Naturally
I’d crawled into my oatmeal early so I could get outside before first light. We’d moved quickly from fog to snow. Rime is called frozen fog by some and is common on the windward side of objects during freezing fog events and may resemble white plumes, nicknamed "frost feathers,"
I take the ordinary seriously. A murder of crows swaggered across the lawn. Birds are captivating. A bird doesn’t look good wearing a cape, so it’s incapable of being a superhero, but it comes close by making my day.
Small creatures have big adventures. An accipiter visited the feeder. It created a hostile work environment. I’ve been seeing male American kestrels on utility wires. A male has a rusty back, blue wings and a rusty-colored tail with a black terminal band. A female has rusty wings, back and tail marked with black barring. Most kestrels migrate, but some males are year-round residents. Experts are uncertain of the origin of its name. Perhaps it’s related to the French crecerelle "rattle," from the Latin crepitacillium "small rattle," a diminutive of crepitaculum "noisy bell, rattle," from crepitare "to crackle, rattle;" or it could be imitative of its call. Kestrels hunt for small prey in open territory by perching on wires or hovering while facing the wind.
I watched a coyote. If coyotes would fetch a stick and slobber on a tennis ball, they’d be widely loved.
Q&A
“Why is a turkey called a buzzard?” Buzzard is a British name used for a couple of species of hawks. Vultures don’t live in Northern Europe, so when settlers from there arrived in North America, they applied the name “buzzard” to any large, circling bird they saw, and the misnomer persists in some areas. The Atlanta Vultures were a professional indoor football team and a member of American Indoor Football that played part of the 2016 season. A turkey vulture weighs 3-5 pounds.
“Why is Iowa the Hawkeye state?” One version states that it was James G. Edwards who began the process by changing the name of his newspaper, The Iowa Patriot, to The Burlington Hawk-Eye, in tribute to his friend Chief Black Hawk. The second theory is that Judge David Rorer borrowed the name Hawkeye from James Fenimore Cooper‘s popular novel, “The Last of the Mohicans.” I think Nostradamus named it in 1555 after the future character Hawkeye in the TV show “M*A*S*H.” The nickname was approved by territorial officials in 1838, eight years before Iowa became a state.
“I was on a tour boat where you did the narration. You talked about an esker. Could you remind me of what you said about it?” What did I say? My wife will remember. Just a moment, I’ll ask her. Oh, I can’t. She’s at a gathering of the Divas. That’s a group of her friends that refuses to invite me to their bashes. Eskers are ridges made of sands and gravels, deposited by glacial meltwater flowing through tunnels within and under glaciers, or through meltwater channels on top of glaciers.
“What’s the solution for removing skunk smell from a dog?” The American Kennel Club says the best solution for removing skunk smell from a pet is to combine ¼-cup of baking soda, 1-2 teaspoons of mild dishwashing detergent and one quart of 3 percent hydrogen peroxide solution. While wearing rubber gloves, work the foaming mixture into your pet’s coat and leave it on for five minutes. Avoid getting it into the pet’s eyes. Rinse with warm water. Follow with dog shampoo if desired.
“Why do pigeons bob their heads?” Chicken, cranes, magpies and quail do, too. Studies suggest that birds in motion bob their heads to stabilize their visual surroundings. We rely more on our eye movements, not head movements, to catch and hold images while in motion. A pigeon tries to keep its head as stationary as possible. The head occupies one position and the body catches up.
“How many young does a beaver have?” The mating season runs from November to March and kits are born in May or June, with an average litter of three to four. Beavers weigh 40 to 50 pounds on average and can chew through a six-inch tree in 15 minutes.
“Why is the plural of mongoose, not mongeese?” I don’t know, but the plural is mongooses.
Thanks for stopping by
“Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed ... We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in.”― Wallace Stegner.
“It's good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it's good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure that you haven't lost the things that money can't buy.”—George H. Lorimer.
Do good.
©️Al Batt 2024
Commonly seen tree squirrels in Minnesota are the gray (8-10 inches long with a tail roughly the same length, 1.5 pounds), fox (20-24 inches long with an 8-10-inch tail, 3 pounds), and red (11-13 inches with a 4-5-inch tail, 7-9 ounces). The noisy red squirrel (sometimes called a pine squirrel) is most associated with conifers and has a white eyering. In comparison a chipmunk is 10 inches long, including its tail, and weighs 2-5 ounces. The black squirrel pictured is a gray squirrel. Photo by Al Batt.