they finished breakfast, I became an errant exerciser. Gretel Ehrlich said, "Walking is also an ambulation of mind."

I heard a red-bellied woodpecker call. It sounded peeved. And why not? It had to deal with winter. A chickadee sounded off, it's "fee-bee" song triggered by hormones. A downy woodpecker drummed along, hoping to establish a territory. The days grow longer at both ends. That should excite everyone.

People have reported high numbers of blue jays. There was a good mast crop this year in most places. That means there were plenty of acorns for eating and caching. Jays and crows know far more than they let on. A reader from Mora has a varied thrush in the backyard and a column customer in Mankato is being visited by a Carolina wren.

I saw a fox squirrel clutching an ear of corn on a “No Passing” sign. A nice find for the squirrel, which jumped down and ran across the snow. Then it suddenly disappeared into the deep snow like Wile E. Coyote running off a cliff.

I peered through my binoculars at a perched bald eagle. It was a young bird. For some reason, I focused on its bill. It was dark. It was a bi-colored beak that immature bald eagles have. This beak is a dark, blue-black and lighter in color nearer the eye. As juveniles mature, the beak color gets lighter from the base outward, gradually becoming the light yellow of an adult. Northern eagles are generally larger than their southern brethren. There’s a biological rule of thumb called Bergmann’s Rule which states that, within a species, individuals living in colder climates have larger body sizes than those in warmer climates. Bergmann found large animals have a lower surface-area-to-volume ratio, so they lose heat more slowly in cold climates. Small animals have a higher surface-to-volume ratio and cool off faster when it’s hot.

From the mailbag

Brian Schofield of Fairmont wrote, "I have seen oddities that nature presents to us: a whitetail doe with antlers, a two-headed painted turtle, but what I have been seeing the last week is something I haven't even heard about before: a ringneck pheasant hen with wattles. For the past week this hen has been haunting our bird and squirrel feeders gleaning scraps that have fallen to the ground. This little hen has provided us hours of entertainment and we have supplemented her foraging with shelled corn to assist her survival through the winter."

I've not seen a hen like that, Brian, but some older females or those with damaged ovaries may assume rooster-like characteristics. I found this in The Condor from 1961: "Intersexes (gynandromorphs) were birds with supposed abnormal chromosomal complements which had mixed male and female feathers, and sex-inverts were birds undergoing change from one sex to the other — usually female to male."

Q&A

"If birds don't like milo, why is it in seed mixes?" Milo (sorghum) is used in livestock feed, ethanol production and as feed for birds. Generally, birds don't eat it. According to the trade group Wild Bird Feeding Industry, economy mixed seed mixes, which usually include milo, account for a third of the market. Single-seed products, such as sunflower seeds, make up 26 percent. If birds refuse to eat it and it's nothing more than wasteful filler, why milo? Two words. It's cheap.

"Why don't I ever see an owl in a tree?" It's because they are good at hiding. They excel at blending in and remaining motionless. I typically see them after outraged crows have found them.

"Why were my bird feeders quiet for part of the winter?" The winter was well-behaved for a time. Birds forage elsewhere when winter weather is mild with little snow or ice covering natural foods. Birds need fewer calories during warmer weather to maintain body temperatures.

Echoes from the Loafers' Club Meeting

I went to a movie yesterday that made me cry.

A really sad film, eh?

No, really high-priced popcorn.

Driving by Bruce's drive

I have a wonderful neighbor, named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me, such as: I donned warm clothes and comfortable shoes, and I went walking on a nice day for winter. I returned to the house with thoughts of taking a shower before hitting the road. The shower held a new bar of soap with its brand name etched deep into its flesh. Fresh out of the wrapper and mighty nice.

A friend experienced being an owner of cows calving in January during a storm. It wasn't epic, but it was a storm, nonetheless. He ventured out into the great outdoors to be of help where he could. There was a problem and he needed to carry a calf to the warmth and safety of a barn. The world holds countless people who have never had that experience. I'm not one of those. I recall similar happenings from my cattle-filled past with a smile and a shudder. I now limit my calving adventures to watching glaciers perform in Alaska.

My friend didn't need to summon a veterinarian but told me a story about a guy we both used to know, named Irving. Irving had a sick cow. He called the veterinarian who came to the farm and treated the cow. The cow died. Not long after that, Irving received the vet's bill in the mail. Irving paid it, but sent a note along with his check reading, "If I call you again, don't come."

Nature notes

I drove down the highway, looking at the road and glancing at raptors. Red-tailed hawks patrolled highway margins. When snow covers much raptor hunting grounds, highways provide prime places to pursue prey like voles. At the edge of town there was a highway turkey. A wild turkey standing nonchalantly in the middle of the road as cars went by on both sides of the big bird. It was obviously a turkey with street smarts.

This is a list of athletic teams nicknamed for plants or parts of plants but is by no means complete. The one I'm most familiar with is the Blooming Prairie Awesome Blossoms. Others include: Ohio State Buckeyes, Toronto Maple Leafs, Moorhead Spuds, Indiana State Sycamores, The Roses (an English rugby team), Scottsdale Community College Fighting Artichokes, Delta State Fighting Okra, and the Cedar Rapids Kernels (minor league baseball team). Another minor league baseball squad was the Visalia Oaks, which changed their nickname to Rawhide.

Thanks for stopping by

"If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments." – Earl Wilson

Do good.