Nature’s World by Al Batt

My neighbor Crandall stops by.

  “How are you doing?” I ask.

  “Everything is nearly copacetic. I left home around midnight one day last week. I ate a breakfast sandwich in the pickup. I think of it as doing a little croissant training. I visited a cousin who lives in the big city. He went to college for five years just to be stupid. He hung his “Think” sign in the wrong place. We were going deer hunting, so I stopped by early to pick him up. He had a big brass gong and a mallet right in the middle of his apartment. Sometimes things make a lot of sense. This wasn’t one of them. I asked him what the deal was with the giant gong hanging from the ceiling. He told me that it wasn’t a gong. It was a talking clock. I told him that it wasn’t, but he showed me that it was.”

  “How could that be a talking clock?” I ask.

  “My cousin demonstrated how it worked. He picked up the mallet, gave the gong a larruping good lick and stepped back. It wasn’t long before some guy next door pounded on the wall and yelled, ‘Knock it off, you moron! It’s 3:15 in the morning!’”

Naturally

  The gold had been lost. The yellow of the goldfinches had molted into an olive drab color.

  I saw a field mouse on the lawn. My family called them field mice when I was a boy, so I call a meadow vole a field mouse. Many people refer to them as meadow mice. The voles are larger than the deer mice, house mice and white-footed mice that are also commonly seen. Voles have shorter tails than those mice and small ears. They are the “potato chips of the township” as they come in the perfect snackable size for owls, hawks, weasels and other predators. Voles aren’t often found in dwellings. The three mice mentioned earlier are happy to take up residence in a house. The presence of voles isn’t always noticed until the snow melts in late winter or early spring, when their grassy trails are laid bare on lawns and damage to small trees and shrubs done by their chewing becomes evident. Their appetites concern me, but I try to remember that “vole” has all that is needed for “love.”

  I often drive at the wrong times of the day. I’m on the road when the deer are, too. Deer can be veer inspiring, but please don’t veer too much. Ditches and oncoming traffic are too dangerous.

I wrote this last November. This November has been much nicer.

  It was a great stroll, complete with hesitations.

  “Uffda! What a lovely, brisk morning. I don’t see how the weather could be more pleasant.”

  That’s what I said as I walked on a lawn made crunchy by frost. You may have used different words. Perhaps billingsgate (abusive language or scathing profanity). I strolled while dressed appropriately in shorts, flip-flops and parka. I was full of dietary fiber and high hopes.

  It was only November, but the month had tested positive for winter.

Q&A

  “Do slugs hibernate during the winter?” They do and so do snails. Slugs can be active whenever the temperature is above 41 degrees Fahrenheit. Slug eggs can remain dormant in the soil for a few years, hatching when the conditions are right.

  “I heard you say on the radio that some birds acquire their breeding plumages without molting. How is that possible?” The European starling is  dark with light speckles in the fall and winter, and black with iridescent purple and green in the spring and summer. Starlings lose the speckles from their winter plumage, which are the cream-colored tips of feathers and are lost by abrasion. A male house sparrow sports a large black bib that becomes faintly visible during fall and winter when the black feathers are tipped in light gray. As spring and summer approach, the gray tips wear off, revealing the black bib. Female house sparrows prefer males with substantial black bibs.

  “What do crows eat other than roadkill?” Carrion makes up only a small part of their diet. Roadkill isn’t easy pickings. Crow beaks aren’t strong enough to break through the skin of things like squirrels, so they feed on damaged or decomposing carcasses. A crow’s diet varies with habitat. Crows eat grain, fruit, berries, earthworms, mice, fish, crayfish, eggs, nestlings and many other things. Human garbage (meat, grain and vegetables) accounts for much of a crow’s diet.

  “What can you tell me about nutra safflower?” Not much. I’ve never used it in my feeders. Nyjer, an oil seed, has traditionally been the preferred food to place in feeders to attract American goldfinches. Nyjer is imported from India and Ethiopia, where it’s crushed and used for cooking oil. I’ve heard from people that the finches readily feed upon nutra safflower seed, a product grown in this country.

  “I watched a crow perched on a branch on a windy day. How does it keep from blowing away?” Crows are passerines (perching birds) with feet that lock around a perch. It would probably take more energy to let go than to hold on.

Thanks for stopping by

“You can’t have a light without a dark to stick it in.” — Arlo Guthrie

“The U. S. Constitution doesn’t guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself.” — Attributed to Benjamin Franklin, but not found in any of his writings

Do good.

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