Once upon a time, I led a nature walk for kids beyond herding to a state park. Scarlet Tanager males were more numerous than untied shoes. I relish those glorious memories.
Nyjer seeds are tiny. It takes a few birds to find one.
A Tree Swallow considers getting a slingshot.
Work had piled high, so I was late getting out for my hike today. A cardinal helped me put one foot in front of another by offering an encouraging “Boogity, boogity, boogity.”
A firefly (lightning bug) taking the time to recharge its batteries.
A Ruby-throated Hummingbird checked out the grape jelly feeder aimed for orioles, catbirds, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, etc.
This leaf is looking old around the ages.
The larval host for the Red Admiral butterfly is the nettle.
The nickname for the Rose-breasted Grosbeak is the rose-breasted grosbeak.
Is “007” the collective noun for goldfinches?
Yellow bill and black eyes. It’s not me glaring at an ancient invoice. It’s a Barred Owl.
Purple Coneflower or Echinacea from the Latin echinus, “hedgehog.”
Butterfly Weed, unlike many of the other milkweed species, doesn’t have milky-sapped stems.
An Eastern Kingbird in front of a green screen that is a pond.
Mallard may mean wild drake or duck and derive from Old French malart or Medieval Latin mallardus or Latin masculus (male), but this is a Mallard hen.
By Al Batt
For the Birds in The Caledonia Argus
Echoes from the Loafers’ Club Meeting
I set a record time for jogging last week.
Nice going.
Yup, it took me less than a minute to decide I wasn’t going to jog anymore.
Old Sears years
In visiting with Bob Hargis of Riverton, WY, he mentioned a J.C. Higgins bicycle. I remember drooling over one owned by a kid I knew.
Sears was known for Kenmore appliances, Craftsman tools, Allstate insurance, DieHard batteries, David Bradley lawn equipment, Christmas Wish Books (catalogs) and J.C. Higgins sporting goods.
John Higgins started as the manager of the company’s bookkeeping office and retired as company comptroller in 1930. He didn’t have a middle initial, Sears added the “C.”
The J.C. Higgins trademark covered baseball gloves, baseballs, footballs, basketballs, volleyballs, boxing, fishing, boating, tennis and camping equipment, luggage and bicycles.
The J.C. Higgins name disappeared after Sears introduced the Ted Williams brand of sporting and recreation goods in 1961. I never got one of those bikes. My niece got a riding vacuum cleaner instead.
Who was that masked man?
It was hotter than a burning stump. I had to wear sunglasses as I walked to the meeting. The heat brings out men’s legs. Shorts uncover legs white enough to be used as light sources.
The meeting at the Courthouse was about the Coronavirus Relief Fund. It was an interesting session on funds available to small businesses.
It was good being in the company of others, even if social distancing placed the nearest individual to me a quarter of mile away. We were required to wear masks. It was a wise thing to do for others, like driving on the right side of the road. Plus, it saved having to shave.
Nature notes
I walked while having a heated argument with the temperature and inciting conflict with biting insects. I visited with a cellphone caller who’d asked what it had been like to appear on Ron Schara’s “Minnesota Bound” TV show. I was about to give an answer when an unseen skunk held me smellbound. A skunk is an amazing anti-air freshener.
I watched soaring turkey vultures. A vulture’s heart rate when soaring is about the same as it is when the bird is sleeping. A half-dozen angry red-winged blackbirds hammered on a Cooper’s hawk. There was no movie on that flight.
Earwigs star in folklore claiming they will crawl into your ear and lay eggs. They don’t. Earwigs eat pests like aphids, mites and nematodes. They will chew on ornamental and vegetable plants, particularly dahlias, zinnias, hollyhocks, lettuce, strawberries, potatoes, roses, beans, beets and the silk of sweet corn. They’re preyed upon by tachinid flies, centipedes, toads and some birds.
Lightning bugs continue to flash when a thunderstorm is producing lightning. Fireflies don’t fear flashy competition.
Naturally
A black-throated brown strutted past. It was a male house sparrow.
Six young house wren siblings were crammed into a small house; not one had its own room or cellphone.
Goldfinch males flew overhead in undulating flights while calling “potato chip.” In 1947 and again in 1949, the goldfinch was proposed to the state legislature for consideration as the official state bird. Other proposed state birds during the 1940s and 1950s included the wood duck, scarlet tanager, mourning dove and pileated woodpecker.
I listened to purple martins that migrate to Brazil – traveling more than 9,000 - 10,000 miles round-trip.
I pulled some persistent bittersweet nightshade, but had to stop before the job was completed because a catbird let me know there was a nest in the jumble of vegetation.
Catbirds usually build nests on horizontal branches hidden at the center of dense shrubs, small trees or vines. Nests are typically around 4 feet off the ground, but may be as high as 60 feet.
Females build the nests, which take 5-6 days to build. The final product is a bulky, open cup made of twigs, straw, bark, mud and sometimes trash. It has a finely woven inner lining of grass, hair, rootlets and pine needles.
Sap beetles, also known as picnic beetles, have become a nuisance in the garden and on my hummingbird feeders. Picnic beetle adults are about 1/4-inch long and are black with four orange-rust spots on the wing covers.
They can injure fruits and vegetables, but are more common on fruits and vegetables that have been damaged or infected with a disease.
A raccoon kit grabbed a couple of fireflies out of the air with its paws and snapped another from the air in one bite. It ate them with relish. Or it may have been with onions. I’ve read many mammals find fireflies distasteful, but not this young’un.
Pandemic birding
Try identifying 12 (a dandy dozen) birds from the windows of your home. Then use each bird name in a sentence before identifying a 13th. You’ll discover that most birds are weatherman handsome.
Q&A
“What color of flowers do bees like best?” Scientists have found the he most likely colors to attract bees are purple, violet and blue.
“Where could I see the most hummingbirds?” Colombia has 144 species and Ecuador hosts 132-134.
“Where do crows nest?” Crows typically nest in a crotch near the trunk of a tree or on a horizontal branch, generally towards the top third or quarter of a tree. They seem to prefer to nest in evergreens. A nest is usually about 1.5 feet across and 8-12 inches deep. The life of a typical nest is about 10 weeks (1-2.5 weeks building, 6 days egg-laying, 20 days incubating and 4 weeks of nestlings). The nests are well-made structures largely made of twigs and can remain intact for years. Occasionally a pair repairs and reuses an old nest or builds a new nest on top of an existing one.
Thanks for stopping by
“Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air and you.” — Langston Hughes
Do good.
Meeting adjourned
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” — Anne Frank. Be kind.
© Al Batt 2020
A gray catbird is both gray and a catbird. It meows like the average cat wishes it could.
Photo by Al Batt
I love gardening. What’s not to love? I get to listen to Nat King Kale, Frank Cilantro, and best of all, the Song Sparrow.
A female Indigo Bunting, a male Indigo Bunting and a stick.
A pair of Red-headed Woodpeckers is called a “nice.” Or, at least, it might woulda had oughta.
We’ve all had those days when it’s difficult to get our heads on straight. Red-winged Blackbird.
What is yellow, weighs 4000 pounds and sings? A two-ton American Goldfinch.
A goldfinch couple on a dinner date.
An Eastern Chipmunk describing the cherry tomato that got away.
The Brown Thrasher pair goes shopping. The male often repeats what he says just as I do.
I didn’t think it was possible to take a bad photo of five Indigo Buntings, but I managed to do it. It didn’t help that they insisted on social distancing.
I’ve been spending so much time decompressing in nature, I’ve gone from being 6-foot-4 to standing 5-foot-4.
Canada Thistle is nest-building material for the American Goldfinch.
Virginia Creeper leaves showing evidence of stress by turning red. When I was a dear boy, it was called five-fingered ivy because of the five leaflets and to help differentiate it from poison ivy and its warning, “Leaves of three, let them be!”
A Blue Jay sunbathing in front of a window in dire need of cleaning.
Roses are red. Violets are blue. But not as blue as this bird.
There’s gold in them thar trees! American Goldfinch.
A Blue Jay works for peanuts.
A young Baltimore Oriole contemplates the vastness of the universe. Or maybe not.
Some of these Purple Martins are out of their gourds.
The dude abides. A fox squirrel at one with an avocado.
My wife feeds an avocado to a hand-reared fox squirrel.
This Snow Bunting photo from February takes the mind off the heat.
My people aren’t always good with hot weather, so we build big fans outdoors.
The pencil points to toad poop. American Toads are incredible creatures in other ways, too.
By Al Batt for the Caledonia Argus
For the Birds
Echoes from the Loafers’ Club Meeting
When I was a kid, there were always a couple of never-going-to-run-again junker cars in our yard.
Did that bother you?
You bet. Most of the neighbors had twice as many.
Driving by Bruce’s drive
I have a wonderful neighbor, named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me, such as: When I was a dear boy, parents told their children, “I told you to go before we left home, but go if you can’t wait. But don’t touch anything.”
It took strength, courage and a flashlight to use a gas station bathroom in those dark days. They were grotesque things with overflowing toilets, locked doors to keep in the overpowering smell and a key attached to an anvil the size of a Gopher linebacker. It was impossible not to touch something.
My father drove up to visit me when I lived in Minneapolis — once. He was just as proud of how few miles he had on a car as he was of how many one carried. He was more attuned to driving on gravel roads than in the big city.
He told me that traffic had been backed up for miles and every car was honking. I learned later that all those vehicles had been behind him. He was a stranger in a strange land.
Thoughts while trying not to touch my face
Why does patience take so long?
“There are a lot of weird people here,” thinks everyone shopping in a store.
A clean desk is a sign of full desk drawers.
Nature notes
A deer’s coat provides thermoregulation and camouflage. Summer coats are reddish and thin, allowing deer to cope with heat stress. Hormonal changes turn that coat into a two-layered, faded gray or brown winter coat with hollow and stiff, outer guard hairs. The inner layer is soft and dense, equipping the animal with insulation. Coat color tends to be darker in forested areas and lighter in agricultural lands.
“You carrot chompin’, flop-eared, bob-tailed rabbit! I hope your innards turn to outards and your ears go visey-versey! I hates rabbits!” Yosemite Sam said that. I wonder if he had a garden? I don’t hate them, but I yell at the rabbits. I’m unable to wave them away.
Milkweed and wild parsnip bloom. Wild parsnip was brought to North America by European settlers and grown as a root vegetable.
It escaped from cultivation and is now common throughout the U.S. It grows 4-6 feet tall with compound leaves arranged in pairs, with sharply toothed leaflets that are shaped like mittens. Yellowish green flowers form umbrella-shaped clusters.
Umbels are 2-6 inches wide and contain many small, five-petaled flowers that bloom from June through August. Wild parsnip is highly invasive and replaces native plant habitat. Its sap contains toxic chemicals activated by sunlight and can cause serious burns and blisters to skin after contact.
A catbird tossed out a bunch of random notes it had slapped together. It sounded as if the bird had a good attitude. Red-winged blackbirds, song sparrows, indigo buntings, red-eyed vireos (singing “Here I am, where are you?” repeatedly) and common yellowthroats all still sing. The yellowthroat’s is a galloping tune and I heard a bobolink sounding like R2-D2 over-caffeinated. Birdsong is a sign of normalcy.
If I’d have named the characters on “Gunsmoke,” Marshal Dillon would have been Marshal Peregrine, Miss Kitty would have been called Miss Daylily (I’m not sure why), and Festus would have been Festus.
Ask Al
“What is a large flock of crows called?” Velcrows. They stick together.
“What do you call someone who has lived in your small hometown for 50 years?” A tourist.
“What bird puts in the longest days?” The cuckoo. It works around the clock.
In local news
The mystery book section disappeared from library. Police have no leads.
Grilled chicken admits to crime.
The Lazy Man’s Gym specializes in the diddlysquat.
Man surprised to learn that he’s color blind. The diagnosis came like a bolt out of the yellow.
Q&A
“My grandmother told me peonies need ants to bloom. True?” That’s an oft-repeated myth. The relationship between peonies and ants is a type of mutualism in which peony flowers provide food for ants and in turn, ants protect the plants from harmful insects. Peony nectaries secrete nectar composed of sugars, amino acids, lipids, and other organic compounds that are a food source for ants.
“How many bald eagles live a year?” The first year of a fledged eagle’s life is perilous with the mortality rate of eaglets during that period being over 50%.
“How do ants find food?” A scout ant searches for food by walking randomly until it finds some. It takes a tiny piece of the eats back to the nest, leaving a trail of a scent-emanating pheromones for other ants to follow.
I wonder
Most injuries in the home happen in the bathroom. Would we be safer in an outhouse?
Why are bad commercials the most memorable?
When did we start pulling pork apart?
Thanks for stopping by
“I meant to do my work today — but a brown bird sang in the apple tree and a butterfly flitted across the field, and all the leaves were calling me.” – Richard Le Gallienne
“If ant hills are high in July, the coming winter will be hard.” – Proverb
Meeting adjourned
If you can count your blessings, you are blessed. Be kind.
Do good.
© Al Batt 2020
Great crested flycatcher Photo by Al Batt
Fort Benton, Montana, commemorates the dog who four times a day for 5.5 years returned to the train station where he’d witnessed his master’s casket being carried away. He waited for the man’s return. I spent a long time here. Waiting.
Our new lawn mower — a Canada Goose.
Mallard drakes have yellow bills. Hens and juveniles sport orange-and-brown bills.
I nearly have my ducks in a row.
All birds are great. This one is a Great Egret.
And change your oil regularly and floss daily. You’ll get by.
There is always an eyewitness. In this case, it’s a Red-tailed Hawk.
I spotted this in the Michigan’s UP. It was incredibly accurate.
This replica of a Bald Eagle nest, 12 feet tall and 8.5 feet wide, is at a Lorain County Metro Park by the Carlisle Raptor Center in LaGrange, Ohio.
This gray treefrog is pretending it’s a green treefrog. It found my forefinger a comfortable perch.
Daisies seem happy to see everyone.
Japanese Beetles team up on a rose. I hand-picked on the flower’s behalf.
The Great Golden Digger Wasp. Its name says it all, other than it paralyzes grasshoppers, crickets and katydids for larval food.
I’ve been to Primghar, Iowa, but not this year.
A bouquet grows.
The Japanese Beetle and I aren’t pals. The adult beetle feeds on more than 300 species of plants.
The Yellow-headed Blackbird is a stunning mustard head.
This bird on the wire is a Dickcissel. It sings “dick-dick-cissel” repeatedly.
A raven expresses a worry that it might be too cool for the rest of the world.
The raven resembles some of those who have given themselves haircuts.
“Which one of us was supposed to bring the napkins?” said one Baltimore Oriole to another.
A Tree Swallow egg gone bad in a deserted nest.
The food is never fast enough for everyone.
When I was a dear boy, I called the Painted Lady a “thistle butterfly.” Thistles are host plants for the caterpillars.
The Red Admiral butterfly feeds on tree sap, rotting fruit and bird droppings. Its caterpillar eats nettles. This makes them nearly impossible to cook for.
A mother is a mother. Rose-breasted Grosbeaks.
One flower is smiling. I think the other one is laughing.
An Ebony Jewelwing — a deluxe damselfly.
This is a spokesmodel for the raccoon mentioned here. A kit grabbed a couple of fireflies out of the air with its paws and snapped another from the air in one bite. It ate them with relish. Or it may have been onions. I've read many mammals find fireflies distasteful, but not this young'un.
A young robin dipping a toe in the water of being a flyer. OK, it’s dipping toes in that water.
It was a dark and stormy night — wind and 1.1” rain. It wasn’t really night. It was a dark and stormy late afternoon. Then the day took a deep breath and looked like this. It had been a towering storm.
A White-breasted Nuthatch checks under the hood of a bird feeder.
By Al Batt
For the Birds in the Caledonia Argus
Echoes from the Loafers’ Club Zoom Meeting
I was having a great day until it happened.
What happened?
My good luck horseshoe fell and hit me on the head.
Driving by Bruce’s drive
I have a wonderful neighbor, named Bruce. Whenever I pass his drive, thoughts occur to me, such as: My wife gave me some smoked almonds, books and two underarm deodorants for Father’s Day — Old Spice original scent and Dove Clean Comfort. I had eight of those deodorants before the recent gifts, not counting the seven I’d shared with family members. All of the deodorants had been gifts from my bride. I’ve gotten the hint.
From one clinic to another
People wandered by. Fancy footwork was required to keep a social distance from other patients. I was at a big clinic, one of my regular haunts. Someone asked me, “What do you wear to an enema?” No one admitted to having had chicken soup or milk toast. A doctor threatened to give me an apple to keep me away. I was poked and prodded.
In the oncology department, I saw a guy wearing a “Repaired in Rochester” T-shirt. I have one of those. I met friends there. I’m always happy to see them, but wish it were elsewhere. They were in good spirits, which was uplifting.
I had a dental visit a few days later. I had to do that in person, too. My dentist doesn’t do Zoom appointments.
Nature notes
I saw fledged starlings, pale brown to the point of appearing gray. I think starlings are beautiful. An eye can find beauty in most things. I visited with Lyanda Lynn Haupt, author of “Mozart’s Starling.” Her book explores the remarkable bond between bird and human. Lyanda has a pet starling, just as Mozart did. Lyanda’s bird is named Carmen, from the Latin word for song. Starlings are amazing mimics.
Stable flies attacked my ankles. They look like small house flies and have bayonet-like mouthparts used to pierce skin and suck blood. They’re sometimes called dog flies because of an appetite for canine blood. Their bites (both sexes bite) cause cattle to stamp their feet. Stable flies breed in moist, decaying organic matter.
The Minnesota goodbye
An Irish goodbye refers to a person ducking out of a social gathering (Remember social gatherings?) without bidding farewell. A Minnesota goodbye is different. Once I decide to leave, I visit for an hour before walking to the front door, where we talk forever before walking and talking to my car where my hosts talk to me through my car window for another hour. When I do finally drive off, I yell goodbye to my hosts who shout in return, “Come back when you can. Watch for deer.”
Naturally
The signs spoke of rain. If birds fly low, then rain we shall know. The local atmosphere had sprung a leak. I moved under a large tree in an attempt to stay dry. I shifted slowly around the trunk as the rain tracked my current location. The mosquitoes were tolerable.
A red-eyed vireo sang incessantly. In 1952, Louise de Kiriline Lawrence counted the number of songs sung by a single red-eyed vireo on territory north of Toronto. He sang 22,197 songs in 14 hours. The “preacher bird” either repeatedly asks and answers its own question, counts the leaves, or says “look-up, over-here, see-me, up-here.”
A red-bellied woodpecker fed on a feeder. The first confirmed sighting of this species in Minnesota was in the late 1800s.
A Eurasian collared-dove fed below the feeder. This dove was introduced to the Bahamas in the 1970s, made its way to Florida by the 1980s, and then rapidly colonized most of North America. It has prominent white patches on the tail, dark-tipped wings, a black collar at the nape of the neck, and is chunkier than a mourning dove. The collared-dove’s mournful koo-KOO-kook call is shorter and more frequent than the mourning dove’s. The Eurasian collared-dove’s species name, decaocto, comes from Greek mythology. Decaocto was a servant girl transformed into a dove by the gods to escape her unhappy treatment. They like millet. Studies on interactions between collared-doves and other species haven’t yet shown a negative impact on populations of mourning doves.
Baby robins were on the lawn. Females build the nests and incubate the three to five eggs for 12-14 days. The male has no brood patch. The nestling stage is 13 days and they’re able to fly in 14-16 days.
They have two or three broods each year. They typically build a new nest, but if the first nest was successful, she’ll often build a new floor for that nest to raise another brood.
Q&A
“What do hummingbirds feed their young?” Tiny insects and spiders. They also feed nectar and pollen to the young birds.
“When can I expect to see baby mud turtles?” Painted turtles begin laying eggs in late May into early July. The eggs hatch in 72-80 days (late August into September). Some of the hatchlings overwinter in the nest and emerge next spring. Studies have shown that about 80% of the nests are destroyed by predation and only 5% of turtle eggs hatch.
“I saw a great blue heron kill and eat a chipmunk. Is this common?” I’ve seen them eat chipmunks, pocket gophers and a young muskrat. Their diet could be described as “varied.” An interesting aside on that heron, when one catches its limit of fish, it has to stand on one leg. It’s a requirement of its fishing license.
“How many birds are there in Minnesota?” There are 313 regular species, those seen here 9 out of 10 years. Around 240 species nest here and the total number of species documented in the state is 446.
Thanks for stopping by
“Just as it is important to listen to one another, it is important to listen to the birds.” — Al Batt
“99 percent of all statistics only tell 49 percent of the story.” — Ron DeLegge II
“All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.” — Blaise Pascal
Meeting adjourned
“Peace begins with a smile.” —Mother Teresa. Be kind.
Do good.
©Al Batt 2020
The American Goldfinches love this feeder with its limited seating when the special is a mix of nyjer, sunflower chips and millet. Bon appetit.