Naturally
Birds who are particular about who they associate with follow the chickadees. They do this because they need to eat. Chickadees have a remarkable ability to find food.
Dark-eyed juncos have bright white outer tail feathers that help identify them. When a junco takes to the air, it spreads its tail and flashes these white outer feathers.
Because yellow-rumped warblers don't have to go as far as other species between breeding territories and wintering grounds, they are the first warbler to arrive in the spring and the last to leave in the fall. The males are identified by their bright yellow rumps. Butterbutts often sally forth from branches to capture flying insects. Yellow-rumps winter in the central and southern U.S., and northern Mexico. Their fall migration is from August to early November. Unlike most warblers, they can digest wax compounds in bayberries and wax myrtles.
Boxelder bugs swarm the sunny south- and west-facing sides of Minnesota homes in late summer and fall before overwintering in wall voids and attics. They do not bite, sting, transmit diseases or cause structural damage to homes. They can create a nuisance by staining walls or fabrics if crushed, and emitting a foul odor.
Minnesota is home to over 50 species of native lady beetles, but many of their populations have declined due to habitat loss and competition from invasive species like the multicolored Asian lady beetle. Native lady beetles stay outdoors in the winter, sheltering under leaf litter, plant debris or soil. In contrast, the invasive multicolored Asian lady beetle invades homes and buildings in the fall and overwinters in those locations.
I watched blue jays doing rhythmic push-ups and bobbing. It wasn’t an avian exercise class. The behavior served as communication, courtship and territory management. The bobbing established a pecking order with no battling, and the motions were accompanied by vocalizations. “Blue Jays” is the nickname of the Toronto MLB team. The Canadian province of Prince Edward Island named the blue jay its provincial bird. It’s not the state bird of any U.S. state. Colleges that adopted the blue jay as their mascot include Creighton University, Elizabethtown College, Johns Hopkins University and Minnesota West Community & Technical College. High school teams nicknamed the Blue Jays include Waseca and Central Minnesota Christian in Minnesota, and Bondurant-Farrar and Perry in Iowa. The Perry H.S. girls’ teams are called the Jayettes. Why isn’t the blue jay a state bird? It’s handsome and intelligent but has a reputation as a rascal. The lack of such lofty credentials could be due to its arrogance. It might have been asked but turned down the opportunity.
I have been reading
“One Wild Bird at a Time” by Bernd Heinrich is an excellent book in which Heinrich wrote that it takes about 21,600 ants to fledge one northern flicker. Flickers are, like chickens, indeterminate egg layers; and in one experiment, a flicker was induced to lay 71 eggs when the fresh eggs were removed each day.
Those thrilling days of yesteryear
I used to stop in Fairmont, Minnesota, to visit the Prairie Dog Exhibit created and sustained by the Fairmont Exchange Club with the help of others. I enjoyed seeing the prairie dogs, the jack-in-the-boxes of the natural world. The exhibit closed for assorted reasons, but I recall it fondly.
Q&A
“How high do hummingbirds fly?” They are unlikely to get much above treetop height during migration, which allows them to see food sources along the route. Hot air balloonists have reported ruby-throated hummingbirds at altitudes of up to 500 feet. Hummingbirds hitchhiking on the backs of Canada geese was a persistent myth, but hummingbirds could not survive the cold temperatures of high-altitude migrations made by larger birds. Over water, observers have reported hummingbirds migrating just above the wave tops. Hummingbirds typically fly just a few feet to about 20 or 60 feet above the ground near treetops, flowers and feeders. Males fly up to 100 feet high during courtship displays.
“Are fire ants found in Minnesota?” No, the farthest north the red imported fire ants have been found is in southern Virginia and Oklahoma.
“What animals change color in the fall?” Male American goldfinches trade their bright yellow feathers of summer for a dull, olive-gray and brown winter plumage, making them look similar to females. Their bills shift from a bright summer orange to a drab, dull tan. Snowshoe hares are brown but grow a white coat in the winter to blend with the snow. Other Minnesota mammals that change fur color include white-tailed jackrabbits and three species of weasels. A deer’s coat color changes in the fall from a reddish-brown summer coat to a dull grayish-brown or dark brown winter coat. This is primarily for thermoregulation and camouflage
Thanks for stopping by
“In our world of big names, curiously, our true heroes tend to be anonymous. In this life of illusion and quasi-illusion, the person with solid virtues who can be admired for something more substantial than his well-knownness often proves to be the unsung hero: the teacher, the nurse, the mother, the honest cop, the hard worker at lonely, underpaid, unglamorous, unpublicized jobs.”—Daniel J Boorstin.
“There is only one question: how to love this world.”—Mary Oliver.
Do good.
©️Al Batt 2026
It’s a living gem exhibiting a spectrum of stunning metallic blue-green colors and shiny copper wing covers. Dogbane beetles emerge in summer and live about 8 weeks. They’re mistaken for Japanese beetles, but lack the white spots on the sides that Japanese beetles have. Dogbane beetles feed on dogbane and are harmless to gardens and crops. It’s one of the most beautiful of our insects, which is an accomplishment because all insects are handsome. Photo by Al Batt.