Male rose-breasted grosbeaks.
It was looking in the window as I was looking out.
The gold of spring.
And now this brief word about nature.
In case of an argument, each goose had a leg to stand on.
Geese have a thriving business recycling grass into fertilizer.
A prothonotary warbler looking all prothonotary.
A day brightener.
The prothonotary warbler played an important role in the Alger Hiss espionage trial (1948-1950). This involved the House Un-American Activities Committee and Whitaker Chambers. It brought Richard Nixon to prominence.
A song sparrow, the deluxe version.
Coots have difficulty finding shoes that fit.
A newspaper column about dancing lesser prairie-chickens.
And in today’s views
Each year, I herald the return of the purple martins. When there are no flying insects, it can be a sad event.
I think his name was Blackie.
Corn on the cob.
Orange you nice.
And a couple of radio shows.
What a migraine headache feels like.
For those who wish to get back to nature—toilet paper.
I love the blue around a mourning dove’s eye.
A sad slab of marble at Johnson’s Island Prison, a prisoner of war camp for Confederate officers, near Sandusky, Ohio.
You should go here if you get the chance. You should go here if you don’t get the chance. It’s birdy nice.
At the Hormel Nature Center in Austin, MN
Seen in Lake Crystal, MN
The three swans.
Still have a foxy fox sparrow in my yard.
A handsome fellow, the yellow-headed blackbird’s song is not appreciated by every ear.
A nuthatch notices things like me.
House finches nearly hidden by small twigs.
A purple finch purplifizes my day. Or maybe it finchifizes my day.
The hawthorn is a small tree, but it’s thorns are impressive.
A brown thrasher has graced my yard. He chairs a gardener’s support group. A mnemonic for his melodious song in which he repeats himself as men my age do is, “Plant a seed, plant a seed; bury it, bury it; cover it up, cover it up; let it grow, let it grow; pull it up, pull it up; eat it, eat it.”
A white-throated sparrow brightens a yard. It’s lovely whistle tells part of the tale of, “Old Sven Peterson, Peterson, Peterson.”
A 60-ton buffalo seen in Jamestown, North Dakota.
White storks roosting on the roof of a house in Austria.
I see snowbirds in my yard in May each year.
Here’s something for you to chew on.
seen in Haines, Alaska.
A Baltimore oriole stopped by today for a bite of jelly.
Business has been slow.
From back in an era when not everything was captured in a photo.
A blast from the past.
Keeping a meal warm.
By the end of the day, it’s shot.
A raven pretending to be Alfred Hitchcock.
Female brown-headed cowbird.
It’s in the rearview mirror.
Spring is when vision clears.
The Hartland band marched down the street. I’m not sure when this occurred, but I don’t think it was last week.
This scene is from New Richland, Minnesota, back in the days when you dressed up to go to a carnival.
From back in the days when people could put in their two cents’ worth this way.
As far as I know, no song was written about the wreck of the M & STL in Otisco, Minnesota.
An off-color house finch.
The Eldred Rock Lighthouse, located 20 miles south of Haines in the Lynn Canal, is the oldest original lighthouse building having been constructed in 1906.
Al Batt: Purple martins likely stay put, huddle up if coming back to cold
Robins and everything else have perked up with the nice weather.
Male and female brown-headed cowbirds.
A grandson is anxious to get the radishes and peas into the garden.
What’s that nesting in the bluebird box?
I left it behind me.
A raptor’s perch and a grassland nesting bird’s nightmare.
A bald-faced hornets’ nest in remarkably good condition.
Mr. Wadlow was a tall fellow.
A bit of the Flint Hills seen from the Kansas Turnpike. The hilltops of this tallgrass prairie are capped with cherty gravel.
A smartly patterned white-crowned sparrow.
Tussling trumpeter swans.
My father caller the great blue heron a shitepoke.
There is a heron head there somewhere.
Yellow-headed blackbird, red-winged blackbirds and brown-headed cowbirds.
Talking over a duck.
A blue jay perched on the ground.
If you’ve ever wondered why it’s called a ring-billed gull.
This is how this Canada goose bids winter adieu.
She talks. He says he listens.
Some purple martins had returned on April 13, others on April 14. No flying insects for them to eat. I saw no martins yesterday.
White eyebrow indicates this is a female purple finch, not house finch.
A pelican sporting a nuptial tubercle.
Blue jays and peanuts go together like peanuts and blue jays.
Perched on the top of a tree, this junco couldn’t help but wonder how deep the snow was.
There are things in Oklahoma that are willing to stick you with something other than the bill.
My father called the yellow-headed blackbird a mustard head.
A cowbird male tries to impress the females.
I was mooned by a mourning dove.
Mourning doves enjoy deck furniture.
What is rarer than a spring day?
A common grackle dressed as an oil spill.
It was a day without earthworms.
To a squirrel, every day is like watching a parade.
As an old coot myself, I’m always happy to see another old coot
Narcissus might have been a coot.
I found an oriole’s nest on the ground. The bird had used fishing line in its construction.
A common grackle dressed like an oil spill.
A grackle gives winter the look.
I hear the Eurasian collared-dove calling all year.
Who hasn’t tried to sleep through winter?
Even in adverse weather, beauty is apparent, as in this red-winged blackbird.
Immature white-crowned sparrows have brown and gray stripes on their heads instead of the white and black stripes of adults.
Happiness is a rock. Happiness rocks.
Winter to the left of me. Winter to the right of me. Here I am, stuck in the middle with melancholy human snowbirds who have returned from their southern homes too soon.
Over 300,000 acres of this grass and sage brush burned in Northwest Oklahoma. I talked to distressed evacuees. It’s always something.
More snow on a MoDo.
Winters without end can be tiring.
A robin in what has proven to be a characteristic pose this spring.
By the time I got around to fixing the weather, we’d received 19 inches of snow in April, a new record. I couldn’t be prouder.
Hoorays from Oklahoma.
I found a few of these nasty sandburs on my shoelaces while I was walking across Oklahoma. They are treacherous things—the sandburs, not the shoelaces.
A buttonball from a sycamore tree.
Missing meadowlarks My newspaper column.
A pocket gopher mound.It’s a way to tell the frost is out of the ground. Unfortunately, this one was in Oklahoma, not Minnesota.
This robin has had more than three snows on its tail.
I’ve been imagining being that crane operator working 20 floors up in downtown Rochester, Minnesota.
A rabbit that is really bad at hiding.
Every day is a parade to a squirrel.
A squirrel discovers he’s lost his wristwatch.
The red-bellied woodpecker has a fine looking back.
And I think my eyebrows have gone wild.
A police officer isn’t the only one watching like a hawk
A sign that shoulda/coulda been on every road I’ve driven on this winter.
What happened to Janesville after the Big Bad Wolf huffed and puffed.
Birding on the radio with Al Batt
As seen at the Hammer Museum in Haines, Alaska.
Billikens, good luck charms carved from Alaskan ivory.
Never trust a buffalo (bison) wearing basketball shoes.
Wood carving of kestrel done by Josh Guge found in the Subway of the Marriott Hotel in Rochester, Minnesota.