Naturally

Why do birds sing so loudly in the morning?

It’s because they don’t have thumbs and can’t text.

The fur coat of a deer changes colors depending on the time of year—reddish in the spring and brown in the fall. A deer’s coat provides thermoregulation and camouflage. Summer coats are reddish and thin, helping deer to cope with heat stress. The coat color of deer tends to be darker in forested areas and lighter in agricultural areas, where deer are exposed to more direct sunlight.

A rusty-colored brown thrasher gobbled down black oil sunflower seeds from a platform feeder before flying to another feeder and eating suet. I needed to get ready for a clinic appointment, but the thrasher assured me that a short walk in my yard would do me good. Beginning at 8:03 a.m. on May 22, I counted the following species: Baltimore oriole, brown-headed cowbird, common grackle, blackpoll warbler, American goldfinch, song sparrow, magnolia warbler, great crested flycatcher, Nashville Warbler, gray catbird, red-bellied woodpecker, downy woodpecker, American redstart, mourning dove, wood thrush, Tennessee warbler, yellow warbler, red-eyed vireo, bay-breasted warbler, white-breasted nuthatch, house wren, blue jay, chestnut-sided warbler, chipping sparrow, European starling, American robin, rose-breasted grosbeak (produces a rich, robin-like whistle, without breaks—its breathless singing takes my breath away.), brown thrasher and black-capped chickadee. It was no record, but it was gladsome. I couldn’t have experienced the 29 species if the woodpeckers hadn’t been knock, knock, knocking on wood for my good luck. It was a good day.

Jim Grotte of Fairmont said he was listening to me on KMSU Radio, and the moment I mentioned a Cooper’s hawk, one flew in and grabbed a sparrow near Jim’s worksite. A coworker said, “I think that’s one of those hawks right there.”

The Peregrine Falcon Program

The Peregrine Falcon Program has a nesting box atop the Mayo Building in Rochester. The program began in 1987 with the cooperation of the Midwest Peregrine Society. The adult peregrine falcons return to the nest in early February, the female lays one to five eggs from mid-March to mid-April, and the eggs hatch after about 35 days, from late April to late May. The chicks (eyasses) are named and banded during an event for patients, staff and volunteers. The nestlings fledge from early June to early July and depart in the fall to pursue further education. The Latin name for peregrines means wanderers. It’s crow-sized and can live nearly 20 years. It’s the fastest animal on earth, able to reach speeds over 240 mph in a stoop. Peregrine falcons inhabit every continent except Antarctica. The falcon has long been associated with royalty in the sport of falconry. There are two youngsters in the nest this year.

https://history.mayoclinic.org/falcon-program/

Q&A

“Will Canada geese nest in trees?” Canada geese don’t spend all their time playing vuvuzelas to let us know they aren’t quacks. Canada geese typically build their nests on the ground, but they do nest in trees or on buildings. Canada geese have nested in bald eagle nests. In 1804, Captain Meriwether Lewis (Lewis andClark Expedition) reported Canada geese nesting in trees along the Missouri River in North Dakota. In 1820, Titian Ramsay Peale recorded a goose in peaceable possession of an eagle’s nest near what is now Council Bluffs. In the mid-1950s, in the Flathead Valley of Montana, biologists monitored 77 tree and cliff nests where Canada geese were nesting. Some sites were up to 200 feet off the ground. How do the nestlings get out of the nest? Air Force One doesn’t stop and pick them up. They escape the nest the uncomplicated way. After the goslings hatch, the parents call persistently from the ground to the goslings. Like Rob Schneider, they yell, “You can do it!” The goslings jump from the nest and beat their puny wings on their descent to the ground. Goslings are tough, just like baby wood ducks.

“Why is a group of crows called a ‘murder?’” There are several explanations for the origin of this term based on folklore and superstitions. There is a folktale in which crows gather and decide the capital fate of another crow. Ancients regarded the appearance of crows as an omen of death because crows are scavengers and were associated with dead bodies, battlefields and cemeteries. It’s likely the term “murder of crows” reflects a time when groupings of many animals had colorful and poetic names.

Other bird species could answer to that collective noun. If you’re an insect, two chickadees are a murder of chickadees. Is one crow an attempted murder? Are the crows in my yard a murder? They had probable caws.

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.

“Many eyes go through the meadow, but few see the flowers in it.”–Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Do good.

The red-headed woodpecker is the only North American woodpecker to store food and cover it with wood or bark. Skillful at flycatching, 1/3 of its diet is animal materials (insects) and 2/3 plant materials (fruit, nuts and seeds). This bird is nicknamed the flying checkerboard. Its cavity nests are often found in snags that have lost most of their bark. Photo by Al Batt.