Nature’s World by Al Batt

My neighbor Crandall stops by.

“How are you doing?” I ask.

“Everything is nearly copacetic. The first five days after the weekend are the hardest. I named my new dog Ten Miles. That way I can tell everyone that I’ve walked Ten Miles each day. Remember Still Bill’s father that time we were coming home in a blizzard and went into the ditch. We got him out of bed. He pulled us out and towed the car into the ditch across the road so we’d be someone else’s problem. He had a lot more ambition than Still Bill. If it’s a body at rest, it’s probably Still Bill. Still Bill has never set off a motion detector. His eyes don’t even blink at the same time. The only thing he’d get up from his chair for is pool. He shoots a mean game. I thought he was putting in a garden last spring, but it was an in-ground pool table. Still Bill said there are only three kinds of people in this world: those who are good at math and those who aren’t. He isn’t, so he’s going back to school. He’s big enough to go to college and he’s going to night school.”

“Why night school?” I say.

“Because he can get up in time for it.”

 

Nature here and there

Spring has sprung, the grass has riz, I wonder where the birdies is? The little bird is on the wing, but that’s absurd! Because the wing is on the bird!

We are always on just the other side of a seasonal change. The season slides slowly into spring. We are leaving that time of year when there are way more than 50 shades of gray. I watched a red-tailed hawk fly to the ground with talons extended, which resulted in a vole, extinguished. Skunks are where they are and their smell is where they aren’t. For every drop of rain that falls, a dandelion grows.

Wild turkeys had strolled through my yard. They had left gifts for me, tokens of their appreciation. I could tell if the gifts came from a tom or a hen. Male turkey droppings tend to be J-shaped and elongated, while the females leave spiral blobs.

I spoke at some things in the Cajun Coast of Louisiana where the weather is kind enough that hummingbird feeders could be kept up all year. It was late February and early March, so the only warblers I saw were the yellow-rumped warblers that winter there.

One of the most beautiful warblers that is seen there and here is the prothonotary warbler, also called a golden swamp warbler or swamp canary. Prothonotary refers to the clerks in the Roman Catholic Church, whose robes were a bright yellow. Louisiana supports 25 percent of the global breeding population of this bird. The prothonotary warbler, a denizen of wooded swamps, has a rapidly declining population, showing a 40 percent decline since 1966. They are secondary cavity nesters, not making their own cavities, relying on woodpeckers to do that. The prothonotary warbler is one of only two warbler species that nest in cavities. Lucy’s warbler is the other. The prothonotary builds its nest of cypress needles, moss and lichens. The young fledge 11 days after hatching and it’s possible for them to raise two or three broods each year in Louisiana. Prothonotary warblers leave Louisiana by early October and return in late March.

 

Q&A

“How many bald eagles are there in Minnesota?” According to the DNR, bald eagle populations have increased from 181 active nesting territories in 1980 to more than 2,300 nesting pairs today.

“Why do coyotes howl at a train?” It’s a response to environmental triggers, which include provocations such as ambulance, police or fire sirens and train whistles. I had a dog that howled along with a harmonica. Coyotes may be interpreting the sound as a communication that requires a reply.

“How did the flicker get its name?” It is named for its distinctive “flicker” sounding call note. Its Latin name is Colaptes auratus, a golden chiseler. Henry David Thoreau wrote, “The wildest scenes have an air of domesticity and homeliness even to the citizen, and when the flicker’s cackle is heard in the clearing, he is reminded that civilization has wrought little change here.” Alabama is the “yellowhammer state.” The yellowhammer nickname comes from the Civil War, when a group of soldiers from Alabama were called by that name because of the yellow pieces of cloth that adorned their uniforms. These yellow highlights resembled the colorings of a yellow-shafted flicker. One of the University of Alabama’s traditional cheers, Rammer Jammer, references the yellowhammer.

“I heard you mention a migratory mismatch on your radio show. What does that mean?” A migratory or ecological mismatch happens because the dates in which trees flower are somewhat dependent upon weather conditions while the birds, such as warblers, migrate according to day length. Timing matters. Flowers bloom, insects emerge, birds migrate — times are coordinated in order to take advantage of other living things or weather. If food isn’t available, it’s a bad thing for the birds. Increasing research is showing that some of these relationships are falling out of sync as climate change alters the timing of things.

 

Nature lessons

A bar-tailed godwit makes a nonstop flight of 7,000 miles over the Pacific Ocean during its fall migration from Alaska to New Zealand.

The ruby-throated hummingbird migrates across the Gulf of Mexico, a 550-mile, 20-hour journey.

A great blue heron was a good omen to an Iroquois setting off to a hunt. Deceased wisemen were thought to return as herons.

Crows enjoy family life. They can breed at age two, but often stay with their families for up to five years. They help raise younger brothers and sisters while learning from their parents. Later, they may return for visits.

 

Thanks for stopping by

“Wisdom begins in wonder.” — Socrates

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive — to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.” — Marcus Aurelius

 

Do good.

 

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