Naturally Al Batt

Quoth the Chickadee, Chickadee-dee

Naturally

If all the world is a stage, birds are the applause sign.

If he’d been listening to the mournful call of a dove, Edgar Allan Poe would have written, “Quoth the Mourning Dove, Hula-hoop-hoop-hoop.”

But he wrote, “Quoth the Raven, Nevermore.”

In the first few days of a mourning dove’s life, the nestling is a milk drinker. Both parents feed chicks “pigeon milk,” which is a nutrient-rich substance with a texture like cottage cheese.

The bobolink sports a backwards tuxedo with light colors on the back and dark colors on the front. He sounds as if he’s trying to sing too many bubbly songs at once. The bobolink’s song is often described as mechanical, like R2-D2 from “Star Wars.”

I was in the LRGV region of Texas, where great-tailed grackles were ubiquitous, doing what the Cornell Lab of Ornithology described as “make an impressive array of sounds, ranging from sweet, tinkling notes to what one biologist described as calls so loud they were best heard at a distance.” I’ve heard other descriptions such as a “rusty gate hinge” and “machinery badly in need of lubrication.”

A Texan, Lyle Lovett, sang (edited for length), “I don't go for fancy cars, for diamond rings or movie stars. I go for penguins. Throw your money out the door. We'll just sit around and watch it snow. Penguins are so sensitive to my needs.”

I go for chickadees. They are sensitive to my needs.

Poe could have written, “Quoth the Chickadee, Chickadee-dee.”

On a warm, humid evening, fireflies (lightning bugs) come out to light my world. Those insects are memory makers. On dewy mornings, sparkling silver dots the lawn. They’re dew beads on the funnel webs of spiders, which glisten in the sunlight.

Daisy fleabane is a native plant with white flowers about 1/2 inch across and a daisy-like appearance. Each flower has 40-100 ray florets. The plant is part of the aster family and blooms from June to September. Our eyes quickly spot the vibrant orange flowers of the butterfly milkweed blooming in the road ditches. The color pops.

A chipmunk demolition derby and mosquitoes

Our cat, Pinky Sue, is a feline that never sets a paw outdoors and enjoys watching the nefarious chipmunk activity outside her favorite windows. Rodents on parade. She fancies seeing four or five chipmunks gleaning fallen seeds under a feeder. Pinky Sue knows that eventually, one chipmunk will object to the company of another, and a chase will ensue. Innocent bystanders will be trampled by rampaging animals in a spirited chipmunk demolition derby. Now that’s entertainment.

Casino Context crunched the numbers, looking at factors such as average summer rainfall, temperature, mosquito species, West Nile virus cases and Google searches for mosquito prevention. It found that Florida is the nation's mosquito hotspot in 2025. Southern states dominate the top 10, with Louisiana, South Carolina, Mississippi and Georgia all experiencing high mosquito activity. North Dakota was 12th in rankings, Iowa 20, South Dakota 22, Wisconsin 31, Minnesota 36 and Alaska 50.

Q&A

“Are there fire ants in Minnesota?” Fire ants don’t occur in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, South Dakota or North Dakota, but field ants that are similar in size and coloration, and build mounds, do. According to the USDA, imported fire ants currently inhabit all or parts of Alabama, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. Fire ants are 1/8- to 1/4-inch long, reddish-brown or black, and respond rapidly and aggressively when disturbed. The stings from fire ants are painful and cause a burning sensation and itching blisters. They bite with their mandibles, then arch their backs and sting with a potent alkaloid venom.

“How many fawns does a deer have?” Starting as early as a 1-year-old, a white-tailed deer doe will have one, two or three fawns in the spring. A doe giving birth for the first time usually has one fawn. From then on, twins will be most common. Triplets are fairly common. In most parts of the state, half of the fawns born are males and half are females. Most fawns are born in late May and early June in Minnesota.

“What are the milkweeds I see growing in the road ditches?” I see three species of monarch caterpillar chow regularly, and they identify themselves by the colors of their flowers. Common milkweed flowers are a pale pink, butterfly milkweeds are orange, and swamp milkweeds are purple.

Thanks for stopping by

“It seems to me that the natural world is the greatest source of excitement; the greatest source of visual beauty; the greatest source of intellectual interest. It is the greatest source of so much in life that makes life worth living.”–David Attenborough.

“Plant seeds of happiness, hope, success, and love; it will all come back to you in abundance. This is the law of nature.”–Steve Maraboli.

Do good.

©Al Batt 2025

One might mistake a breeding male dickcissel for a meadowlark. Its song is a dick-dick-ciss-ciss-ciss. The first two notes are clear, followed by a buzzy, hissed cissel. Dickcissels are among the last neotropical migrants to return to Minnesota each spring, frequently not arriving until the last week of May. Dickcissels nest near the ground in dense grasses and sedges and winter in South America. Photo of a dickcissel by Al Batt.