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. 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.

“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.

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.