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

My neighbor Crandall stops by.

“How are you doing?” I ask.

“Everything is nearly copacetic. I ate grits for the first time yesterday. I didn’t know if I’d like them, so I had just one grit.

The weather has been like that experienced by the weatherman Phil Connors in the movie “Groundhog Day.” It’s the same every day. Cold! I can get by on four hours of sleep a night during the winter, as long as I get a six-hour nap during the day.”

All wings considered

The morning arrived on time. I stepped outside in an attempt to grok the day.

I spotted tiny visitors, common redpolls. Some common redpolls tunnel into snow to stay warm at night. They are able to survive temperatures of 65 degrees below zero.

It reminded me of listening to the whistling of pine grosbeaks in Alaska that had inspired me to travel to the Yukon to see other birds. I sat in the car as the Canadian border officer checked me out. I hoped that my path might cross those of goshawks and ptarmigans. Near the building from which the officer emerged was a flock of pine siskins. They are birds I see here, but they were every bit as worth seeing as a goshawk or ptarmigan.

Seeing ptarmigans later brought to mind the community of Chicken, Alaska, population of somewhere between seven and 50. In the 1800s, miners found an area near the South Fork of the 40-Mile River abundant in ptarmigan, now Alaska’s state bird, which bears a resemblance to a chicken. In 1902, that city was incorporating. The name Ptarmigan was suggested. The problem was that the founders weren’t sure as to the correct spelling. They settled on Chicken.

It had been ridiculously cold. On this day, it was just normally cold. I found solace in that. Some call it a cold snap because when it gets so cold, you snap. Phaethon, the son of Helios (the sun god) in Greek mythology, borrowed his father’s chariot and nearly set the earth on fire by approaching too close to it. Zeus averted the catastrophe by striking him down with a thunderbolt.

I watched chickadees. It’s hard not to. Chickadees do things adorably. A pair of downy woodpeckers visited the suet. Our smallest woodpecker is found in every state except Hawaii. The male has the red color and the female wears only black and white feathers. The female searches for food on large limbs and trunks of trees. The male works the smaller branches.

Q&A

“Why do some birds that should migrate spend the winter here?” It’s because they want their youngsters to see snow.

“Do chickadees roost with other chickadees in the winter?” No matter how cold it gets, chickadees generally sleep in their own individual cavities.

“How good is an owl’s hearing?” When I was a boy, I was told that an owl could hear a mouse hiccup in a haystack. I’ve read that a perched great gray owl can locate a vole 60 feet away under 18 inches of snow. I’m not sure what study discovered that, but accurate or not, an owl’s hearing is sharp.

“How much does a deer have to eat in the winter?” It would depend upon the size of the animal, how much body fat the deer had managed to accumulate (abundant acorns are good for this) and the severity of the winter. Extreme cold and deep snow create hardships. Look for deer activity on south-facing slopes and in conifer stands that shield deer from winds and snow. I’d suspect a deer would need 3 to 10 pounds of winter browse per day to stay warm.

“How do birds deal with cold weather?” The birds that winter here hunker down and deal with the conditions. They eat a lot. Food is fuel for the furnace. They fluff their feathers to increase insulation and stay out of the wind. Some roost in cavities, others in dense foliage.

Albert Lea Christmas Bird Count

This CBC produced 37 species on Jan. 1. The five most numerous birds in descending order were: Dark-eyed Junco, American tree sparrow, rock pigeon, Canada goose and American crow. Gadwall, northern pintail, green-winged teal, Cooper’s hawk, Eurasian collared-dove, northern shrike, common grackle, red-winged blackbird, red-breasted nuthatch and red crossbill were among the birds counted. More pheasants were seen than turkeys. As a lifelong resident of this area, I am still amazingly happy with the number of bald eagles seen. It wasn’t that long ago when we saw none here.

Thanks for

stopping by

“Every species is a magic well.” — E.O. Wilson

“It’s always the simple that produces the marvelous.“ — Amelia Barr

Do good.