My neighbor Crandall stops by.

“How are you doing,” I ask.

“Everything is nearly copacetic. I ran into a cousin that I hadn’t seen for a couple of years. He’d gotten himself a tattoo since the last time I saw him. It read, ‘Sue.’”

“Girlfriend or wife?” I say.

“Neither one. He’s a lawyer. The IRS just garnished his paycheck with pickles and onions. He told me he’s been doing some couch mining.”

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“It means that he’s looking for loose change behind the sofa cushions. I remember the summer I worked for his father in the bakery. My job was to put the raisins into the oatmeal cookies. The cookies were so small that it was like putting a basketball into a thimble. That job made me hungry. One day, I was so famished that I ate all of the raisins. I put watermelon seeds in place of the raisins. My uncle came to check on my work. I told him there was a raisin shortage. I said that I’d replaced the raisins with smart pills. My uncle took a bite of one of the cookies and reckoned that the smart pills tasted a lot like watermelon seeds.”

“What did you say?” I inquire.

“I told him they were definitely smart pills because they’d made him smarter already.”

 

It’s our nature

On Earth Day, I wanted to go to an echo point that would echo my concerns. Where I could proclaim, “Happy Earth Day!” at the top of my lungs.

Work intervened. I took a break from my chores and gleaned trash from a small park. There was more trash than park.

A friend, Karen Wright, of Mankato found a robin that had been ensnared in discarded plastic netting. I’ve seen waterfowl and mammals with their heads stuck in the plastic yokes that corral six packs of beverages.

There is only one place that used plastic should be tossed and that is into a recycling bin.

Picking up bits of trash is a small thing, but it leads to big things. It may save lives.

 

Georgia’s state bird

Bill Seibert of Omaha told me that he and his wife, Sandy, have a saying that indicates good food. “It’s a repeater” means that they will eat it again.

The brown thrasher in my yard is a repeater, not just because it has returned to my yard, but because it repeats itself. Brown thrashers, like catbirds and mockingbirds, are mimics with varied repertoires. The male sings a series of doubled phrases without defined boundaries. Some people describe it as “plant a seed, plant a seed, bury it, bury it, cover it up, cover it up, let it grow, let it grow, pull it up, pull it up, eat it, eat it.” The thrasher gets its name from its habit of thrashing about in leaves while searching for food. Thoreau wrote, “Near at hand, upon the topmost spray of a birch, sings the brown thrasher — or red mavis, as some love to call him — all the morning, glad of your society, that would find out another farmer’s field if yours were not here. While you are planting the seed, he cries — ‘Drop it, drop it — cover it up, cover it up — pull it up, pull it up, pull it up.’”

A friend says that the thrasher is having a phone conversation. “Hello, hello. Who is this? Who is this? How’s that? How’s that? I don’t know, I don’t know. What did you say? What did you say? All right, all right. Goodbye, goodbye.”

John Burroughs wrote about this cinnamon-colored bird, “There is no bird so afraid of being seen, or fonder of being heard.”

 

Q&A

“Do you think the harsh winter had much impact on insect populations?” Probably not. Winter doesn’t have much effect on dormant insects. Insects generally awake when plants break buds. It’s then that bad weather could have an impact.

T.J. Davis asked what bald eagles locking talons signifies. Courting pairs lock talons and whirl, but so do immature eagles and adult eagles that don’t appear to be courting. Perhaps immature eagles lock talons as practice for adult courtship behaviors. Some locking and whirling seems to be antagonistic in nature, while some doesn’t. Only the eagles know which is which.

“What does a robin use to build a nest?” Females press dead grass and twigs into a cup shape. Other materials include paper, feathers, rootlets or moss. She reinforces the nest with soft mud gathered from worm castings to make it sturdy. She lines the nest with fine dry grasses. You could provide short pieces of yarn and string for her.

“Is it possible that I’ve had a swarm of yellow jackets in my garage wall all winter?” No, not a swarm, but possibly a single yellow jacket. Fertilized queens hibernate in locations such as tree stumps, hollow logs, holes in ground, brush and compost piles, tree cavities, firewood piles, attics, crawl spaces and walls. The queen emerges in spring and builds a nest from chewed plant fibers. She lays eggs that hatch and become sterile female workers that expand the nest, hunt for food, and care for the queen who lays eggs all summer. A colony might have 5,000 workers. Adult males and fertile females leave the colony in the fall to mate. The males die after mating and the queens hibernate. The worker wasps perish. Nests may last through winter but aren’t used again.

“I saw a brownish butterfly on a warm day with snow still on the ground. What was it?” A mourning cloak’s dark maroon wings are trimmed in yellow and vivid blue spots. Most butterflies overwinter in immature forms -— eggs, caterpillars or chrysalises. Adult mourning cloaks hibernate in crevices in rocks or trees, under tree bark or in buildings. The mourning cloak produces glycerol that allows it to withstand winter temperatures. The adults feed on tree sap.

 

Thanks for stopping by

“The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment, not the other way around.” — Gaylord Nelson, governor and senator from Wisconsin, leader in launching Earth Day

“The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.” — Marcus Aurelius

 

Do good.

 

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