This monarch caterpillar was eating the seed pod of a swamp milkweed.
Our swamp milkweed has been hosting many monarch butterfly caterpillars this year.
A caterpillar likes a salad.Lots of salads. In just two weeks the caterpillar sheds its skin five times. It outgrows its old skins.
The battle of the beans continues.
A chickadee kicks up its heels.
A purple martin waits to use the restroom.
Purple martins returning to the nest after shopping at IKEA.
I spent part of a lovely May day watching this Baltimore oriole build a nest. She weaved magic.
I had the delightful task of putting new monarch butterflies into the hands of five youngsters at the Steele County Fair. The kids’ smiles as they watched the released butterflies flutter off made a free Fair priceless.
The Steele County Free Fair has over 100 food stands -- that’s around one per every 90 taste buds of the average fairgoer.
Birding at the New Richland Care Center. It’s a Gouldian finch.
A cicada’s exoskeleton proves that Elvis isn’t the only one who has left the building.
Sunflower seeds waiting in line.
This sulphur butterfly is keeping an eye out for a better flower.
Some people claim that Cinderella’s slippers were made of red squirrel pelts. That’s difficult to prove.
A part of Minnesota’s plan to beautify its traffic signs.
The eastern tiger swallowtail has four tiger stripes on its forewing. The larvae find food in the leaves of ash, basswood, birch, black cherry, chokecherry, cottonwood, mountain ash, poplar and willow trees.
It is the time of year when swallows begin to think about leaving us.
John James Audubon called it the Carolina pigeon or turtle dove. We call it the mourning dove. It’s Wisconsin’s official state symbol of peace.
A young Baltimore oriole ready to take on the world — or at least my yard.
A mountain bluebird I encountered in Montana.
I recall when the post office peeped regularly with baby chicks sent through the mail.
A batter’s box scene made from spare parts did well at the County Fair.
Great horned owls hunt our roads. A perilous endeavor.
The movie was much too loud, as most tend to be, but not loud enough to drown out the sounds of popcorn being eaten by someone in the next seat. Perhaps it was a red squirrel?
It was the day I almost found Waldo. It turned out to be a walnut instead.
As a skunk walked by.
And without dental insurance.
A snake in the grass.
By Al Batt
Published 9:00 am Saturday, August 4, 2018You have read 9 of 10 articles.
Al Batt of Hartland is a member of the Albert Lea Audubon Society. Email him at SnoEowl@aol.com.
My neighbor Crandall stops by.
“How are you doing?” I ask.
“Everything is nearly copacetic. Still Bill, he makes more dust than miles, asked if I could read lips. Still Bill is as useful as an appendix. He tried to make tomato juice by driving the lawn mower over my tomato plants. I’ve had some college. That’s where I learned most of what I don’t know, including not being able to read lips. That comes in handy, especially when driving. When Still Bill, he bottoms chairs for a hobby, learned that I couldn’t read lips, he mouthed some words that I’m sure I’d have wanted to hear. I try to do everything in moderation that I dislike doing. Still Bill, an expert at doing nothing, even does that in moderation. Yet, thanks to a lifetime of being chewed upon by mosquitoes, I’ve been awarded membership in the Minnesota Mosquito Breeders’ Association.
Speaking of chewing, Ma believes in chewing her food. She even chews water. She told me that for their first date, Pop took her to the dump to shoot rats. Pop’s dog, Bark Twain, is missing. Pop loves that mutt. Ma suggested he put an ad in the newspaper, which he did.Now it’s a week later, and there’s still no sign of the pooch.“
“What did he write in the ad?” I say.
“‘Here, boy.’”
Naturally
I watched an eastern kingbird, Tyrannus tyrannus, attack crows. The kingbird was outnumbered five to one, but it chased the crows away. There was no subtlety to its attack. A kingbird is tenacious.
A hummingbird’s brain makes up 4.2 percent of its weight, the largest of any bird proportionately. Our brains are 2 percent of our weight.
I saw a snapping turtle looking like a lizard that had stolen a turtle shell and a large, black and yellow, cicada killer wasp. Cicada killer females can be about 2 inches long, males about half that. The males have no stingers. The females can sting, but aren’t inclined to do so. Females sting cicadas with a paralyzing toxin and carry them to burrows in sandy or loose soils. They lay one egg on a cicada in a nest chamber. A second or third cicada is often added, because female larvae are larger than males and require more food. The chamber is sealed and the egg hatches in one or two days. The larvae consume the cicadas before spinning a cocoon and overwintering underground. They emerge as adults in July or August and live two to six weeks.
Q&A
“I’ve noticed small gophers running across the road. Why do they cross the road?” To show the opossum it could be done. These 13-lined ground squirrels (seven dark stripes separated by six lighter stripes) find the grass tastier on the other side of the road. They eat grass, leaves, seeds and insects. They may take meetings with another squirrel there. This animal is the mascot for the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers.
Jeanie Mortenson of Faribault wrote she had little caterpillars on her milkweed that are devouring it. She said they were small and had bodies covered in what she described as spiked, stiff hair. She wondered what they were. It sounds like tussock moth caterpillars, often found on milkweed. It’s nicknamed the tiger milkweed moth for its orange, black and white hair tufts. They can harm milkweed, but predators usually keep their numbers down. The adult moth has gray wings and a yellow abdomen with black spots.
“When do monarch butterflies migrate in the fall?” Monarchs begin clustering on trees and plants by the end of August into September.
The great-great-grandchildren of the monarchs that arrived in the spring make the long journey south to Mexico. Monarch numbers in Minnesota peak in late August and early September as resident butterflies are joined by those from farther north that have begun their fall migration. The eggs typically hatch in three to six days depending on the weather. The caterpillars spend nine to 14 days eating, growing and shedding their skins. A monarch passes eight to 14 days in a chrysalis before transforming into a butterfly. Monarchs can take up to two months to complete their migration.
Albert Lea Audubon Preserve
Walk naturally at the end of Oregon Street in the wilds of Albert Lea. Thrills and trails are available.
Pelican Breeze
Please join me on a tour of Albert Lea Lake at 1:30 p.m. Aug. 12 by calling 507-383-7273.
Thanks for
stopping by
“Up with life. Stamp out all small and large indignities. Leave everyone alone to make it without pressure. Down with hurting. Lower the standard of living. Do without plastics. Smash the servo-mechanisms. Stop grabbing. Snuff the breeze and hug the kids. Love all love. Hate all hate.“ — Novelist John D. MacDonald
“If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed 10,000 years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.“ — E. O. Wilson
Do good.
Even though they look down on me, I’m happy to see the sunflowers doing so well.
The many flowers of the burdock can symbolize abundance, but I find its burs clingy.
A hopeful sign that the believed-to-be extinct chainsaw-billed woodpecker might still exist.
I’m working at a fine county fair and wondering if the cattail was the inspiration for a corn dog.
Buff Orpington would be the perfect name for the star of yet another bad reality TV show.
An official greeter at the Freeborn County Fair.
Fall has begun its PR campaign.
The red admiral is another butterfly that migrates.
A young red-headed woodpecker in our yard.
You are under good wings with killdeer insurance.
And let the chips fall where they may.
European skipper, first recorded in the U.S. in 1925.
Repurposing an old silo near Montgomery, Minnesota.
A red admiral nectaring.
A bumblebee hums like a humblebee.
A cabbage white. A frequenter of mud puddles and other dives.
Beneficial goldenrod soldier beetles are fond of yellow flowers, except for this particular beetle.
Another false zebra longwing at Reiman Gardens Butterfly Wing in Ames, Iowa.
This butterfly is a reader at the Butterfly Wing of Reiman Gardens in Ames, Iowa.
Birdsfoot trefoil is blossoming in abundance on our roadsides.
There is a beauty to the American robin that too easily goes unnoticed.
A dickcissel goes online.
The Cloud Gate, a public sculpture nicknamed The Bean, reflects and distorts the world at the Millennium Park in Chicago.
In recognition of a man lost in Chicago.
Purple prairie clover attracts butterflies and cameras.
A long-suffering Cubs fan who didn’t see them win the World Series.
I love watching damselflies dance among the flowers.
Honey bees taking a little time off.
A lovely display at the Water’s Edge Nature Center near Algona, Iowa.
It might resemble a honey bee, but it’s a drone fly.
A little boy asked me if that was a price tag.
A Halloween pennant. A dragonfly with the look of a butterfly.
Blue vervain is a lovely plant that attracts bees.
Blazing star enters stage right.
By Al Batt
Published 9:00 am Saturday, July 21, 2018
Al Batt of Hartland is a member of the Albert Lea Audubon Society. Email him at SnoEowl@aol.com.
My neighbor Crandall stops by.
“How are you doing?” I ask.
“Everything is nearly copacetic. I had my ears checked. The doctor said they hadn’t changed much since my last exam. I still had two of them. I’ve been helping my neighbor Still Bill remodel his garage. It’s the most work I’ve ever seen him do. Still Bill believes there is no reason to make an effort when an excuse works just as well. It’s not his fault. He tries to exercise, but he can’t outrun a fork.”
Naturally
I tiptoe through nature. I love to do that.
House wrens had become the main source of birdsong in my yard. Their competition came from fledgling birds crying, “Feed me.” The demanding youngsters inspired me to pick ripe tomatoes. Flavorful orbs of fine eating. I heard a dog day (annual) cicada call. I typically hear them from July into September. Hot weather fans their singing flames. These insects are providers of late summer sounds and memories. Folklore says that a cicada’s buzzing song declares that frost is but six weeks away. The cicada isn’t a proficient predictor of dropping temperatures.
I spotted earwigs on the milkweeds I’d planted for the monarch butterflies. An obvious feature of an earwig is the pair of pincers or forceps at the tip of the abdomen. Both sexes have these pincers; in males they are large and curved, whereas they’re straight in females.
I watched red fox kits at play. I love seeing foxes for many reasons. One is because I dislike Lyme disease. A study found the red fox to be a major agent of control of that disease due to its fondness for mice as food. Mice are efficient transmitters of Lyme disease.
I watched American white pelicans floating on the water. Pelicans have a pouch that would make a kangaroo proud. Dixon Lanier Merritt wrote, “A wonderful bird is the Pelican. His beak can hold more than his belly can. He can hold in his beak enough food for a week! But I’ll be darned if I know how the hellican?” Pelicans are splendid fliers and soar magnificently on giant wings, but becoming airborne can be challenging without the aid of the wind. Pelicans must run over the water while beating their wings and pounding the water’s surface with their feet to get enough speed for takeoff. Their feet flapping sounded like Fred Flintstone starting his car.
Q&A
“Why did I see a bald bird at my feeder?” Don’t be surprised to see a bald cardinal or jay in July and August. It’s normal for some birds to go through an abnormal molt with an odd replacement of feathers.
“What three fictional birds are featured on the Hollywood Walk of Fame?” Woody Woodpecker, Donald Duck and Big Bird.
“I saw a bird that looked like a downy or a hairy woodpecker, but it had red on the top of its head. What was it?” It was a downy or a hairy woodpecker. Both downy and hairy woodpecker adult males have a red patch on the back of the head. Fledglings have red on top instead.
“My field guide calls it a gray jay, but I thought it was a Canada jay.“ Some people call it a camp robber or a whiskey jack. The bird’s name officially became the gray jay in 1957. The North American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society changed the name to Canada jay this year.
“How many bumblebees are there in a nest?” Bumblebee nests vary in size depending on the species and time of year. A nest may contain 50 to 400 bees. Honeybee hives typically contain about 50,000 bees.
“I saw a squirrel that looked as if it were eating pavement. Was that what it was doing?” If you saw a squirrel pressing its nose to the pavement of a road or parking lot, it was likely licking minerals (especially salt) from the cement or asphalt.
“Do blue-gray gnatcatchers eat gnats?” Yes, but only blue-gray gnats. That’s not true. They eat insects such as: Leafhoppers, plant bugs, moths, beetles, weevils, spiders, caterpillars and grasshoppers.
Alima Fairchild of Rushford asked if scarlet tanagers are common in Minnesota. They are common, but not commonly seen.
Audubon Preserve
The estate of Myron and Stephanie Pederson gave a 10-acre plot of land to the Albert Lea Audubon Society in 1987. Audubon purchased an additional six adjacent lots. The Audubon Preserve is in the southwestern part of Albert Lea at the end of Oregon Street. Loren Kaiser maintains nearly two miles of mowed trails. Dustin Demmer provided native plantings. Birds and wildlife abound. Motorized vehicles and picnicking are prohibited in respect of the wildness of nature. The next time someone tells you to take a hike, and they will, take it at the Audubon Preserve.
Thanks for stopping by
“Over every mountain there is a path, although it may not be seen from the valley.“ — Theodore Roethke
“If you can’t be in awe of Mother Nature, there’s something wrong with you.” — Alex Trebek
Do good.
Photo by Al Batt
I might have heard this: “I need the big crane. Go back to the machine shed and bring me the right tool this time.”
Or I might not have heard that.
A cicada killer wasp silences cicadas.
The smile of a cicada killer.
A leopard lacewing that is found in Asia.
I recall with great joy seeing blue morpho butterflies in the dappled sun of Costa Rica. Morpho refers to Morpheus the god of dreams in Greek mythology.
I hope they brought the right crane.
Black-eyed Susan was not named after a bad boxer.
Queen Anne’s Lace. A biennial that I called “bird’s nest” annually when I was a lad.