By Al Batt, Nature’s Way

My neighbor Crandall stops by.

&8220;How are you doing?&8221; I ask.

&8220;I tore something trying to turn off the alarm clock the other morning. This is the greatest nation in the country, so I decided to better myself by doing some regular exercising.&8221;

&8220;You?&8221; I say. &8220;You cramp up while watching a marathon.&8221;

&8220;Ha! You have a constipation of thoughts and a diarrhea of words. I&8217;m on a fitness kick. I said &8220;sit-up&8221; 20 times before breakfast this morning. I&8217;ll have you know that my record is 34 pushups. I could have done more if the ice cream man would have taken a check.&8221;

&8220;You might consider dieting along with your exercise regime. I know that your idea of a diet is to take the wrapper off the candy bar before you eat it,&8221; I say.

&8220;Clever. Be sure to greet all your fellow residents in Moronville for me. You know I believe in always putting off until tomorrow something I could do today. Then when tomorrow comes, I hold out for more time. I believe in pacing myself. Despite that belief, I have taken employment.&8221;

&8220;That surprises me. I thought you told me that all the rocket scientist jobs were taken?&8221; I ask.

&8220;I got a job doing a deer census. I go doe to doe.&8221;

The birds

A friend named Dave Clausen lives in Amery, Wis. Dave is a well-respected veterinarian, but once upon a time, Dave was a (shudder) teenager.

In 1963, Alfred Hitchcock made a move titled &8220;The Birds.&8221; One of the stars was Tippi Hedren, from New Ulm. Being a bird lover, I was not taken with the movie that told the story of a wealthy San Francisco playgirl who pursued a potential boyfriend to a small northern California town. The story took a turn for the bizarre when birds of all kinds suddenly began to attack people in increasing numbers and with escalating viciousness. The film scared enough people that it was nominated for an Academy Award. Those were gentler times when we were more easily frightened.

Back to Dave. Dave and a buddy decided to hypnotize four pigeons. I can hear them now, &8220;We&8217;ll hypnotize four pigeons and tomorrow the world will be ours! Ha, ha, ha, ha!&8221;

If only they would have used their powers for good.

They hypnotized the four birds. I&8217;m not sure how. Perhaps it&8217;s the avian equivalent of cow tipping. They likely held a pigeon down gently on its back. Then Dave moved a finger back and forth in front of the bird&8217;s beak from its tip to a point about four inches from the beak, keeping the finger in a line parallel to the beak. The result was four mesmerized pigeons.

The boys placed the four hypnotized birds into the pockets of their letter jackets and went to the movie.

As they watched the film, they waited until the scariest part of the movie &8212; the part where the frenzied birds really attacked.

The boys removed the four pigeons from their pockets and released them in that crowded movie theater.

Oh, the humanity!

Blizzard

The first time the word &8220;blizzard&8221; was used to describe a snowstorm was in 1870 in the &8220;Northern Vindicator,&8221; a newspaper in Estherville, Iowa. A local character named Lightnin&8217; Ellis coined the term, which rapidly spread around Iowa and then throughout the U.S. Davy Crockett had used &8220;blizzard&8221; in the 1830s to mean a blast from a musket, a cannon shot, or a verbal outburst, and the term was probably used even earlier. The use of &8220;blizzard&8221; to describe a violent storm was a logical extension.

Rabbit boxing

Tom Jessen told me he saw two rabbits facing each other. They would box and then one would take a run at the other, and at the last moment, the other leaped into the air allowing the first one to run below. Tom said this was only the second time he&8217;d ever witnessed the &8220;Rabbit Dance.&8221; Even though these are rabbits, similar behavior in hares is likely where the phrase &8220;Mad as a March Hare&8221; came from. Hares have long been thought to behave excitedly in March. Lewis Carroll used the phrase in print in &8220;Alice in Wonderland.&8221;

The main courtship behavior of male hares during the entire breeding period (many months) is chasing females and then boxing with them. Behavior in March is no different from most other months.

Of course, the rabbits&8217; behavior only appears strange to us &8212; we can only imagine how our human courtship rituals appear to a rabbit. In any case, March Hares cannot be entirely bonkers because every summer brings a new crop of baby hares. Cottontails if chased, usually circle within their territory. They can run up to 18 mph and leap up to 15 feet. Eastern Cottontails are not fond of water, but can swim if necessary. The cottontail&8217;s eyes are set high on its head and each eye can move more than half a circle. This gives the cottontail a 360-degree field of view. This full circle of vision helps the rabbit spot overhead predators such as hawks and owls. A female born in early spring may breed when only three months old. Because cottontails have many predators, only about 1 percent of all rabbits reach 2 years of age.

Snow rage

Officials in eastern Canada attributed a higher frequency of angry behavior from citizens to &8220;snow rage.&8221; The area had one of its snowiest winters in years. Neighbors complained about others shoveling snow onto their properties and snowplow drivers piling snow onto residential property. Police reported an increase in complaint calls.

I recently smelled the scent of skunk in the air. Is it a case of spring rage?

The bluebird man

I listened to a friend, Keith Radel of Faribault, talk about bluebirds, If bluebirds could vote, Keith would be our next governor. Keith had this to say.

What is important is what is in the box. Place bluebird boxes where they are easy to access. There are five species of birds that will nest in a bluebird box: bluebirds, tree swallows, chickadees, house wrens and house sparrows. Place your boxes where house sparrows are not. In Minnesota, bluebirds typically have two hatches. North of Minneapolis 100 miles, there is one hatch.

In memory

I mourn the passing of Nadine Spellman and Don Wedge. I am fortunate to have had them as friends.

Nadine loved birds. Her son, Kent, told me that when she was hospitalized, she regularly reminded him to go home and fill her bird feeders.

Don knew more about lilacs than lilacs knew about themselves.

Nadine and Don were wonderful people who made the world a better place.

Thanks for stopping by

&8220;You must do the things you think you cannot do.&8221; &8212; Eleanor Roosevelt

&8220;I am more and more convinced that our happiness or our unhappiness depends far more on the way we meet the events of life than on the nature of those events themselves.&8221; &8212; Karl Wilhelm Von Humboldt

DO GOOD.

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