The more, the harrier

Naturally

  I watched a northern harrier hunt by floating low over the ground. Its buoyant flight reminds many of a butterfly. It was called a marsh hawk when I was a boy. I quite like seeing this raptor. The more, the harrier.

  Two young cardinals, their grayish-black bills not turning an orange-red color until the birds are around 65-80 days, were stationed one each on two platform feeders offering black oil sunflower seeds. From there, they fended off a female purple finch who thought the seeds were for sharing. There was a lot of feigning and stabbing the air with bills, but no apparent harm.

  The yard blue jays were having a communal cow. It was likely that a perched owl had been discovered. Their most common calls were a harsh, raucous "Jay, jay, jay!"  I’m sure a blue jay, a dapper sentry of the neighborhood, is a reliable listener, even though it sounds as if it’s a constant interruptor.

  I marveled at the beauty of the red maple leaves. The leaves had worked hard, and now they get to become what they really want to be—breathtaking beauties. I found it impossible to find a winner in a legion of champion leaves.

A veery good meteorologist

  Veeries are lovely singers, as I’m sure every thrush is, but they are also good at weather forecasting. Researchers found that veeries tend to stop breeding early in the years that the Atlantic hurricane season is severe. Veeries can be better at predicting hurricane conditions than are the computer models.

You hoo, hoopoe

  I went to Israel. I visited Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Bethlehem, Masada, the Wailing Wall, Mount Carmel, a kibbutz and elsewhere. It was an incredible tour. To see all the things I’d only heard or read about in the Bible was thrilling. And I got to see Israel’s national bird, the hoopoe. The bird has a long, swooping beak and a crest resembling a mohawk haircut. The hoopoe led King Solomon to meet the Queen of Sheba. Unsure about the queen's purity and motives, Solomon confided in the bird and trusted its advice. The king  praised the hoopoe's observation skills and called the bird "wise."

A hawk eye and an eye on a hawk

  The red-tailed hawk had been following me all day as I moved a tractor about a field. It perched on posts, poles and snags. My eager eyes looked for the raptor, and its hawk eyes searched for food in the mice and voles the farm equipment had revealed. I became Tickle Me Elmo. I giggled from the tractor seat.

  I enjoy visiting Hawk Ridge. Lake Superior is a natural barrier for many migrating birds, funneling them all along the North Shore, towards Duluth. When conditions are right, the raptors, as well as many other kinds of birds, ride the thermals, which are shoreline currents of rising warm air. I’ve watched hawks use those thermals to gain height. The thermals act like invisible elevators for hawks and aid the birds on their journey.

Q&A

  “Why are some lilacs blooming in October?” It could be a sign of stress from heat, drought or disease, or be of a re-blooming variety. This out-of-season bloom isn’t harmful but may reduce the number of flowers in the following spring. 

  “Why do I see young bald eagles gathering in October?” Once young eagles (fledglings) become independent of their parents, they frequently join with other immature eagles. These loose associations provide a valuable learning environment for honing survival skills. Young eagles aren’t yet skilled at hunting and often scavenge for food. They learn by observing. Their wanderlust leads them to congregate in areas with abundant food. The gatherings might aid in migration.

  “When do black walnut trees first produce nuts?” Typically, it’s 4 to 7 years with peak production reached at 30 years of age.

  “How many species of owls are there in the US?” Nineteen owl species are found in the United States. Ranging from the diminutive elf owl to the colossal great gray owl.

  “I see woolly bear caterpillars crawling across the road. Do they know where they are going?” A woolly bear caterpillar’s direction of travel is an instinctual search for a safe spot, not a conscious navigation towards a specific destination. Its movements are meant to find a suitable hibernating place to overwinter, such as under leaf litter or wood chips, which offer a freeze tolerance. The colors of the future Isabella tiger moth indicate the woolly worm’s age.

Thanks for stopping by

  “A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.”—Alexander Pope.

  “Don't be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is without value.”—Arthur Miller.

  Do good.

©️Al Batt 2025

Folklore suggests the amount of black on a woolly bear caterpillar varies proportionally with the upcoming winter’s severity. A wider brown band portends a milder winter, while more black forecasts a harsher one. If the front end has the most black, winter’s beginning will be the most severe; if the tail end has the most black, winter’s end will be hardest. If crawling in a southerly direction, it’s escaping a cold winter. A northward crawl predicts a mild winter. It’s more of an indicator of the caterpillar’s age. Photo by Al Batt.

Fluttery will get you everywhere

Naturally

  It’s a lovely day, one offering perfect winter weather in early October. I know it’s fall, but still. The everlasting summer didn’t last. Fall begins. Summer ends. Winter looms. The pigments of trees are thrilling, and farm fields have turned the color of overdone meatloaf. I stopped at a pumpkin patch to have a pumpkin repaired.

  I walked, moseyed, strolled, ambled, meandered, sauntered, wandered, ambulated, hoofed, traipsed, stepped, peregrinated, tramped, tiptoed, strutted, lumbered, waddled and toddled along, seeing many people on the trail who were taking their phones for a walk. The best things in leaf are trees. I played the "catch the falling leaf" game, a folk tradition that claims catching a tumbling leaf brings good luck, helps avoid colds, or grants 12 months of happiness. It’s a form of mindfulness that fosters focusing on the present moment and the beauty of autumn. I snatched a red maple leaf out of the air. It was a vision of loveliness. Yay, me!

  Meadowhawks are small dragonflies, an inch to an inch and a half long. The males are red, and the females are a yellow-orange color. They are tough, sometimes surviving into November.

  Fluttery will get you everywhere or at least will get a monarch butterfly to Mexico. Their future is up in the air.

  Migrating birds carry built-in clocks and calendars. Unlike other warblers, yellow-rumped warblers (butterbutts) don’t go far to overwinter, traveling to the southern United States, Mexico and the Caribbean. Some butterbutts winter farther north on the east and west coasts. They’re able to survive harsh winters due to their ability to eat berries when insects aren’t readily available. They’re able to digest bayberry, juniper, wax myrtle and poison ivy berries.

  A Jack-in-the-pulpit has red berries that glow on the forest floor, and the red sashes of ambitious Virginia creeper (woodbine) climb trees. Milkweed pods burst, having turned from green to a gray or brown color, and the seeds inside are mature when brown.

  Bur oak acorns have fuzzy caps that remind me of a Russian fur hat. Wood ducks, wild turkeys, squirrels, deer and other animals prize this acorn. A white oak has rounded leaf lobes, and in contrast, red oaks have pointed leaves with bristle tips. The burr oak is a white oak. A study in Science Daily found that squirrels eat 85% of white oak acorns shortly after discovery and store 60% of red oak acorns. That’s because red oak acorns contain larger amounts of tannins than white oak acorns. Tannin is a bitter-tasting chemical that protects acorns from insects and animals.

Q&A

  “Do ducks migrate in flocks?” During migration, ducks may form loose flocks to take advantage of group navigation and predator avoidance, though the flocks are typically less structured compared to the V-formations of geese, and ducks may migrate in smaller, more dispersed groups than geese. Some ducks, especially larger species, will use a V-formation. Migratory habits vary by species.

  “I see woodpeckers all year round. Don’t any of them migrate?” Red-bellied, hairy, downy and pileated woodpeckers spend the year in our company, a fact for which I’m most grateful. Some woodpeckers migrate—red-headed woodpeckers, northern flickers and yellow-bellied sapsuckers. These migrants are casual here in winter. The most northerly of our woodpeckers, the uncommon black-backed and the American three-toed woodpeckers are bog birds, attracted to recently burned forests. They’re most often observed in winter.

  “Why are they called songbirds?” Because they leave musical notes on your car’s windshield. Almost half the world’s bird species are songbirds, a group known as passerines. They’re perching birds with feet that have three toes facing forward and one toe facing backward. This allows them to grip onto branches and other similar surfaces. Songbirds have a highly developed voice box, which means they can sing beautiful and complex songs, which we hear in lovely dawn choruses.

  “I watched a Cooper’s hawk chase a songbird. How fast can that hawk fly?” That accipiter was clocked flying at 23-55 mph during migration at Hawk Mountain. A Coop is a strong and agile flyer that during a powered flight on stiff wing beats could hit 40-55 mph in pursuit of prey.

  “Do bumblebee colonies survive winter?” Bumblebees don’t maintain colonies throughout the winter. The last brood of the summer colony contains many queens, each of which mates and finds a safe place to spend the winter—a small hole in the ground or a protected spot just big enough for her to hibernate. Only the queen hibernates until spring. The rest of the colony, including the old queen, dies.

Thanks for stopping by

  “If I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.”—George Eliot.

  “I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in.”―George Washington Carver.

  Do good.

©️Al Batt 2025

Eastern towhee males sing a "drink-your-tea" song. Both sexes produce a "che-wink" or "tow-hee" call. Males have a striking color pattern, black above and on the breast, rufous sides and a white belly. Females and immatures look similar, but are brown where the males are black. Previously known as rufous-sided towhees, they are birds of the undergrowth. Photo by Al Batt.

Take another little piece of my heart now, baby

Take another little piece of my heart now, baby

  I wasn’t convulsed with spasms of delight.

  I’d been bitten by something that wasn’t there.

  I wondered if things that don’t exist could be arrested for aggravated assault.

  They are minute pirate bugs, more often called no-see-ums and many other words I can’t repeat here. Other insects can be called no-see-ums, correctly or incorrectly. I’ve heard harassed people call black flies other names: buffalo gnats, turkey gnats, punkies, no-see-ums and sand flies. Again, these may not be correct monikers, but the black flies aren’t coming when we call them, no matter what name we use. Black Fly Specialist Carey Lamere of the Metropolitan Mosquito Control District in Minnesota said, “What’s the difference in a midge or a black fly? Midges don’t bite people, black flies do.”

  But it wasn’t a black fly bugging me. It was a minute pirate bug, a species that shows up in large numbers when the soybeans leave. The black and white minute pirate bug is the size of a pepper flake, but bites far above its weight class, and it test-bites whatever it lands upon, which is too often me.

  I swatted a couple. I’m not proud of the delight it afforded me. I’ll wait for a hard freeze to polish off the rest.

  Take another little piece of my heart now, baby.

  That song by Janis Joplin wasn’t on what Aunt Ingeborg had sent my wife and me, listing the things she wanted to take place at her funeral. She’d been a teacher, so it was as if she’d prepared a lesson plan including “I Come to the Garden Alone,” a familiar hymn played at my family’s funerals. If I consider it long enough, the thought of it brings a tear to my eye.

  Aunt Ingeborg wanted Bob Frisk to sing it at her funeral. Bob is a great guy who was surprised to hear of her request. He told me he couldn’t sing a lick and never could. Tweaks were made to her plan.

  My recent adventure as the long-lost fourth Stooge found me being asked what I’d like for operating room music, surgical music or ambient operating room music. I felt ready. I’d already given my full name and date of birth 97 times.

  My favorite singer is John Prine, but his songs need to be listened to. Hearing only what’s playing while I count down from 10 to 8 in the OR is a waste of good music.

  I enjoy Warren Zevon’s work, but I worried his song that I’d hear playing would be, “Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me.”

  Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” is wonderful, but perhaps more suited for a funeral.

  Janis Joplin’s “Take another little piece of my heart now, baby” was appropriate for my major surgery. Minor surgery is what someone else has. 

  I considered Neil Young, Louis Armstrong (“What a Wonderful World”), Bobby McFerrin  ("Don't Worry Be Happy") and Louis Prima before I picked the Rolling Stones.

  Before surgery, the anesthesiologist asked if I'd like to be knocked out with gas or hit over the head with a boat paddle. It was an ether/oar situation. After the surgery, I didn’t hear a choir of angels singing “Get Off My Cloud” or the Stones singing “Start Me Up.”

  Medical professionals woke me frequently to check my vital signs before telling me I needed to get more sleep. I appreciated having the vital signs and a goal.

 I learned that whether they ripped the adhesive bandages off quickly or slowly depended on my insurance. If Wile E. Coyote made it through his troubles, why couldn’t I?

  Sherlock Holmes' famous quotes include, "You see, but you do not observe," "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth," and "The game is afoot."

  There was a game afoot. My grandson’s football team won its homecoming game. He had eight tackles from his linebacker position. I took comfort in his success and in the words of The Dude in the movie “The Big Lebowski,” who said, “Life goes on, man.”

  There was a popular song called “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” performed by Gerry and the Pacemakers. 

  Another no-see-um bit me.

  It wanted me to know that I wasn’t walking alone.

  It also let me know I’m alive.

  I didn’t swat it.

  Life is good.

©️Al Batt 2025

Would vultures eat lutefisk?

Naturally

  I have a lot of feathered friends. I’m not on Facebook and neither are my avian amigos. I don’t get a single Christmas card from a bird, even though their images are on many of those cards, especially cardinals and chickadees. How do I befriend them? I feed and water them. I grew up with livestock—I fed and watered cows, pigs and poultry. In return, the yard birds keep me company and feed my soul.

  I had a pleasant visit. The adorable goldfinches were busy at the sunflower feeder. They fed frenetically while keeping their eyes out for predators. There’s a song that goes, “Wish that I were a yellow bird I'd fly away with you But I am not a yellow bird So here I sit, nothin' else to do.”

  I watched a blue jay gobble 27 black-oil sunflower seeds in a single visit. They have a throat sac called a gular pouch, which they can fill, and then cough up the seeds later to eat or hide. A naturalist wrote about observing the blue jays in his backyard and found several snatched up 70 or more sunflower seeds before flying away. One jay packed over 100 sunflower seeds into its gullet during one visit to a feeder.

  Crows mobbed an owl during the day in an attempt to keep the owl from getting its beauty sleep.

Q&A

  “When do vultures leave Minnesota?” Teetering turkey vultures and their wobbling flight and their wondrous soaring ways migrate from late August to early November, traveling to the southeastern U.S. and Central America.

  Miriam of St. Paul sent a photo of a black squirrel flattened on a step and wondered why the odd behavior. The act of an animal spreading itself flat on the ground is called splooting or pancaking. This is a common and normal behavior used for heat dumping. They press their thinly furred bellies against a cool surface, like a shady patch of ground, concrete or a cool tree branch, to transfer heat from their bodies.

  “What is the highest-flying bird?” The Rüppell's griffon vulture was documented flying at an altitude of 37,000 feet when it was struck by a plane in 1973.

  “What are peeps?” They are marshmallow confections, but other than that candy, there are flying feathers known as peeps. Peeps is a birding term for several species of small sandpipers. These birds are characterized by their small size, brownish or grayish-and-white plumage, pointed black bills, and a habit of feeding in flocks on mudflats. Common examples of peeps include the least, semipalmated, western, Baird's and white-rumped sandpipers.

  A Stewartville reader asked if he put lutefisk outside, if it’d attract vultures. I can’t say for sure, but I’m guessing it would. They eat rotting carp, so lutefisk should be a delicacy in comparison.

  “What bird is the most common one seen at feeders?” According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the dark-eyed junco is typically the most common feeder bird in North America, as determined by data from Project FeederWatch.

  “What is the biggest bird and what is the smallest bird?” The ostrich is up to 9 feet tall and weighs as much as 300 pounds. The bee hummingbird is 2.3 inches long and weighs .08 ounce.

  “When do barn swallows leave us?” August is the peak fall migration for barn swallows over much of Canada and the US. Barn swallows become hard to find over the northern part of their range in September.

  LaVonne Kalke of New Richland asked why there are so few birds in her yard in late September and early October. The multicolored Asian lady beetles ate them all. That’s not true. I kid because I love. Many birds follow their food and migrate. The populations of insect-reliant species like warblers, vireos and flycatchers have been significantly reduced. Many songbirds migrate at night to avoid predators and take advantage of cooler, calmer air. Some species of birds that migrate during the day include pelicans, hawks, falcons, hummingbirds, swifts and swallows. Natural food sources like berries, seeds and late-season insects are abundant, so birds don’t need to rely on feeders. Resident birds become less vocal with no need to attract a mate or defend a territory. Hardy birds like chickadees, juncos, goldfinches, cardinals, blue jays, nuthatches and woodpeckers will become more active at feeders as the weather gets colder.

Thanks for stopping by

  “A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs. It's jolted by every pebble on the road.”—Henry Ward Beecher.

  “Every breath is a sacrament, an affirmation of our connection with all other living things, a renewal of our link with our ancestors and a contribution to generations yet to come. Our breath is a part of life’s breath, the ocean of air that envelopes the earth.”―David Suzuki.

  Do good.

©️Al Batt 2025

This was one of the last of the Baltimore orioles I saw in my yard this year. They migrate to Florida, the Caribbean, Central America and the tip of South America, where they spend the winter reflecting fondly upon our friendship. Photo by Al Batt.


Watching true crime documentaries at the bird feeder.

Naturally

  My neighbor Crandall enjoys watching true crime documentaries. That’s what he says he’s doing when the squirrels swipe the seed from one of his bird feeders.

  A flock of starlings filled a tree. They were noisy, definitely not the silent majority. They are complex learners and were likely sharing the news of the day, the locations of predators, food sources, prime roosting sites, their hopes and dreams, and their frustrations with dunderheaded humans.

  A good part of my thornapple tree broke off and fell to the ground. It had succumbed to peer pressure. The winds have damaged many trees and limbs. The tree’s fruit had been a magnet for earfuls of cedar waxwings.

  A lot of birds around the world are starting their days earlier than ever, because of unnaturally bright skies caused by light pollution. They vocalize about 20 minutes earlier in the morning and stop vocalizing about 30 minutes later in the evening, according to Neil Gilbert, a wildlife ecologist with Oklahoma State University. Gilbert and Brent Pease of Southern Illinois University analyzed millions of recordings of birdsong to determine their findings.

  Thanks to a mild winter, which helped the winter survival of the hens, and the drier, warmer spring conditions that led to better nesting and brood-rearing results, the number of pheasants counted in the DNR’s August roadside survey in Minnesota jumped nearly 50% from last year and 21% above the 10-year average. The most significant increase of 189% was recorded in southeastern Minnesota, with a surge in the southwest (86%), east central (82%), south central (40%), central (33%) and west central (19%) parts of the state. The pheasant population in Iowa is at a 20-year high, according to a roadside survey reported by that state’s DNR.

Q&A

  “Is there such a thing as a seagull?” There are at least 28 gull species in North America, and not one of them is officially called a seagull. They are named Bonaparte’s gull, herring gull, ring-billed gull, Franklin’s gull, etc.

  “How many states have the cardinal as their state bird?” Despite your brother-in-law saying that the northern cardinal is the state bird of 67 states before telling you to do your own research, the cardinal is actually the state bird of seven states: Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia.

  “Why didn’t I have many hummingbirds at my feeders this September?” The first wave to depart is mainly made up of males, followed by the females and the young. Keeping your feeders up in the fall won’t cause them to delay migration. The strongest factor that causes their migration is day length. It’s normal for the hummingbird population in a location to vary from one year to the next. If the availability of natural sources of food or nest sites changed, it could cause the birds to look elsewhere. Free-roaming domestic cats are devastating to birds. A good wildflower crop could reduce the number of hummingbirds doing business at feeders. It could be possible that the neighbors’ snazzy hummingbird feeders with the giant flashing, neon arrows pointing to them might be drawing the tiny birds away from your yard.

  “Does the yellow-bellied sapsucker suck sap?” No, they peck holes into trees and their tongues probe the sap for nourishment, which might include sticky insects.

  “I hit a skunk with my car. How do I get rid of the smell?” Trade it in for one that smells like a new car. If your car smells like a skunk, you could use hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, vinegar or some commercial products to remove the smell.

  “Can porcupines throw their quills?” Those prickly quills cannot be fired like arrows or bullets. The animal swats an intended party with a club-like tail, causing its quills to dislodge and inflict pain.

  “I watched a Cooper’s hawk flying after a songbird in a dense woods. The chase had many twists and turns. Do those hawks ever hit trees?” Dashing through vegetation to catch birds is a dangerous lifestyle for an accipiter. In a study of over 300 Cooper’s hawk skeletons, 23% of them showed old, healed fractures in the bones of the chest, especially of the furcula or wishbone.

Thanks for stopping by

  “Remember that your tracks are one strand of the web woven endlessly in the hand of God. They’re tied to those of the mouse in the field, the eagle on the mountain, the crab in its hold, the lizard beneath its rock. The leaf that falls to the ground a thousand miles away touches your life. The impress of your foot in the soil is felt through a thousand generations.”―Daniel Quinn.

 “Someone needs to explain to me why wanting clean drinking water makes you an activist, and why proposing to destroy water with chemical warfare doesn’t make a corporation a terrorist.”― Winona LaDuke.

  Do good.

©️Al Batt 2025

Eastern chipmunks are 8 to 10 inches long (including the tail) and weigh 2 to 5 ounces. Their underground burrows can reach 30 feet long and 3 feet deep. The entrance measures two inches in diameter, and chipmunks remove the fresh dirt from the opening to avoid being conspicuous to predators. Chipmunks use their cheek pouches as tote bags to carry food, and they can run 21 mph, but not while carrying a watermelon. Photo by Al Batt.

My local woolly bear caterpillar asks you to predict the winter.

Flocks of red-winged blackbirds are signs of spring and signs of fall

Naturally

  Flocks of red-winged blackbirds are signs of spring and signs of fall. Blackbirds are conspicuous in flocks.

  The blue jays always look as if they’re in the process of committing a misdemeanor. Mark Twain said, “A jay hasn't got any more principle than a congressman. A jay will lie, a jay will steal, a jay will deceive, a jay will betray; and four times out of five, a jay will go back on his solemnest promise.”

  Leaf-cutter bees cut ovoids out of leaves for use in constructing a nest within plant stems.

  Roman augury, or the taking of auspices, stated whether the gods approved or disapproved of a specific action. Oscines were the birds whose singing was observed, such as owls, ravens, crows and chickens. Alites were the birds whose flight gave auspices and mainly involved vultures and eagles. I’d have thought the augurs would have searched for omens in the flight of starling flocks. Grainger Hunt marveled at the way starlings gathered in flocks called murmurations, which he described as “a dazzling cloud, swirling, pulsating, drawing together to the thinnest of waists, then wildly twisting in pulses of enlargement and diminution.” Murmurations offer safety in numbers. It’s a challenge for a falcon to single out one starling from a shape-shifting group of hundreds or even thousands of birds.

  Researchers conducting a helicopter survey at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, discovered a black bear sleeping in a bald eagle nest. The scent of leftover fish may have drawn the bear.

  My father used to say, “You get what you give.” He was talking about feeding our cattle, pigs and poultry. It applies to bird feeding, too. I feed primarily black oil sunflower seeds. I avoid cheap seed mixtures, which invite house sparrows to the table. In the Midwest, house sparrows usually have 2 or 3 broods, but they could have up to 4 broods of 1 to 8 eggs. If you invite the beautiful little house sparrows, which we called English sparrows for years, they bring their appetites and their extended families.

  The bright yellow flowers of the Jerusalem artichoke (sunchoke) bloom. This native has edible tubers and has the largest (up to 10 inches long) and broadest leaves (up to 5 inches wide) of the native sunflowers. The leaf’s upper surface has a texture like sandpaper.

Q&A

  “What bird sings the most?” A red-eyed vireo set a record by singing over 22,000 times in just 10 hours. Give that a try when you have a free 10 hours. It did that without a single throat lozenge. The northern mockingbird, wood thrush and house wren are wordy birdies. If you travel out of the country, you might enjoy the lengthy singing of the yellowhammer and the superb lyrebird. The lyrebird even makes the sounds of chainsaws and camera shutters for your listening pleasure.

  Janelle Tukua of Albert Lea asked how deer communicate. White-tailed deer have an advanced communication system. A deer in alarm or distress may forewarn other deer visually (stiff walking, foot stomping, alert ears, raised tail and head swaying), chemically (scent deposited from the interdigital gland between the “toes”), and vocally (a snort or grunt). The waving white flag of a deer’s tail as it runs off is another example of visual communication, as are scrapes (bare dirt exposed by bucks pawing the ground with their hooves) and rubs (tree bark removed by a buck’s antlers). Forms of body language used by deer include hair bristling, staring and head movements that are used to establish dominance and territory.

  “Why is the woodcock called a timberdoodle, and what bird is the plum pudding?” An American woodcock has many nicknames. The colloquial name timberdoodle, which sounds like a toy, derives from the bird’s habitat, erratic behavior and appearance. It’s also called a bogsucker because of its habitat of probing moist soil with its bill in search of food like earthworms. Another nickname is the Labrador twister, which comes from the woodcock’s spring sky dance. The American bittern has more nicknames than all the teams in most any football conference except the Big 20, with the monikers derived from the bittern’s unusual, booming calls. The sobriquets include plum puddin’, thunder-pumper, stake-driver, water-belcher, mire-drum, bog bull, butter-bump, dunk-a-doo, slough pumper or slough pump, barrel-maker, night-hen, post-driver and belcher-squelcher. There are other nicknames given to the American bittern for reasons other than the bird’s call. They are bog-hen, night-hen, bog-trotter, sun-gazer and shitepoke.

Thanks for stopping by

  “This curious world we inhabit is more wonderful than convenient; more beautiful than it is useful; it is more to be admired and enjoyed than used.”―Henry David Thoreau.

  “People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.”―Iris Murdoch.

  Do good.

©️Al Batt 2025

Most white-tailed deer fawns are born in mid-May to mid-June, and weigh 5 to 8 pounds at birth. Typically, half the fawns are male and half are female. Their brown fur blends in with the dry grass and leaves, and the white spots mimic dappled sunlight. By the time a fawn is 2 weeks old, it’s capable of outrunning many predators. They lose their spots in 90-120 days. Photo by Al Batt.

The pelicans were up to their bills in bullheads

Naturally

  Curly dock stands 3 feet tall in the ditches. Its rust-brown seed stalks are hard to miss. Butterfly weed is there, too. It’s a stunning hardy perennial with bright orange flowers that butterflies love. Native Americans used it for healing lung ailments and wounds, earning it the name “pleurisy root.”

  I watched a pod or a squadron of pelicans feeding. They were up to their bills in bullheads.

  Swallows flew low over the lake. Because they eat as they go, swallows tend to migrate by day. Most songbirds migrate at night.

  A gray catbird could be called euryphagous, meaning it eats a wide variety of foods. Earlier in the season, catbirds yelled at me for picking raspberries. They claimed ownership of the delectable fruit. Recently, I watched a catbird eat the berries of poison ivy. Mothers tell their children, “You eat like a bird.” Kids don’t do that, and they shouldn’t. Besides poison ivy berries, catbirds eat ants, beetles, crickets, grasshoppers, midges, caterpillars, moths, spiders and millipedes. They eat cherries, elderberries, strawberries, grapes and other berries. In his 1942 short story titled "The Catbird Seat," James Thurber featured a character who used the phrase, “In the catbird seat.” The legendary baseball broadcaster Red Barber made the expression famous, using it to mean sitting pretty, like a batter with three balls and no strikes on him. The catbird might have been sitting pretty on the poison ivy.

  September 1. It’s on every calendar. Look. I’ll wait. Welcome back. See? It’s on every proper calendar. I remember visiting the Smithsonian Institution to see Martha, the last of the passenger pigeons. She was named after Martha Washington. Martha lived alone during her last years at the Cincinnati Zoo. Her keepers roped off her cage to prevent visitors from throwing things at her to make her move. She died at age 29 on September 1, 1914. Her body was shipped to the Smithsonian Institution, where she was skinned and mounted. With her death, the passenger pigeon was officially extinct. It’s a sad tale. When Europeans first arrived in North America, there were somewhere between 3 billion and 5 billion passenger pigeons. In 1860 in Ontario, a flock of passenger pigeons 300 miles long flew overhead for several days. How could a species go from billions to none in a brief period? While loss of habitat made a dent in the passenger pigeon population, overhunting was the primary cause of its demise. Hunters reportedly shot up to a quarter of a million of them in a single day for food and sport in 1886. Why do I circle the date of Martha’s death, which also was the date a species went extinct? Because I want to make sure nothing like that ever happens again.

Q&A

  A student asked me what my favorite dinosaur was. It's been nearly a lifetime since I was asked that question. I said it was the pterosaur. Pterosaurs were reptiles, close cousins of dinosaurs. They were the first animals, after insects, to evolve powered flight. The pterodactyl is a genus of pterosaur. All pterodactyls are pterosaurs, but not all pterosaurs are pterodactyls. Pteranodon is a pterosaur, but not all pterosaurs are pteranodon. Over 200 species of pterosaur have been discovered. Pterosaurs and dinosaurs are related, but dinosaurs didn’t evolve into pterosaurs, and pterosaurs didn’t evolve into dinosaurs. Birds developed from dinosaurs, which means pterosaurs aren’t their ancestors. I’ll have to change my answer to the stegosaurus, which is considered to have been docile due to its lack of predatory behavior and a tendency to form herds. The stegosaurus is thought to have been a gentle giant. Despite its heavy build and the large plates on its back, it was a peaceful, social animal that moved slowly and took little notice of others unless threatened.

  “Do all birds drink water?” Some desert species don’t drink water in the way we think of drinking water. Their sole source of water is extracted from their food. The cactus wren builds a nest the size and shape of a football in cacti. Because canteens aren’t made in a size suitable for wrens, they rarely, if ever, drink water. They get all their liquids from juicy insects and fruit, but not from Juicy Fruit gum.

Thanks for stopping by

  “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”―Ferris Bueller.

  “As technological civilization diminishes the biotic diversity of the earth, language itself is diminished. As there are fewer and fewer songbirds in the air, due to the destruction of their forests and wetlands, human speech loses more and more of its evocative power. For when we no longer hear the voices of warbler and wren, our own speaking can no longer be nourished by their cadences. As the splashing speech of the rivers is silenced by more and more dams, as we drive more and more of the land’s wild voices into the oblivion of extinction, our own languages become increasingly impoverished and weightless, progressively emptied of their earthly resonance.”―David Abram.

  Do good.

©️Al Batt 2025

This beautiful black and yellow garden spider or Argiope aurantia, has a zigzag part to her web, known as stabilimenta, which may have the purpose of discouraging birds from flying through and damaging the web. It’s also called a yellow garden spider, golden garden spider, writing spider, zigzag spider, zipper spider, black and yellow argiope, corn spider, signature spider, Steeler spider and McKinley spider. Photo by Al Batt.

How many bird species are there?

Naturally

  I’m on a first-name basis with the yard’s birds. I call the male cardinal “Northern.” I’m a bouncer at the bird feeder. I put on baffles in order to discourage squirrels from eating more than their share. It doesn’t always baffle them, so my feeders have become subscription-based to help pay for the seed. No subscribers yet. Birds aren’t good at carrying wallets.

  Red jumps out at me from the sumac and Virginia creeper. Tree trunks become more colorful as the Virginia creeper (woodbine) vines up them.

  The migration of songbirds is a quiet procession compared to their spring arrival and the accompanying dawn chorus.

  Chimney swifts, resembling flying cigars, flew overhead. They migrate from mid-August through September on their way to South America. Dragonflies (green darners and meadowhawks) buzzed about like tiny airplanes.

  Many young mammals aren’t making it across the road, resulting in young raccoons, opossums, skunks and deer that will never develop street smarts. Automobiles are effective predators that provide food for vultures, eagles, crows and coyotes.

  BirdCast, created by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, is an online resource that combines biological research, community science observations and radar data to forecast the movements of migratory birds. BirdCast shows live maps that track flocks as they travel through. Users can localize the data, letting you zoom in on a county to see estimates of how many birds are migrating. Do a search for BirdCast and see.

Q&A

  “How did the chokecherry get its name?” Sacagawea was a Shoshone woman who accompanied the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1804-06, which traveled from the northern plains through the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean and back. Her skills as a translator were invaluable, as was her knowledge of the terrain. Native American tribes used chokecherries, a relative of the black cherry, as an important fruit for food and medicinal purposes, including the treatment of fevers and colds. Legend has it that the Blackfoot captured Sacagawea while she collected chokecherries and took her to where she met Lewis and Clark. The name chokecherry is derived from the berries, which when eaten raw, have an astringent, bitter taste that causes the mouth to pucker, giving the fruit its name.

  “How many bird species are there?” I’m so glad you asked. I just counted them. AviList is a collaborative global effort to produce a single current consensus taxonomy for birds of the world, along with key information on taxonomy and nomenclature. Avibase, the American Ornithological Society, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, BirdLife International and the International Ornithologists' Union contributed to the production of a world checklist. The first checklist was published in June 2025, and future revisions are planned once a year. The new checklist recognizes 11,131 species of birds in the world, classified within 252 families.

  “Will hummingbirds nest more than once?” Almost without exception, the ruby-throated hummingbird lays two white eggs in her nest. The nest is constructed from spiderwebs, lichen and plant parts. Occasionally, when cold, wet weather kills the eggs or nestlings, or storms blow down a nest, the female will start the nesting process over again. If she returned from the wintering grounds early enough and mated promptly, she’d probably have no problem pulling off a renesting attempt, but if she got a late start on her first nest, she might not have time to try again—especially in the northern United States, where the nesting season is relatively short. In the southern U.S., females have plenty of time for renesting; in fact, if an early-nesting female is successful with her first attempt, she may even have time to double-brood (have a second clutch) during one nesting season, and there's a possibility of triple-brooding in the Gulf Coast states.

  “What determines what a chicken’s egg color will be?” Mostly by genetics. Domestic chickens are a subspecies of the red junglefowl, a species native to southern Asia. There are more chickens on Earth than any other bird species. A way to predict what color eggs a hen will lay is to look at her earlobes, which are noticeable areas of colored skin on the sides of the head. Chickens with white earlobes lay white eggs, while birds with dark lobes lay brown eggs. None of them will have earrings hanging from them. The Araucana breed of chickens can have earlobes that are a pale green or blue color, just like their eggs.

  “What makes someone a birder?” If you can tell a blue jay from a tree, you’re a birder. If you have ever pointed out a bald eagle, you’re a birder. If you’ve ever wanted to point at a bald eagle, you’re a birder.

Thanks for stopping by

  “One finger cannot lift a pebble.”―Hopi proverb.

  “May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.”―Edward Abbey.

  Do good.

©️Al Batt 2025

A red squirrel is a noisy, cute bundle of indignation and belligerence about half the size of a gray squirrel. They are at home in conifer woods, but will tap maple trees for the sugar in the sap. Other names include boomer, chatterbox, chickaree, pine squirrel, piney squirrel and spruce squirrel. Photo by Al Batt.

It’s better to have bug deals than drug deals

Naturally

  If you want an incredible adventure, take the same walk or look out the same window as you did yesterday. You’ll see changes because everything changes by the minute, as do you.

  Birds are storytellers. A mass choir of starlings gossiped in a language I couldn’t understand before taking flight in a murmuration. A murmuration is a sight to behold.

  In late summer and fall, when a bird molts, it typically grows and replaces its feathers gradually, but occasionally a bird loses all the feathers on its head at once. This is true of blue jays, many of which molt the feathers of the head in synchrony. The result is a bald bird. This baldness lasts for about a week before new feathers replace the molted ones.

  I watched common nighthawks migrate. They’re long-distance migrants that winter in South America. Nighthawks often take advantage of clouds of insects attracted to streetlamps, ballfield lights and other bright lights. They have long tails, narrow wings that are angled and pointed, and an erratic flight. Their white wing spots appear transparent against a cloudy sky.

  Better there are bug deals than drug deals in the yard, but I haven’t seen many boxelder bugs yet. This native insect feeds on boxelder, maple and ash trees. Boxelder bugs thrive during hot, dry summers (their populations skyrocketed during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s), so maybe their numbers won’t be high this year. We’ll see.

  I saw many yellow butterflies encircling a mud puddle. It was a puddle of sulphur butterflies. Have you ever had a butterfly land on your skin and start licking, and you thought the two of you were best friends? The truth was, it was using you for your sweat, which is a rich source of salt and sugar. Some butterflies enjoy blood and tears. Puddling is a behavior that many butterfly species engage in. Puddling sites can be mud, dung, fermenting fruit, carrion or urine. They are looking for salt and minerals.

Q&A

  “How many deer have twins?” Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign & Illinois DNR found that in 2024, 21% had a single fawn, 71% twins and 8% triplets.

  Jack May of Mankato asked when milkweeds could be cut without doing any harm to monarch butterflies. In September, the butterflies congregate in large numbers in trees and shrubs, and by the end of October, they will have left Minnesota for their wintering grounds in Mexico. The Xerces Society says monarchs fly up to 100 miles per day during their 2,000- to 3,000-mile migration south. Waiting until after a killing frost before felling the milkweeds ensures that no caterpillars are feeding on the plant. In Minnesota, caterpillars can be present until late September or even early October.

  “How many generations do monarch butterflies have each year?” Generation 1 consists of the offspring of the monarchs that overwintered in Mexico. Eggs are laid from late March through April in the southern U.S. and northern Mexico, and the adults fly north. Monarchs in Generation 2 are the grandchildren of the overwintering monarchs. Eggs are laid throughout eastern North America from late April through June. Monarchs in Generations 3 and 4 are the great- and great-great-grandchildren of the overwintering monarchs. Eggs are laid in the northern part of the monarch’s range from late May through July (Generation 3) and late June through August (Generation 4). Generation 3 butterflies who emerge late in August migrate to Mexico, as do Generation 4 individuals. Research has found that fewer than 10% of eggs become butterflies. The eastern monarch butterfly population wintering in central Mexico's forests occupied 4.42 acres in 2024-25, up from 2.22 acres the previous winter.

  Carolyn Smith of Albert Lea asked why there are so many gulls around now. They’re migrating or getting ready to migrate; moving about to find food or a perfect roosting site. Gulls are opportunistic omnivores whose diet varies by location, and they don’t stick to their diet. Many of the gulls are new to the area. They’re tourists. Roofs of buildings offer loafing spots. Landfills and parking lots provide buffets.

Thanks for stopping by

  “Life cannot be classified in terms of a simple neurological ladder, with human beings at the top; it is more accurate to talk of different forms of intelligence, each with its strengths and weaknesses. This point was well demonstrated in the minutes before last December's tsunami [2004], when tourists grabbed their digital cameras and ran after the ebbing surf, and all the 'dumb' animals made for the hills.”—B.R. Myers.

  “Every breath is a sacrament, an affirmation of our connection with all other living things, a renewal of our link with our ancestors and a contribution to generations yet to come. Our breath is a part of life’s breath, the ocean of air that envelopes the earth.”―David Suzuki.

  Do good.

©️Al Batt 2025

A green heron blends into its surroundings. Its most common calls are “skeow!” or “kuk-kuk-kuk.” Their diet consists of small fish, frogs, crayfish and small rodents. They forage at the edge of shallow water, standing still or slowly stalking prey. They quickly dart forward, grabbing prey with a spear-like bill. They sometimes drop a feather or an insect into the water to act as a fish lure. Photo by Al Batt

I was dancing to the stridulation and the crepitation

Naturally

  A kestrel, roughly the size and shape of a mourning dove with a larger head, perched on a utility wire.

  A cardinal sang with gusto, a definite showboat. I’ve seen a painted bunting elsewhere, a rainbow with wings. I’d love to see one in my yard one day. That’s unlikely to happen. I’m lucky to be thrilled by the sight of a cardinal. Minnesota’s first record of a cardinal was in Minneapolis in the fall of 1875. The first confirmed nesting was in Steele County in 1925 when a cardinal’s nest with eggs was discovered. The first record of a cardinal in Iowa was one that was captured in Iowa City in 1882.

Q&A

  “Do crickets and grasshoppers produce sounds the same way?” No, crickets and katydids rub wing parts together to make sound, whereas grasshoppers rub wings against hind legs to create their sounds. Crickets use a process called stridulation, which involves rubbing one forewing against another forewing. Grasshoppers use stridulation by rubbing their hind legs against their forewings. Some grasshoppers also use crepitation, snapping their wings together in flight to create a crackling sound.

  “What am I seeing on roadsides that look like giant dandelions with leaves resembling those of a thistle?” If it looks like a tall dandelion with leaves resembling those of a thistle, but the spines lack sharpness, it’s a sowthistle, a perennial, that blooms July-October and grows up to 4 feet high. Prickly lettuce is an annual or biennial herb that blooms from July to September and can grow up to 6.5 feet tall. Prickly lettuce leaves have prickly edges that can be sharp, and a prickly midrib on the underside, while sowthistle leaves lack the prickly midrib. Sowthistle leaves tend to stay more parallel to the ground than prickly lettuce leaves. Prickly lettuce flower heads are small and yellow, turning blue as they wither, and are arranged in panicles. Sowthistle flower heads are yellow and produced in clusters at the branch tips. Both plants exude a milky sap when cut or wounded.

  “Where did the name ‘pelican’ come from?” The word "pelican" comes from the Ancient Greek word, pelekan. This word is related to pelekys, which means "axe." Long ago, this word was used for both pelicans and woodpeckers.

  “What is the thornapple?” It’s a shrub or tree of one of the species commonly called hawthorn, quickthorn, hawberry or thornapple, native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere in Europe, Asia, North Africa and North America.

  “What determines if the “Lake” part comes first or second in a water’s name?” There are no rules. In French, “Lake” often comes first, and the regions colonized by English-speaking people and Germans tended to put “Lake” second. Lakes with more surface area were more likely to be called a name where “Lake” comes first, which often emphasizes a feature of the lake and frequently comes second in the names of smaller, lesser-known features. The names aren’t consistent and are subject to local preference. I don’t have a guess as to why Lake is in the middle of the rock group’s name of Emerson, Lake & Palmer.

  “Why is the pelican so often depicted in Christian art?” Medieval observers saw red on the bill or the breast of pelican parents feeding their young and mistakenly believed the adult had pierced its own breast and fed its blood to the chicks. In Christian symbolism, the pelican is a powerful symbol of Christ's love and self-sacrifice, but the legend is scientifically inaccurate. Pelicans don’t self-mutilate to feed their young. The pouches of certain species of pelicans turn red in the breeding season, something that might have contributed to the myth. The pelicans macerate the fish before giving it to their young, and a bloody fish could stain a breast. Regardless, the pelican remains a beautiful and inspiring image.

  “How do I tell a red oak from a white oak?” In general, the white oaks produce leaves that have rounded lobes, whereas the red oaks typically exhibit pointed lobes with a tiny bristle on their tips. Another clue is the acorn. The top cap of the red oak acorn is scaly, while the white oak acorn has a knobby top cap. The acorns of white oaks have a broader, shorter appearance and mature in a single year. Their caps are deeper, often covering about half the nut, and they’re more appealing as a preferred food source for many wildlife species. The acorns of red oaks are more elongated or ovoid and mature in two years. Their caps are shallow, often covering only the top quarter or third of the nut.

Thanks for stopping by

  “All creatures are merely veils under which God hides Himself and deals with us.”―Martin Luther.

  “Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine to the mind.”―Luther Burbank.

  Do good.

©️Al Batt 2025

A rose-breasted grosbeak brings exclamation marks to a yard. Its song is reminiscent of a robin, only sweeter, which some people refer to as operatic. It also makes a sharp chink like the squeak of a sneaker on a basketball court. The male has the colorful colloquial name “cut-throat.” It spends the winter in Central and South America.  Photo by Al Batt.

Lovely ditch weeds

Naturally

  It’s the time of the year when I’m reminded of how beautiful “ditch weeds” are. The flowers are dazzling. Sunflowers (yellow), asters (not yellow) and bergamot (bee balm). I enjoy the vibrant purple/magenta flowers of prairie ironweed blooming on shorelines in late summer and early fall from July through September.

  On a day teetering on hot, the roar of a crop-dusting airplane tended to drown out better sounds, but a male indigo bunting’s voice proclaimed the day’s goodness. A helpful mnemonic for remembering his song is "Fire, fire! Where, where? Here, here! See it? See it?" He sang it repeatedly, perhaps trying to overcome the plane noise. The indigo bunting sings when most other songbirds have muted.

  When the soil is damp, there are more slugs, snails and pillbugs to feed firefly larvae, which means more fireflies for us to see.

  The Carolina grasshopper has black hindwings and is commonly found in open, dry and sunny areas where it blends in with the bare ground, earning it the nickname “road duster.” They look like tiny, parked Tesla Cybertrucks. Males are known for their "crackling" sounds, called crepitation, in flight.

Q&A

  “What birds eat bees and wasps?” The summer tanager snatches bees and wasps in mid-air. Northern mockingbird, scarlet tanager, western and eastern kingbird, blue jay (eat larvae primarily), various woodpecker species, purple martin and others.

  “Do crickets fly?” Some crickets make short-distance flights. Many prefer to jump rather than fly. Camel crickets are wingless and rely on jumping and crawling for movement. House crickets and field crickets can fly. Crickets use their wings to sing.

  “Are pavement ants called Labor Day ants?” No, pavement ants aren’t the same as Labor Day ants. Pavement ants are a common species that nest under pavement and search for food indoors. They’re commonly associated with building small, volcano-shaped mounds of dirt in the cracks of sidewalks. Labor Day ants are larger than pavement ants and are another common species that swarm during a mating season in late summer, often around Labor Day. They nest in open areas like lawns, fields and roadsides. They’re commonly called cornfield ants or turfgrass ants.

  “Do all goldenrod plants develop galls?“ The round stem-balls are called galls. They’re the plant’s response to the parasitic goldenrod gall fly. The female fly lays eggs at the base of goldenrod flower buds. Upon hatching, the larvae eat into the stem, whereupon they secrete chemical compounds that trigger the plant’s cells to form the gall. The gall grows around the larva, forming a hard outer layer and a softer fibrous interior, and the larva eats the inner tissue and grows, but the plant isn’t harmed. The fly will have no other food throughout its life cycle, as adults lack mouthparts and don’t eat at all. The fly prefers particular goldenrod species. A parasitoid wasp seeks the galls. The female wasp inserts her ovipositor through the gall’s outer wall, laying an egg in the chamber that holds the gall fly’s larva. Upon hatching, the wasp larva devours the fly larva, then consumes gall tissue until it pupates. A different threat to the gall flies arises in fall and winter, as downy woodpeckers and black-capped chickadees peck open the galls and eat the larvae. Fly larvae survive better in large galls, whose walls are more difficult for the wasp’s ovipositor to penetrate. Downy woodpeckers favor large galls because they’re more likely to contain a fly larva than a smaller wasp larva, which is less nutritionally rewarding. Naturalist John Muir described goldenrod: "The fragrance and the color and the form, and the whole spiritual expression of goldenrods are hopeful and strength-giving beyond any other flowers that I know. A single spike is sufficient to heal unbelief and melancholy." Minnesota has a number of goldenrod species: prairie goldenrod, Riddell’s, stiff, rough-leaved, zigzag, early, Missouri, northern bog, gray, velvety, cliff, hairy, showy, Canada, giant, late and elm-leaved goldenrod. Goldenrod doesn’t cause hay fever. Wind-pollinated plants, notably ragweed, are primarily responsible for late summer and early fall hay fever. Goldenrods are insect-pollinated. That makes them fantastic insect zoos, attracting a significant number of species.

  “Why are there so many gnats this year?” Gnats love warm, humid and wet environments. If you encounter high numbers of gnats outside, it's likely happening due to high moisture. The presence of many gnats in homes is linked to warm, moist environments and the presence of decaying organic matter. This includes overripe or rotting fruit, damp soil in houseplants, food scraps, residue in drains, or standing water.

Thanks for stopping by

  “My profession is always to be alert, to find God in nature, to know God’s lurking places, to attend to all the oratorios and the operas in nature.”―Henry David Thoreau.

  “Sometimes Mother Nature has the answers when you do not even know the questions.”―Keith Wynn.

  Do good.

©️Al Batt 2024

The painted lady is the most widely distributed butterfly in the world. It’s found throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, North America and Central America, and is present on all continents except Australia and Antarctica. The caterpillars feed on the leaves of a wide variety of host plants, with preferred foods including calendula, hollyhock, mallow, sunflower and Canada thistle. Painted lady butterflies are called the thistle butterflies because of the thistle caterpillar’s appetite for the leaves of the Canada thistle. Photo by Al Batt.

It was a day that would have made Goldilocks happy. It was just right.

Naturally

  It was a day that would have made Goldilocks happy. It was just right.

  It was a rare morning—no wind, no rain and no vehicle noise. I heard the whoosh of bird wings beating the air. I looked up to see a flock of Franklin’s gulls headed south. The flock was stretched in a long line with every gull appearing to be striving to pass the one on each side. The flock was in the form of a V trying to become a straight line. Named for the Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin, the graceful flyers are notably smaller than ring-billed gulls with nonbreeding adults sporting a patchy black to gray hood, black legs and feet, and black bills with red tips. They forage in agricultural fields, pastures, landfills and on the surface of water. They used to follow my tractor to feed on the earthworms, grubs, beetles and grasshoppers dislodged by the farm implements trailing the iron horse.

  I didn’t own the morning, but nature’s gifts made me feel as if I did.

  A red-winged blackbird male stopped at a feeder for a snack. His is a highly polygynous species, which means males may have many females as mates–up to 15. In some populations, 90% of territorial males have more than one female nesting on their territories. He isn’t exactly a supreme ruler because 1/4 to 1/2 of the nestlings in his territory were sired by someone other than the territorial male.

  A tiny chickadee on a feeder was busily converting sunflower seeds into enough cuteness to make it through another day.

  White sweet clover and yellow sweet clover are similar in appearance. They’re biennial herbaceous plants in the legume (pea) family. First-year plants don’t bloom, and second-year plants grow 3 to 6 feet high. Yellow sweet clover has yellow flowers, is usually the shortest of the two, and blooms earlier than white sweet clover. And white sweet clover (I’ll bet you’ve already guessed this) has white flowers. Sweet clovers are fragrant and reproduce by seed with plants producing thousands of seeds, which can remain viable for 40 years.

  Vultures surfed the sky. It’s what they are programmed to do. I find it nearly impossible not to watch turkey vultures wheeling toward the heavens. They leave Minnesota from late August or early September to mid-October, going to the southern United States, Mexico, Central America and South America.

  I patrolled the garden, ready to battle the cabbage worms. I was in charge of kraut control.

Q&A

  A nest of northern house wrens had fledged in the yard, and my wife asked how long their nestling period was. Because it was my beloved bride posing the question, I gave an immediate, if not sooner, answer. The nestling period is 15-17 days, following an incubation period of 9-16 days. The clutch consists of 3 to 10 pale eggs densely marked with tiny reddish-brown or cinnamon-brown dots. On average, the second brood is smaller. Male wrens replace the old nesting material between clutches. Wrens often add spider egg sacs to the nest materials. In lab studies, once the spiders hatched, they made a wren’s life easier by eating nest parasites. The female wren incubates the eggs with full incubation beginning with the laying of the antepenultimate or penultimate egg. Both parents feed the nestlings and continue to feed them for a while after they’ve left the nest. Nearly every food delivery includes the removal of a poop sac. It’s diaper duty, with the diaper acting like a tiny sandwich bag. A parent takes the sac away and drops it. So be careful of wren bombs falling from the sky. The fledglings typically leave the nest within a few hours of one another.

  “Are carpenter ants skilled laborers?” They build a home (nest) and tunnels (roads) without the use of a single power tool, so, yes, I’d say they are skilled.

  “There are tiny flies that run across the kitchen counter and aren’t likely to fly. What are they and why are they keeping me company?” When encountering small flies that scurry quickly across surfaces instead of flying, you're likely seeing phorid flies, also known as "humpbacked flies" or "scuttle flies." They are roughly 1/8 inch long and demonstrate a rapid and erratic running or "scuttling" behavior as if they are trying to get open while running a pass route. A distinct humpbacked shape to its thorax gives the fly its other common name. This fly feeds and thrives in the organic material in pipes, drains and food sources such as fruits and vegetables. A prime location is rotting bags of potatoes or onions.

Thanks for stopping by

  “If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies in you.”―Minquass proverb.

  “Before eating, always take time to thank the food.”―Arapaho proverb.

  Do good.

©️Al Batt 2025

Goldenrod soldier beetles are often seen on goldenrod, hence the common name, but visit many other late-summer flowering plants. The adults are seen from July to September, but are most abundant in August. They feed primarily on pollen and nectar but may eat small insects such as caterpillars, eggs and aphids. They don’t damage plants, bite or sting. Photo by Al Batt.

This was a smile on the horizon after 4.7 inches of rain.

Ozzy Osbourne could have sung, “I am ironweed.”

When in need of an altitude adjustment, I look up to watch swallows feeding on flying insects

Naturally

  When in need of an altitude adjustment, I look up to watch swallows feeding on flying insects.

  I kept company with butterflies—monarch, eastern tiger swallowtail, red admiral, painted lady and mourning cloak. I looked at bluets (damselflies) and widow skimmer dragonflies. When perched, a dragonfly's wings stick straight out like an airplane's wings. A damselfly's wings fold back in line with its body, giving it a sleek, slender appearance at rest.

  I saw many Critical Habitat vehicle license plates. Contributions allow the Minnesota DNR to purchase critical resource lands and improve habitat for fish, wildlife and native plants. The plates present images of anglers, deer (two different plates), black-capped chickadee (on my car), lady slipper, loon, moose, pheasant, rusty patched bumble bee (this plate includes a monarch butterfly and a purple prairie clover), and turkey.

  Bindweed blooms in ditches and on fences. It resembles a morning glory. Dogbane, bergamot, Joe-pye weed, blue vervain, black-eyed Susan and various sunflower species bloom. The name "Joe-pye weed" is believed to have originated from a historical figure, a Native American herbalist named Joe Pye, who reportedly used the plant to treat various ailments, including fevers and dysentery. Asters bloom August-October. The name "aster" comes from the Greek word for star, a nod to the flower's star-shaped blooms. In Greek mythology, asters came from the tears of the goddess Astraea, who cried because there weren't enough stars in the sky. When her tears hit the ground, star-shaped asters sprouted in their place.

  Juvenile bald eagles, trumpeter swan cygnets and sandhill crane colts roam the Earth. A red-headed woodpecker, a vision of delight, left its position on a utility pole and swooped low across the road to catch insects in the air or on the ground.

  Fleabane has tiny white flowers; its genus name (Erigeron) comes from the Greek words eri meaning early and geron meaning old man in reference to the early bloom time and its downy plant appearance, suggestive of an old man’s white beard.

   A bird landed on a scarecrow, which gave the figure a chirp on its shoulder.

  Crows had expressed their objections in the morning. Crickets voiced a great amen to the end of day.

Q&A

  Mike Murtaugh of Albert Lea asked where fireflies spend the day. Fireflies stay near the ground in damp areas during the day, often hidden in leaf litter or tall grasses. At night, they emerge to fly and flash, especially after dusk, to attract mates. Females stay lower, often on the ground or in low vegetation, while males fly and flash to locate them.

  Ken Nelson of Clarks Grove asked when the Baltimore Orioles leave. I think they leave far too soon. As their young become independent, parents molt their body and flight feathers. Migration peaks in August and September. They winter in Florida, the Caribbean, Central America and the northern tip of South America.

  Joel Erickson of Albert Lea asked when and where purple martins go. They’re the largest swallow in Minnesota. Other swallow species are bank, tree, northern rough-winged, barn and cliff. On my walks, barn swallows fly lowest, tree swallows in the middle, and purple martins the highest. After nesting is completed, martins congregate at a roost, typically near water. I’ve seen thousands roosting at Lake Osakis in Todd and Douglas counties in west-central Minnesota after the breeding season. Individual roosts could remain active for six weeks, but individual birds stay at a roost an average of four weeks. Purple martins begin leaving Minnesota in late July, hitting a peak in August, and departing by early September for their wintering grounds in South America.

  “Do bats have a sense of smell and good eyesight?” Bats have a variety of senses, and their vision and sense of smell are both well-developed. The saying "blind as a bat" is a myth, but bats often rely on other senses, like echolocation, for navigating and hunting in the dark. The idea that bats are blind likely originated from their nocturnal nature and their remarkable use of echolocation. If they flew and hunted seamlessly in the dark, many assumed they must not rely on vision at all. The truth is that most bats can see well. Different species have varying abilities, with some capable of seeing ultraviolet light. Bats have a unique way of combining echolocation and eyesight, making them skilled hunters both day and night. All eight bat species found in Minnesota each weigh less than one ounce, the weight of a standard letter, are insectivorous and eat up to their body weight in night-flying insects, including moths, beetles and mosquitoes.

Thanks for stopping by

  “When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.”― Cherokee proverb.

  “A good chief gives, he does not take.”―Mohawk proverb.

  Do good.

©️Al Batt 2025

The wild turkey was once considered extirpated from Minnesota. The National Wild Turkey Federation says a turkey’s vision is five times better than that of humans, its hearing is estimated to be four times better than ours, and a gobble can be heard up to a mile away. That’s why I hired this hen to be the yard’s official watch turkey. Photo by Al Batt.

Is that cool lightning really heat lightning?

Naturally

  "Sometimes", said Pooh, "the smallest things take up the most room in your heart."

  I enjoy watching butterflies flutter past me on their meandering routes. I watched cabbage white butterflies, which aren’t uncommon in my yard, flying here and there. They are native to Europe and Asia, and are an introduced species in the U.S. Cabbage white caterpillars feed on members of the cabbage or mustard family.

  I watched a flicker feed on ants. I wondered if the woodpecker ate enough ants, it might need an antacid.

  I watched American white pelicans hunt for food. They are fish herders. They hunt by herding fish into shallow water and taking part in a feeding frenzy, rather than diving like brown pelicans. White pelicans often fish together in groups, coordinating their movements by forming lines and driving fish toward the shore or other pelicans. They dip their bills into the water to catch the fish in their throat pouches. Contrary to cartoon portrayals and common misconceptions, pelicans do not carry food in their bill pouches. They use their bills to scoop up food but swallow their catch before flying off. Pelicans feed their chicks by regurgitating partially digested fish from their gular pouches into the chicks' mouths or onto the ground. As the chicks grow older, they learn to reach directly into the parents' throat pouches to retrieve a meal. American white pelicans and double-crested cormorants are frequently found swimming together and sometimes forage together. They do hunt at different depths—pelicans are surface-feeders and cormorants are divers and deep-feeders. Two pelican species are native to the United States: the American white pelican is commonly found inland and in freshwater habitats, and the brown pelican is primarily found along coastal areas, including beaches, lagoons and islands.

  The first red sumac fruiting clusters (drupes) in Minnesota typically appear in late summer to early fall (August-September).

Q&A

  “I saw shorebirds that weren’t killdeer in southern Minnesota in July. Are those birds migrating already?” Yes, the southward migration of shorebirds through Minnesota begins in July. The earliest migrants are generally those that had unsuccessful breeding attempts in the Arctic and boreal regions. By mid-July, the successful breeders begin their southward journey.

  “What is heat lightning?” On warm, humid nights, the phenomenon known as “heat lightning” is commonly observed. The sky flickers with light, even on a clear night with stars visible in the sky. No sound goes with the flash, although if you’re listening to an AM radio, you will hear crackles of static when you see a flash. What we see is the light from a distant thunderstorm at a distance too far for the sound of the thunder to be heard. Thunder’s sound rarely travels over 10 miles. The term “heat lightning” comes from the fact that it’s most often seen on warm, humid nights during July and August, causing an association with sultry temperatures. The light from an intense thunderstorm can be seen as far away as 100 miles.

  “Does the bill of a bird keep growing?” Bird beaks or bills (they are the same thing) are much like human fingernails and grow at a constant rate. This outer layer of the bill is rich in keratin, which is the same material found in our hair and nails. The inner bones of the bill don’t grow as the bird ages. 

  “How can I keep squirrels off my bird feeders?“ Place the feeder atop a pole or post, 20 feet from a branch or roof, and attach a metal squirrel guard (a cone-shaped baffle or a stovepipe-like tube) slightly below the feeder. Good luck. Squirrels are amazing acrobats and excel in their pursuit of food.

  “Is peanut butter harmful to birds?” Peanut butter is a good high-fat, high-protein food that is safe to feed to the wild birds. You could smear it on tree bark, but it can stain that bark. If you use a feeder, keep the feeder clean and free from mold. In hot weather, put the peanut butter out in small quantities to keep it from turning rancid. Some people dilute it with birdseed or cornmeal to reduce its stickiness, but it’s not necessary.

  “Are birds smart?” Yes.

  “When do goldfinches nest in Minnesota?” American goldfinches are vegetarians and delay nesting until milkweed, thistle and other plants produce seeds enough to ensure there would be plentiful food sources to feed their young. In Minnesota, this means nesting begins in late June, July and into August. They line their nests with thistle down, milkweed silk and cattail fluff.

Thanks for stopping by

  “I declare this world is so beautiful, that I can hardly believe it exists!”—Ralph Waldo Emerson.

  “Listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”—John Lubbock.

  Do good.

©️Al Batt 2025

The northern house wren weighs about as much as two quarters, which means its name is bigger than it is. The tiny birds fill the day with bubbling songs and are willing to nest in any natural or artificial cavity they can find for rent or wrent. Dad  called it a Jenny wren, and its Chippewa name translates to “making a big noise for its size.” Photo by Al Batt.

It’s a good year for fireflies

Naturally

  I put peanuts in the shells in a feeder sheltered from the rain. Blue jays went nuts for them.

  Rain has been generous this year. Many people have told me that robins sing before a rain. Many others shared their belief that robins sing after a rain. The wet weather has made it difficult for a robin not to do one or both. I walked in the rain. That wasn’t my intention, but the rain caught up with me. A robin, a fine sort of a bird, sang in the rain. I’ve always considered that song to be a rain song, even if it isn’t. There is rain and a song. It seems right.

  Our backyard looks like a home for wayward ferns. And I didn’t even have to start a GoFrondMe campaign.

  It’s a good year for fireflies. Fireflies do well in damp conditions. The same can be said for mosquitoes. It’s a good year for mosquitoes, too. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, and what’s good for the lightning bug is good for the skeeter. Each time I slap a mosquito, I’m reminded that my swatting, no matter how frenetic it might be, only monitors the population and doesn’t impact it unless the insect is buzzing around in my bedroom.

  Hummingbird moths (sphinx moths), which are often mistaken for hummingbirds, visit flowers to feed on the nectar. They don’t harm the plants.

Q&A

  “Does applying nail polish help chigger bites?” Neither nail polish nor petroleum jelly is an effective treatment for chigger bites. It’s a myth that those things can suffocate chiggers, as chiggers don't burrow into the skin and are gone by the time you notice the bite. Focus on relieving the itching and inflammation with calamine lotion, antihistamine creams, corticosteroid creams or cool compresses. After chiggers make tiny holes in our skin, they inject saliva that turns cells into mush for food. My first step is to take a bath or shower and scrub my skin with soap and water. This washes off any chiggers that are on me. Using an insect repellent that has DEET or wearing clothing treated with an insecticide like permethrin before you venture outside can help deter the chiggers. Apply the bug spray to areas where chiggers might travel from clothing to your skin, like the waist of your pants and the tops of your socks. Some studies have suggested that natural sprays may help keep chiggers away. Wear long sleeves and long pants, with your pant legs tucked into your socks. Chiggers avoid people sporting a dorky look.

  “How can I tell if a young rose-breasted grosbeak is a male or a female?” The fledged birds appear to me to be slow-moving, as if weary or lethargic, and often are begging for food. I watched an adult male crack open sunflower seeds and feed the kernels to a fledgling begging on a platform feeder. Males flash pink or reddish under the wings, whereas females show a yellowish color. If the immature bird has pink feathers on the breast, it’s male. Females and immatures are brown and streaked, with a bold whitish stripe over the eye.

  “What birds eat ants?” Many birds eat ants, but northern flickers have a particular fondness for them. Woodpeckers, like flickers and pileated woodpeckers, use their long, sticky tongues to lap up ants. Other birds that regularly eat ants include wren, grouse, starling, sparrow, crow, wild turkey, robin, blackbird and cardinal. Gulls, common nighthawks, flycatchers, swallows and swifts feast on flying ants.

  “How can I tell a Canada thistle from a bull thistle?” Bull thistles are generally larger and often described as meaner-looking than Canada thistles. The most obvious way to differentiate the two is by their stems and leaves. A Canada thistle has a smooth, mostly hairless stem without spiny wings, while a bull thistle has spiny wings along the stem and hairy leaves. Canada thistle also reproduces via rhizomes, making it a perennial, while bull thistle is a biennial, reproducing only by seed.

  “Is the monarch butterfly on the endangered species list?” Sort of, kind of. The monarch butterfly isn’t currently listed as endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. However, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed listing it as a threatened species. The International Union for Conservation of Nature officially classified the monarch butterfly as endangered. In Canada, monarchs were listed as endangered under the Species at Risk Act in 2023. My fingers are crossed for Minnesota’s state butterfly, which Wisconsin is considering elevating to the lofty position of being its state butterfly.

Thanks for stopping by

  “Flowers. Those free gifts laid out on Mother Nature’s perfume counter.”―Roger McGough.

  “The well of nature is full today. Time to go outside and take a drink.”—Diane Ackerman.

  Do good.

©️Al Batt 2025

The black "V" on the yellow breast of a meadowlark is a key identifier. Its white outer tail feathers are noticeable when it flies. I delight in seeing eastern and western meadowlarks. Sadly, there are no northern, southern, northeastern, southeastern, northwestern or southwestern meadowlarks, but there is a Chihuahuan meadowlark found in southwestern U.S. and Mexico. Photo by Al Batt.

At the Freeborn County Fair.

At the Freeborn County Fair.

From the History Center of Freeborn County (MN). All these things are now in a cellphone.

This bugle belonged to Joseph Peter McGann of Albert Lea. He entered the service during WWl on July 23, 1918 and went almost directly to the front ranks in France. From the History Center of Freeborn County (MN).

A thirteen-lined ground squirrel gets a hot foot

Naturally

  The dark was lifting. The curtain opened to a broad palette of birdsong and flowers. Jewelweeds (spotted touch-me-nots) bloom July through September. Moisture beads on its leaves and glistens like jewels in the sun. A favorite of hummingbirds, it has trumpet-shaped flowers and seed capsules that explode when touched. The watery sap of jewelweed is reputed to help soothe rashes from poison ivy and stinging nettle.

  It’s a good day when I spot a crab spider on a wildflower. They are white or yellow with two pink or red slashes along the sides of the abdomen. They can change their color, a process that can take several days, and are easiest to find on pink flowers. Crab spiders get their name from their crablike appearance and their ability to walk sideways. They are passive hunters that wait motionless and feed on insects that come within their grasp. The male is tiny compared to the female. I’ve heard that to mate without being eaten, he must first tie up the female with silk. After mating, the female easily breaks the restraints. I’ve often read that the male covers the female loosely with strands of silk, which is considered a part of courtship referred to as a bridal veil. I’m guessing the latter is likely the actual story.

  I enjoy the delicious fruit of the Juneberry, aka shadbush, serviceberry, shadblow and Saskatoon berry. Folklore suggests that serviceberries get their name from funeral services, because by the time the ground thaws enough for burials, serviceberry flowers are in bloom. That might be factual, but it has the ring of a myth.

  I watched a thirteen-lined ground squirrel (striped gopher or squinny) scurry across the sizzling pavement. There was no lollygagging. The midday sun might have been giving the little animal a hot foot. Ground squirrels run with their tails straight out. Chipmunks run with their tails upright.

  A friend is threatening to go all Carl Spackler on the raccoons that are putting a crimp in his bird feeding. Carl Spackler, a golf course groundskeeper played by Bill Murray in the movie, “Caddyshack,” said this while preparing to dynamite a gopher’s tunnel, “In the immortal words of Jean Paul Sartre, 'Au revoir, gopher.'”

Q&A

  “Could bats be drinking from my hummingbird feeders at night?” No, there are no nectar-feeding bats in Minnesota. There aren’t even any Kool-Aid drinking bats in Minnesota. The seven native bat species in Minnesota are all insectivores.

  “How many species of hummingbirds are there?” There are 368 hummingbird species according to BirdLife International. Hummingbirds are native to the Americas.

  “Does Minnesota have the largest population of its state bird?” According to the National Loon Center, Minnesota has the largest population of common loons in the Lower 48, with 4650 breeding pairs, Wisconsin has 1250 pairs and Maine has 1700. Alaska has 4800 breeding pairs. Loons return to northern forested lakes and rivers in April or early May. The USGS says the common loon’s breeding range includes Alaska, much of Canada and portions of Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Manitoba has 11,000 breeding pairs, British Columbia 25,000, Quebec 50,000 and Ontario 97,000. Loons are excellent indicators of water quality as they require crystal-clear lakes (which makes it easier for them to see prey underwater) with abundant populations of small fish. They need lakes with enough surface area for their running takeoffs. All five species of loons breed in Alaska: red-throated, Arctic, Pacific, common and yellow-billed loons.

  “Why are some eggs speckled?” Here are three plausible reasons. It might be in defense against brood parasitism by helping parents differentiate their eggs from those laid by an intruder. It could be for camouflage. Eggs not readily exposed to the view of predators tend to be pale and unmarked (not all), with no camouflage needed. Killdeer eggs, which are exposed on the gravel of a driveway and in urgent need of a disguise, are heavily marked, which serves as an effective camouflage. The dark pigment on the eggs could make them less resistant to breakage.

  “What colors can birds see that we cannot?” Humans have only one nonspectral color—purple. Birds can see up to five: purple, ultraviolet+red, ultraviolet+green, ultraviolet+yellow and ultraviolet+purple. Technically, purple isn’t in the rainbow. It arises when our blue and red cones are stimulated, but not our green cones. Nonspectral colors are those not found in the visible spectrum of light.

  “What do northern house wrens eat?” They feed on a wide variety of insects, including beetles, earwigs, true bugs, grasshoppers, daddy longlegs, crickets, caterpillars, leafhoppers, moths, flies, springtails and many others, plus spiders, millipedes and snails. The collective noun for wrens is a herd or a chime.

Thanks for stopping by

  “Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.”—Gary Snyder.

  “I hold one share in the corporate earth and am uneasy about the management.”—E. B. White.

  Do good.

©️Al Batt 2025

Each day brings beauty in many forms. The ebony jewelwing, a magnificent damselfly with large black wings, is often seen in tree-shaded streamsides but can move far from water. It feeds on insects snatched from the air. Photo by Al Batt.

Butterflies fly routes as if they had been given bad directions

Naturally

  Butterflies fly routes as if they were given bad directions.

  The minimum temperature for honeybee flight is 54º. The optimum temperature for flight activity is 72-77º, but activity continues up to about 100º before declining. The University of Maine Cooperative Extension found that bumblebees fly in adverse weather conditions: temperatures lower than 55°, light rain, cloudy or foggy conditions, wind speeds higher than 15 mph, and poor light conditions.

  Wild parsnip is an invasive plant that could cause painful skin burns when its sap comes into contact with skin exposed to sunlight. It’s a member of the carrot family with yellow, flat-topped flower clusters. It thrives in open, disturbed areas like roadsides and pastures.

Q&A

  “Is the daddy longlegs a spider?” It isn’t a spider. It’s an arachnid more closely related to scorpions than spiders. Unlike true spiders, daddy longlegs have only two eyes instead of eight, and don’t produce silk or webs. Daddy longlegs aren’t venomous, don’t bite humans, and are commonly preyed upon by spiders. Daddy longlegs (harvestmen) hunt small insects and eat decaying plant matter and fungi.

  “How fast can a rock pigeon fly?” The average speed a rock pigeon achieves when flying is 50 to 60 mph. However, a racing pigeon reached a top speed of 92.5 mph.

  “Do mallards become flightless in a molt?” Mallards shed all their flight feathers at the end of the breeding season and are flightless for 3–6 weeks. Molting makes them vulnerable, and they hide in secluded areas while their body feathers molt into a concealing eclipse plumage, a comparatively dull covering.

  Dean Muesing saw many insect wings on the lawn and wondered why they were there. Dean found a young bluebird out of a nest box and wanted to know what to do. I associate insect wings on the ground with flying ants during swarming. Flying ants leave their wings behind as they establish new colonies. American kestrels catch dragonflies on the wing, then, while still in flight, rip off the wings and consume the body. Moths are common bat prey items. Once the bat has eaten the body, the wings are typically discarded. Some flycatchers remove the wings from their prey before consuming it. They do this by beating the prey against a branch to break off the wings. Dragonflies discard the wings of larger prey before eating it. If you find a young bluebird outside its nest, there are two schools of thought: One, it’s best to leave it alone. Two, if it's a fledgling, place it back in the box. Fledglings often hop back out on their own. If the bird is a nestling (younger, with sparse feathers), try putting it back in the box.

 Casey Madson of Hartland watched swallows hunt a farm field and wondered what kind of eyesight they have to be successful in catching flying insects. Barn swallows have exceptional eyesight, which is crucial for their aerial hunting style. They are two eyes with wings and have a bifoveate retina, meaning they have two areas of sharp focus (foveae) in each eye, one for distance and one for close-up vision. They share this trait with other predators like raptors, but most other songbirds have only one. The foveae are areas with a high concentration of cone photoreceptors, which are responsible for sharp vision and color perception. This allows them to track insect prey with precision while flying at high speeds. The elongated eye shape of barn swallows further enhances their spatial resolution, allowing them to perceive minute details and accurately judge distances while flying. Like many bird species, barn swallows can perceive ultraviolet light, which helps them find insects. The killing of egrets is often cited for inspiring the U.S. conservation movement, but it was the millinery trade’s impact on barn swallows that prompted naturalist George Bird Grinnell’s 1886 Forest & Stream editorial decrying the waste of bird lives. His essay led to the founding of the first Audubon Society.

  Becky Schuhmacher of Glenville asked why some sandhill cranes she has seen have had so many brown feathers. Sandhill cranes are typically gray, but their plumage sometimes appears reddish-brown due to the preening cranes do with iron-rich mud. That may act as camouflage. The adults have a distinctive red patch on their heads, while immatures (colts) lack this feature and have a more uniformly rusty-brown appearance.

  “Do opossums hang by their tails?” Opossums don’t spend lengthy periods hanging by their tails or sleep while hanging by their tails. It's a common misconception perpetuated in cartoons. Their tails aren't strong enough to support their weight for more than a moment. Young opossums could hang in there, but not for long, because they don’t have the muscle structure necessary to hold the position. Opossums can use their prehensile tails like a fifth limb to aid in climbing trees and other structures, or for carrying bedding materials.

  “Do bats eat fireflies?” Bats generally don’t eat fireflies. Fireflies contain toxins that make them taste bad to bats, and bats have learned to avoid them. I was a young Batt once. I owned nothing but an appetite. I tried to eat everything. Studies have shown that bats try to eat fireflies but quickly learn to avoid them after experiencing a lightning bug’s unpleasant taste. The fireflies' bioluminescence serves as a warning signal to bats, indicating that they’re not good to eat. Instead of a neon sign saying, “Eat here,” the insect’s flashing light proclaims, “Don’t eat here.”

  “Is the killdeer the only bird that feigns a wing injury to draw a predator away from a nest?” I watched a killdeer recently. It stopped to look at me, before bobbing up and down as if it had the hiccups. Killdeer distract predators by calling loudly, bobbing, and running toward and away from the threat. They are well-known practitioners of the broken-wing display, which is an attempt to lure predators away from a nest by feigning injury, which gets the Academy Award for the best performance by a bird. Researchers at California Polytechnic State University scanned databases of scientific studies and surveyed ornithologists and birders to track down additional species performing the display. This effort yielded 285 species from 52 families across the world. Shorebirds, ducks, songbirds and owls use the broken-wing display. A collective noun for killdeers is a season.

Thanks for stopping by

  “If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things in nature have a message you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive.”—Eleanora Duse.

  “Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.”—Wallace Stevens.

  Do good.

©Al Batt 2025

Song sparrows have 25 distinct subspecies, with individuals being larger in colder climates. A subspecies is a subdivision within a species that has unique identifying traits but can interbreed with other members of the species. “King Phillip Came Over For Good Soup” is a mnemonic for Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species, in order of increasing specificity. Song sparrows exhibit regional dialects in song, much like humans have accents. Females prefer males with the best playlists. Photo by 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.

The catbird produced a mile of music

Naturally

  The early morning catbird outside my bedroom window was long-winded, producing a mile of music or a kilometer of cacophonous sounds.

  The morning chorus was robust. Love was in the air. There was a parade of birds to the feeder. A red–winged blackbird, doing what the bird does to fill its day, ate sunflower seeds.

  They met in an open-billed showdown on the platform feeder. One was a female red-bellied woodpecker and the other a male cardinal. The woodpecker won without a single bill being aggressively jabbed.

  Flowers scented the woods. A ginormous American robin splashed water out of the birdbath. A ginormous robin might weigh 3 ounces—less than a deck of cards.

  Lemon-yellow goldfinches made me look. A blue-gray gnatcatcher, looking like a miniature mockingbird, produced buzzy, insect-like calls.

  I listened to a scarlet tanager near the city of Mabel. Or perhaps Mabel was near the scarlet tanager.

  Foxtail barley is a common grass of the roadsides, often in saline soil. Even though it is considered by some to be a weedy species, the flowering spikes are attractive, silky and waving in the slightest breeze. It’s known for its distinctive feathery seed heads that resemble a fox's tail.

  I wobbled around Rochester’s Mayo Clinic. The two female peregrine falcon chicks that hatched there this year were named Riya (meaning beautiful or graceful) and Aria (meaning lioness or noble). Newly fledged peregrines make short returns to their natal site for the first week or two. The first egg was laid on March 24 in the Mayo nest box. Typically, there are 2 to 4 eggs laid. Three eggs were laid this year, and two hatched. The adults take turns tending to the eggs, although the female peregrine (Hattie) does the majority of incubation while the male falcon (Orton) does most of the hunting.  Eggs hatch about 33-35 days after they’re laid. The nestling stage lasts for 38-42 days. Falcon chicks fledge in mid to late June.

Q&A

  “You mentioned a bird that uses snakeskins in its nest. Details?” Great crested flycatchers are known to include a shed snakeskin in their nests. If snakeskins are scarce, they use materials with similar characteristics, such as cellophane, plastic wrappers or onion skins. Why do they do this? Some research suggests the purpose might be to deter predators. A study found that nest boxes with snakeskins were less likely to be disturbed by predators.

 “Why do foxes have fur on the bottoms of their feet (their paw pads)?” There are a number of reasons. In cold climates, the fur provides a layer of insulation against the ice and snow. For foxes living in deserts, the fur on their paws protects their tootsies from the scorching hot sand. The fur on the paw pads provides better traction on slippery surfaces of ice and snow. The fur helps muffle the sound of their footsteps, allowing them to hunt more effectively. Spider-Man had his spidey sense, a tingling sensation that alerted him to impending danger. A fox may have a foxy sense that alerts the fox to food. The fur on the paw pads may help foxes sense prey burrowing under the snow.

  “Where do I find western meadowlarks in Minnesota?” A friend and field trip leader extraordinaire, Kim Eckert of Duluth, suggested a general rule of thumb is that any bird seen west of a north-south line from the city of Warroad in Roseau County south to the city of Fairmount in Martin County was a western meadowlark. East of this line, however, both the western meadowlark and the eastern meadowlark species could be seen. The Minnesota Breeding Bird Atlas data showed that the western meadowlark is encountered in moderate breeding densities along the western tier of counties from Rock and Nobles in the far southwest to Kittson and Roseau in the far northwest. Scattered pockets of higher breeding densities can be found throughout this region. Breeding populations rapidly decline in east-central and south-central areas of the state, and the western meadowlark is predicted to be rare to absent throughout much of eastern Minnesota.

  “Do barn swallows eat a lot of insects?” Barn swallows eat all kinds of flying insects, including ants, beetles, bees, butterflies, flies, gnats, mosquitoes, moths and wasps. A single barn swallow can eat 60 insects per hour or up to 850 in a day. A married barn swallow devours the same. That's approximately 25,000 insects in a month.

Thanks for stopping by

  “You can’t go back and make a new start, but you can start right now and make a brand new ending.”—James R. Sherman.

  “We must not only protect the countryside and save it from destruction, we must restore what has been destroyed and salvage the beauty and charm of our cities. Once our natural splendor is destroyed, it can never be recaptured. And once man can no longer walk with beauty or wonder at nature, his spirit will wither and his sustenance be wasted.”–Lyndon B. Johnson.

  Do good.

©Al Batt 2025

The cliff swallow is the species that used to return each March to Mission San Juan Capistrano in California. A popular song was written,  “When the swallows come back to Capistrano. That's the day you promised to come back to me. When you whispered, ‘Farewell,’ in Capistrano. T'was the day the swallows flew out to the sea.” Photo of cliff swallows and their mud nests by Al Batt.

Why Van Gogh lost an ear



Naturally

  I find awe in a gray catbird’s company. It joins me before breakfast each morning, jazz singing outside my bedroom window. Copycat catbirds actively sing before sunrise and after sunset. They mimic other birds but add their own interpretation to the sounds. Their songs are long but would be even longer if they played guitars. Catbirds are friendly birds that visit feeders to eat grape jelly, suet, sunflower hearts and raisins. I don’t need a field guide to identify a catbird. I have a feel guide to help me enjoy my sidekick.

  Birdsfoot trefoil blooms on roadsides. It’s a legume identified by its low-growing, yellow pea-shaped flowers and seed pods resembling a bird’s foot.

  A squirrel started running across the street. There was no traffic behind me, so I slowed my car. The squirrel froze in place in the middle of the road. Then it made a U-turn and headed back to whence it had come. Then, it made another U-turn and started running across the street again. It stopped briefly, just short of where it had been earlier, faked a continuance of the run before reversing its course and running back to where it had started its journey that had ended abruptly, and sniffed the ground under a tree. This is probably where politicians learned their flip-flopping antics.

  That’s a bird in the tree I saw. It was a red-eyed vireo singing, “Look at me…Way up high…Over here…In a tree…Here I am…In a tree…Where are you? Can’t see me.” It sounds as if the bird is counting the leaves on the tree. In 1948, Music Digest estimated that Bing Crosby's recordings filled more than half of the weekly hours allocated to recorded radio music in America. The red-eyed vireo is trying to match that. Its marathon singing has earned it the nickname of the “preacher bird.”

  Skippers look like something between butterflies and moths. They are small butterflies that visit flowers during the day. When perched, a skipper evokes the shape of a fighter jet.

  The neighbors’ rooster crowed. In many traditions, the crowing of a rooster at dawn signifies victory over darkness and the triumph of light. In some cultures, it's believed evil spirits flee at its sound.

  Vincent van Gogh traveled to the Netherlands, England, Belgium and France. I can’t prove it, but I think he traveled because he wanted to hear a meadowlark. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology didn’t yet exist, so Van Gogh didn’t know he needed to venture to the Americas to hear one. Being unable to listen to a meadowlark hit him hard. His ear had to go.

Father's Day

  On a day long ago, in a land not far away, the sky was as black as blue and as blue as black. Then, a beautiful day shouldered its way in. I stood beside my father’s grave on what some might call a windswept prairie, regretting those things I had left unsaid, and my questions that went unasked. I thought there’d be more time. Then, I heard a western meadowlark call from a pastureland near the cemetery. It brought precious memories of my wonderful father, the farmer, and of our many talks. I know the bird was proclaiming territory, but sometimes, a bird sings when I need to hear it.

Q&A

  “What is a group of dragonflies called? A flight, swarm, cluster or wing.

  “What do skunks have that no other animal has?” Baby skunks.

  A woman who joined me on a boat tour I led asked why there were more cliff swallow nests on the west side of the highway bridge over a lake than on the east side. When highway construction replaced old wooden trestle bridges with new concrete bridges and overpasses, cliff swallows abandoned nesting on loose, crumbly cliffs of sandstone or limestone in favor of firm concrete structures that offered overhangs sheltering the birds from the elements. Their densely packed nests extend over lengthy sections of buildings, dams, culverts and bridges. Ectoparasites (swallow bugs and ticks) in their nests sometimes cause colonies to abandon their nests and move elsewhere. Cliff swallows require a nearby source of freshwater to construct their gourd-shaped nests, each made of 900–1,200 individual mud pellets collected in their bills. I suspect cliff swallows might build more nests on the west side of a bridge than on the east side due to the direction of the sun's path and the resulting temperature differences. The west side of a bridge receives more direct sunlight later in the day, which can lead to warmer temperatures overnight. The warmer temperature could benefit the nestlings by regulating their body temperature and potentially provide a more comfortable environment. Baby birds are more vulnerable to cold than heat, especially when they lack feathers.

  “How many lakes are there in Alaska?” According to the State of Alaska, it has over 3 million lakes (3,197 are named). The largest, Lake Iliamna, encompasses over 1,000 square miles. Alaska has over 3,000 rivers, about 100,000 glaciers, lots of earthquakes and numerous active volcanoes.

Thanks for stopping by

  “He who praises another enriches himself far more than he does the one praised. To praise is an investment in happiness. The poorest human being has something to give that the richest could not buy.”—George M. Adams.

  “Nature tops the list of potent tranquilizers and stress reducers. The mere sound of moving water has been shown to lower blood pressure.”—Patch Adams.

  Do good.

©Al Batt 2025

The Canada anemone is my favorite flower. It makes me happy when I see one. Don’t other flowers do that, too? They do. I have many flowers that are my favorite flower. A Canada anemone is confident, hardy and lovely. It caters to small, native bees. Deer don’t relish this native perennial. Photo by Al Batt.