Naturally Al Batt

Life isn’t a Super Bowl commercial.

Naturally

Life isn’t a Super Bowl commercial. I had a stroke.

Now I have an excuse for not remembering someone’s name. I got up in the morning, walked to the bathroom and looked at the mirror. I smile at the mirror every morning. I figure if I can’t smile at my image, I won’t be able to smile at anyone else. A second benefit is that at least I’ll make one person smile that day. My odd reflection looked even odder than normal. One side of my smile had a serious droop to it. A trip to the ER and an ambulance ride to another hospital where I had to tell 73 healthcare professionals (each of whom was an angel) my full name (some spelling required) and birthdate, before they’d ask to see my smile. I spent a few days in the hospital (I highly recommend the aspirin suppository and the saline solution drip) and am now on the mend. The removal of the countless sticky EKG electrodes allowed me to get something off my chest—hair. I have moved from taking no prescription drugs to taking enough pills to put my piggy bank on a rapid weight-loss program. My smile has returned. I’m happy to see it.

There was a lot of whining in the yard. No, it wasn’t all from me. It was the oft-repeated chi-call of a red-bellied woodpecker, which sounds kind of whiny. It’s a call for me to stop, look and listen.

Acrobatic squirrels engaged in a merry chase of tag as a cardinal cranked up his spring song, a loud, whistled series of notes sounding like "cheer, cheer, cheer" or "birdie, birdie, birdie.” It’s smelling salts for the ears.

Downy and hairy woodpeckers can be hard to tell apart. Downies are smaller and have short bills. Hairy woodpeckers have bills more like chisels. Nuthatches went around a tree trunk searching for food, as if they were stripes on a barber pole.

Q&A

“What is estivation?” Hibernation or “winter sleep” is the state of inactivity or low metabolic process animals perform during winter. Aestivation (estivation) or “summer sleep” is the low metabolic process by animals in summer. There are reptiles and amphibians that estivate, including some tortoises, salamanders and frogs. Some land snails, insects and crabs do it.

“Why do I see spiders in the basement one day and none the next?“ A few spiders around a home can keep away harmful pests and disease-carrying insects like ticks, fleas and cockroaches. Spiders provide free Halloween decorations for homes. In our houses during the winter, spiders move around searching for prey and water. Osage oranges (hedgeballs or hedge apples) aren’t effective and their use isn’t recommended to repel spiders.

“Do birds have teeth?” Birds don’t have teeth, that’s why you’ve never seen one in your dentist’s office, and it’s not because they don’t floss. They may have ridges on their bills that help them grip food. Many birds swallow their food whole, and their powerful gizzards (a muscular part of their stomachs) grind up the food so they can digest it. Scoters and eiders swallow clams and mussels whole, letting their gizzards pulverize the shells. Bird beaks can sip nectar from flowers, filter food from water, tear flesh from bones, crack nuts, and pluck insects from the air. Mandibles in some species have evolved to look and act like teeth to help them handle food more easily. Mergansers and other fish-eating birds have saw-like serrations that help them grip slippery fish, while seed-eating birds have bill ridges, which help them cut through a seed’s outer husk. Some shrikes and birds of prey have a ‘tomial tooth’ on the upper mandible, which they use to sever a prey’s spinal cord. The double-toothed kite’s name comes from the two pointed tooth-like notches on its upper mandible, but those aren’t teeth in the true sense of the word. Baby birds have an “egg tooth” a small, sharp structure on the end of their beaks that they use to aid in hatching. A bird uses its egg tooth to pierce the air sac between the membrane and the eggshell giving them a few hours of air during the time they repeatedly force the egg tooth through the shell until they have made a hole big enough for them to leave the egg.

“How fast can deer run?” White-tailed deer can run 30 to 40 mph, never once qualifying for a NASCAR event. They can leap up to 8 feet high.

Thanks for stopping by

“Birds are wherever we are. They are our companions. Birds are mediators between heaven and earth.”—Terry Tempest Williams.

“Birdwatching is something that we do for enjoyment, so if you enjoy it, you are already a good birder. If you enjoy it a lot, you are a great birder.”—Kenn Kaufman.

I wish you good health. Do good.

©️Al Batt 2025

It’s not a rodent. It’s North America’s only marsupial. The Virginia opossum is the size of a house cat (4 to 12 pounds). It’s resistant to rattlesnake venom, is rarely rabid and can have 6 to 20 babies (joeys) twice a year. Granny Moses on “The Beverly Hillbillies” enjoyed possum stew. Photo by Al Batt.