Naturally Al Batt

I WATCHED THE TANAGERS PLAY BASKETBALL

March 17, 2024

NATURALLY

 It’s impossible not to be impressed by birds. One day last year, I watched a chickadee excavate a nest cavity. Its tiny bill had become a Swiss Army knife. Here’s an interesting fact: everything on Earth is either a chickadee or not.
 A party of blue jays appeared to be having a party. They were likely celebrating a hatch-day of one jay.
 I checked the lilacs. The buds had swollen, but I saw no sign of early bud break. Lilac buds are big, beautiful and tough. I think they’ll be fine.
 I watched the Vermillion (S.D.) Tanagers play basketball. That fine nickname led them to a state championship.
 I saw seven crows perched, one each on seven fenceposts. I suspect it was a board meeting, and I hope good things came from it. 
 I enjoyed seeing a northern harrier, a slim, long-tailed hawk gliding low over a grassland while holding its wings in a V-shape and showing a white patch at the base of its tail. If I’d been closer, I could have seen its owlish face, which helps it hear mice and voles. When I was a lad, it was called a marsh hawk as it hunted over agricultural land, marshes and shrubby wetlands. Its floating flight has given rise to the male’s nickname “gray ghost.”

Q&A

 “Is there a field guide that covers the great outdoors?” That would take a gigantic book. I recommend the “Kaufman Field Guide To Nature Of The Midwest” by Kenn Kaufman, Kimberly Kaufman and Jeffrey P. Sayre. This field guide helps you identify birds, mammals, trees, wildflowers, insects, reptiles, amphibians, fish, spiders, mushrooms, ferns, grasses, the sky overhead and the rocks underfoot when you’re walking in the woods, camping, hiking, canoeing or enjoying your backyard. This easy-to-use reference book is for nature enthusiasts living in or visiting Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan.
 “Why are insects drawn to lights?” Insects aren’t drawn to the glow like moths to a flame. Rather than being attracted to light, researchers suggest artificial lights at night may scramble the innate navigational systems of flying insects, causing them to flutter in confusion around porch lamps, street lights and other artificial illumination. In a study published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers showed that when the insects flew around a light source, they tilted their backs toward the light and aligned their bodies in that direction. By maintaining that orientation, the insects create odd orbits and steering patterns.
 “What is eating the bark of my maple tree?” It’s the time of year when we see scattered maple trees stripped of bark. Squirrels cause this damage in their pursuit of the cambium layer, just under the bark, which tastes slightly sweet from the sap. Smooth bark is easier for squirrels to chew, so young trees or branches with thin bark are more likely to be stripped than trees with older, furrowed bark.
 “I watched a rabbit eat its excrement. Does that mean it’s sick?” Rabbits are foraging herbivores, and a fibrous, cellulose-rich diet isn’t easy to digest and by the time their dinner makes it through their intestines, it still retains many of the nutrients the bunnies need. Rabbits, hares and beavers solve this problem with a kind of digestion called hindgut fermentation. They eat their own poop and digest it a second time. Bunnies produce two different types of droppings: Fecal pellets, which are small, round, dry and dark brown or black, and cecotropes, which are softer, shiny and usually lighter in color, often resembling clusters of grapes or mulberries. Rabbits often consume their cecotropes directly from their anus. This process is known as coprophagy, and functions the same a cow chewing its cud.
 “How many babies does an opossum have?” Opossums in Minnesota mate between January and May. She often bears two litters of six to 20 babies each year. A newborn opossum, called a joey, is half an inch long and weighs less than a penny. The opossum rarely hangs by its tail. It uses its long prehensile tail for balance, to grip as it climbs trees and to gather bedding.
 “In a nutshell, tell me what a walnut is.” Yes. Next question. Walnuts are the round, single-seed stone fruits of a walnut tree. 
 “How did the gyrfalcon get its name?” The name derives from an Old Norse word for "spear." A gyrfalcon was a medieval falconer's dream and reserved for royalty.

THANKS FOR STOPPING BY

 “We should not be simply fighting evil in the name of good, but struggling against the certainties of people who claim always to know where good and evil are to be found.”—Tzvetan Todorov.
 “Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.—Henry David Thoreau.
 Do good.

©Al Batt 2024

The American robin is the state bird of  Connecticut, Michigan and Wisconsin. The male and female look similar, but the female is a bit duller in color. Robins exhibit a running and stopping behavior just like my first car. The comic-book Robin was inspired by Robin Hood or the American robin because he was born on the first day of spring. Often considered harbingers of spring, not all robins are migratory. Their “cheer up, cheer up, cheerily” caroling is welcoming. Photo by Al Batt.