A group of peafowl is called an ostentation or a pride.
Peacocks are mentioned in the Bible as one of the most precious items King Solomon's ships brought from Asia.
This is an exceptional version of a Minnesota robin. Western populations of the American robin are often paler than eastern populations and have almost no white at the tail corners.
The drunken birds of Minnesota have been popular items in the media, yet no robin has ever lost its driver’s license.
This statue in Duluth memorializes Albert Henry Woolson (February 11, 1850 – August 2, 1956), the last surviving member of the Union Army who served in the American Civil War.
Caged rocks forced to anchor a fence.
I love historical markers like this one in Nicollet County, Minnesota.
This was carved with a chainsaw.
A trumpeter swan, dressed in down, is enjoying Minnesota’s lovely autumnal weather.
A trumpeter swan herds a flock of three cygnets.
Fall maintains its beauty despite winter’s early intrusion.
I saw this farm tractor between Meire Grove and Greenwald in Minnesota.
The first junco (snowbird) showed up in our yard on October 6.
It was my good fortune to speak at this lovely place in Park Rapids, Minnesota.
The loons loom large in Park Rapids, Minnesota.
St. Urho’s Day is on March 16, which makes my birthday much more celebratory. According to Minnesotans, Urho drove the grasshoppers out of Finland by chanting, “Grasshopper, grasshopper, grasshopper go away.”
As found at the statue of St. Urho in Menahga, Minnesota.
As far as lakes go, this one found in Osage Township in Minnesota is pretty straight.
Fall can turn any day into a Sunday drive.
When it comes to regal birds, this goldfinch stands next to an eagle.
The hummingbirds are still here. I’m enjoying their company.
Mark Twain wrote “you never see a blue jay get stuck for a word.”
Mark Twain wrote “A jay hasn't got any more principle than a congressman.”
Red Barber, the baseball broadcaster, said that "sitting in the catbird seat" meant "sitting pretty, like a batter with three balls and no strikes on him." Here is a local catbird seat.
by Al Batt, albertleatribune.comOctober 6, 2018 09:00 AMThe northern shoveler is often called a spoonbill. - Al Batt/Albert Lea Tribune
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 was in a fast food restaurant making poor choices the other day. I shouldn’t have been there as my garden did very well this year. I planted only invasive species and they flourished. I ran into Lice Berg there. I hadn’t seen him for years — not since he moved to Idaho. I remember him as the cheapest guy I’ve ever known. I recall a waitress at The Eat Around It Cafe telling another about a lone penny on a table, “That’s just the tip of the Lice Berg.” My Uncle Curly used to play poker once a week with Lice, Scooter’s old man and Ace. They were playing when Ace had a heart attack and died. They called the police and waited for an ambulance to arrive. They liked Ace, but there was $400 on the table. They looked at Ace’s cards. He had the winning hand. They each took $100 and left the remaining $100 on the table. Ace’s wake was a couple of days later, giving them time to think about what they’d done. They gathered by the casket containing the body of their friend. In his grief, Scooter’s old man said, ‘You were the best card player I’ve ever known. Here’s $100,’ and tossed the bill into the casket. My Uncle Curly took $100 from his wallet and before dropping it into the casket, said, ‘You’d have won that last hand. I owe you this.’ Lice was next. He said, ‘Ace, it’d be an abomination to card players everywhere if I didn’t give you the money you’d won fair and square.’ With that, Lice wrote out a check for $300, put it in the casket and took out $200 in change.”
Naturally
A deer had run in front of my car. It wasn’t a large ungulate, probably a half buck. I watched a raccoon climb a tree. Raccoons can climb down headfirst by rotating their back feet.
In an attempt to keep from worrying that I was spending too much time offline, I attempted to see a cloud that looked like the city of St. Cloud. And the sound of the chainsaw was heard throughout the land. Storms had added clearing downed trees to the bloated to-do lists of many people. I walked face first into a spiderweb. I wiped it off and apologized to the spider. If you wish to thrive, leave spiders alive.
Blue jays bothered a great horned owl trying to get some sleep in the yard. The owl’s ear tufts of feathers are called plumicorns. A flock of starlings traveled the edges of the woods. The name starling comes from the Anglo Saxon and means little star— likely from its star-shaped silhouette in flight. Northern flickers filled the yard for a couple of days, stopping on their journey south. Turkey vultures are known to the Cherokee as “peace eagles” because they never kill.
Look for dark-eyed juncos to return. They are called snowbirds because they look like a winter day: gray skies above and snowy white below. White outer tail feathers flash two parallel white stripes, presenting an upside-down V, as a junco flies away. In the fall, when my father spotted the first junco on our farm, he told us that it would be six weeks until the first trackable snow. He marked the date on the calendar. If the snow fell near the predicted date, Dad marveled aloud at what an amazing prophet a snowbird was. If the date wasn’t close, the failed feathered seer wasn’t mentioned. Sometimes the juncos were right.
A snowbird is also a northerner who moves to a warmer southern state in the winter. When I worked in the Gulf Shores of Alabama, I’d hear local singers croon, “If it’s snowbird (tourist) season, why aren’t we allowed to shoot them?”
There are many fallen acorns. Acorns from the white oak family begin germinating this fall. Acorns of the red oak family germinate next spring.
The yard was busy with busy honey bees. According to Golden Blossom Honey, in order to produce 1 pound of honey, 2 million flowers must be visited. A hive of bees must fly 55,000 miles to produce a pound of honey. One bee colony can produce 60 to 100 pounds of honey per year. An average worker bee makes about 1/12 teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.
The 2018 Waterfowl Population Status Report showed North America’s spring duck population had declined 13 percent from last year. The biggest drops were in northern pintail and scaup numbers. Northern shoveler, green-winged teal, gadwall and redhead showed the greatest increases. The mallard population was up 17 percent.
Thanks for stopping by
“Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.” — Maya Angelou
“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Do good.
The northern shoveler is often called a spoonbill.
There is a fungus among us. At least at Rock Bridge State Park in Missouri.
Notice the dark patagial marks (between the shoulder and the forewing) on the underwings of a red-tailed hawk.
Turkey vultures have gray flight feathers and fingers at their wingtips.
Frank Sinatra never sang as much as a Carolina wren.
The ticks in Minnesota are sizable.
The light-colored leaves and the fruit of the bur cucumber.
This honey locust tree is armed.
Warning: Woodpeckers at work
This leaf couldn’t decide whether to be red or green.
A banded tussock moth caterpillar comes in colors from brown to yellow to gray.
Bats are good neighbors.
A great spangled fritillary is perched upon a thistle flower that gives the butterfly the illusion of having a purplish tail.
A fall day carries a bit of spring with it.
I’m going to add these birds to my Missouri life list the minute I am able to identify them.
I walked like a kestrel.
I ate a waffle at this Waffle House in Columbia, Missouri and it made me a better person.
The stories of James Floyd Stevens of Moravia, Iowa, helped make Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox legendary.
A spiffy carving of bald eagles in Moravia, Iowa.
Great Little Free Library and advice in Columbia, Missouri.
Queen City, Missouri.
Wise words and a planter Bug in Unionville, Iowa.
This water tower in Missouri is a mind reader.
Senior farmers, please be aware of a telephone scam where the caller attempts to sell you a new Case tractor.
This is where you went to learn how to become a Taylor back in the day. This is near Moulton, Iowa.
I enjoy an optimistic dinner with ambitious silverware.
Virginia creeper flashes its fall colors.
Wasps will raid and plunder a honey bee hive.
The feather structure of a double-crested cormorant decreases buoyancy and facilitates underwater pursuit of prey. Its plumage isn’t water-repellent. A spread-wing posture helps dry wet wings.
A great egret shares a post.
At the Albert Lea (MN) Audubon Preserve.
The Romans called it augury, the reading of the number, flight pattern and behavior of birds such as starlings to divine messages from the gods. It works. This starling predicted snow last January.
Saw this sandhill crane and colt while doing a Breeding Bird Survey in June.
Herter’s, located in Waseca, Minnesota, was Cabela’s before there was a Cabela’s.
I’m surprised Edgar Allan Poe never wrote a story about an earwig.
There was a bright golden haze on the meadowhawk.
This sign in Lake Crystal, Minnesota, reads: “The church of St. Mary in the hollow of the white hazel trees near the rapid whirlpool by St. Tysilio's of the red cave."
The European skipper was first recorded in the U.S in 1925. This butterfly’s caterpillar feeds on timothy named for Maryland's Timothy Hanson, who has been called the Johnny Appleseed of hay. He was the first to cultivate this Eurasian grass in North America in the early 18th century.
Wherever fake owls gather, there are crows laughing.
by Al Batt, albertleatribune.comSeptember 22, 2018 09:00 AMHoney bees have taken control of this grape jelly feeder. - Al Batt/Albert Lea Tribune
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. Pop is still playing with a full deck, but it takes him longer to shuffle. He’s a speed bump. He slows down everyone. Pop rocked himself to sleep trying to get out of his easy chair. The only exercise Pop gets is opening pill bottles. He was complaining of double vision. Ma told him to keep one eye closed. Pop talked me into buying an extended warranty for my truck. It covers only the glove compartment door and the vanity mirror. I have an old truck. It’s shedding parts. I’m trying not to have an old truck. I’m thinking of trading my 12-year-old truck for an 11-year-old truck. I should sell it to Junior. I figure with what he’d save in speeding tickets alone, it’d pay for itself.”
From the mailbag
Lee Johnson, who I met at Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge, sent this:
“In 1957, my mom and dad, Hal and Dori, moved into their new home in Rochester. They became fast friends with their next-door neighbors, Gene and Ken. They remained best friends for the rest of their lives. Dori and Ken quickly discovered that they had a penchant for playing practical jokes on each other. They delighted in seeing who could play the most diabolical prank on the other. This practice, also, remained in effect for all of their days. This is the story about a joke that was played a long time ago and has attained an almost legendary status as their best joke ever.
“Ken had several bird feeders in his backyard and had an obsessive hatred for the squirrels that continually raided them. Ken was a handyman/tinkerer and decided he would build a ‘squirrel-proof’ feeder. He made many attempts at this, but they all failed. Finally, he hit upon a design that he was sure the squirrels would not be able to defeat. He drilled a small hole in the center of a “flying saucer” snow sliding toy and ran the pole that supported the feeder through it. He was extremely proud of his invention, as it was totally effective at keeping the squirrels at bay. He bragged quite a bit about it. One day, my mom was driving home from some errands and, a couple of blocks from the house, she saw an unfortunate squirrel in the road that had been killed by a car. By the time she got home, a fiendish plan had formed in her mind. She went in the house, got a paring knife, drove back to the squirrel’s body and cut its tail off! (To this day, the Johnson children find it almost impossible to believe that our sainted mother actually did this!) She took the tail back home and waited until she was sure no one was home next door. She then took a thumb-tack and secured the tail to the back of Ken’s ‘squirrel-proof’ feeder. She left just enough of the tail dangling so that Ken could see it from his kitchen window. She then went back home and waited for the fun to begin. Not long after, the folks who lived on our block were treated to a sonic blast that will be long remembered. Ken started yelling loudly at the squirrel to vacate his feeder. When Ken saw this was ineffective, he began swearing at it like the sailor he used to be. Finally, he went running out to the feeder and quickly realized that he had been totally pranked.”
Q&A
“What’s the difference between a dragonfly and a damselfly?” Dragonfly eyes are much larger than those of a damselfly, which have a gap between them. Dragonflies are short and stocky in appearance. Damselflies have long and slender bodies. At rest, a dragonfly holds its wings out from its body, like an airplane. Damselfly wings are held over its back.
“How can I keep wasps and bees away from hummingbird feeders?”
Moving the feeder a short distance can decrease insect visits without discouraging hummingbirds. Use hummingbird feeders with bee guards or make the nectar less sweet — five parts water to one part sugar instead of the usual four parts water to one part sugar. Bees and wasps prefer feeding in sunny areas and are attracted to feeders with yellow colors. Give insects their own feeder with a sweeter solution in full sun.
Albert Lea Audubon Society
Please join me for some nature stories on Tuesday, Oct. 2 at 7 p.m. at Southwest Middle School Little Theater at the corner of U.S. Highway 69 & Front Street. This event is free and open to the public.
Thanks for stopping by
“As I look back on the part of the mystery which is my own life, my own fable, what I am most aware of is that we receive more than we can ever give; we receive it from the past, on which we draw with every breath.”— Edwin Muir
“Birds are indicators of the environment. If they are in trouble, we know we’ll soon be in trouble.“ — Roger Tory Peterson
Do good.
Honey bees enjoying grape jelly.
A noisy shot of a plume moth. Holding its wings at right angles when at rest suits a plume moth to a T.
I love seeing a monarch butterfly tree.
A young male widow skimmer. This dragonfly often spends the night hanging around under leaves.
This cecropia, North America’s largest native moth, was seen not just hanging around a bank. It was hanging onto a bank.
Milkweed seed is on the wind. During World War II, these silky seeds were used in life vests and flight suits.
Harmless flower flies are good at mimicking bees or wasps.
Harmless flower flies are good at mimicking bees or wasps.
New England aster. The “petals” are each an individual flower called a ray flower. In the center of the head is another kind of flower, called a tube flower.
New England asters are a late season favorites of butterflies.
Large milkweed bugs prefer to feed on common milkweed, but will feed on related species.
Milkweed bug nymphs.
Sumac tries on some red colors for fall.
It’s that time of the year when the pavement begins to leaf out
The gray catbird is a fine looking bird that guards my raspberry patch each year and tries to keep me away from it.
Crane flies may look like giant mosquitoes, but they don’t bite.
A yellow-rumpled warbler found comfort with the dandelions.
An American redstart dances amongst the twigs.
This lesser yellowlegs seemed narcissistic.
by Al Batt, albertleatribune.comSeptember 15, 2018 11:00 AM
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 put new license tabs on my truck. It seems to run better. I remember when my neighbor Still Bill, he’s the Midwest distributor for inertia, and I were in the Boy Scouts. One day, we learned how to rub two sticks together to start a fire.“
“Still Bill did that?” I say.
“He tried, but he didn’t put much time into the effort. He’d gotten so warm from rubbing the sticks together that he didn’t need a fire. Still Bill has talked me into drinking cod liver oil every morning. He says it builds resistance.”
“To what?” I ask.
“To ever drinking it again after I get this bottle emptied. My neighbor, Crying Charlie, was in the troop with us. I saw Charlie when I took Pop to the clinic to get his attitude adjusted. Crying Charlie has a case of the worse.”
“The worse?” I say.
“Yes, if you have a bad cold, Charlie has pneumonia. Whatever anyone else has, Crying Charlie has it worse.”
Naturally
I’ve seen few pheasant chicks this summer, but the Minnesota DNR’s 2018 roadside survey for pheasants showed a 19 percent increase from 2017. That’s 52 percent below the long-term average. Weather and habitat are the two main factors driving Minnesota’s pheasant population trends. Gray partridge numbers were similar to 2017, but 50 percent below the 10-year average and 93 percent below the long-term average. The mourning dove population decreased 7 percent from 2017, remaining below both the 10-year average and long-term averages. Cottontail rabbits decreased by 23 percent from 2017, but were 13 percent above the 10-year average and similar to the long-term average. The white-tailed jackrabbit count was near last year’s and historically low. The white-tailed deer index declined 13 percent from 2017, but was 19 percent above the 10-year average and 99 percent above the long-term average.
Paper wasps were numerous on the goldenrod plants. A honey bee followed me into the house. I opened a window and it flew back out in less time than it took me to close the window.
I was at a pleasing Plowing Bee at May Farm near St. Clair where many nice people had gathered. I spotted a gray tree frog that was greener than the milkweed leaf it was perched upon. This frog is variable in color with an ability to camouflage itself in shades of gray to green, depending on the substrate where it’s situated. Common green darner dragonflies (devil’s darning needles,” “snake doctors,” or “mosquito-hawks) were here and there and there and here at May Farm. This large dragonfly migrates south.
I also saw a number of native bees, which the honey bee isn’t. A bee nest box makes a great gift for gardeners or nature lovers. Many of our native bee species are solitary and effective pollinators. In order to ensure that these bees spend more time in our yards and gardens, they need places to nest. Mason bees and leaf-cutting bees are among those that utilize holes and you can provide nesting space for them by building a nest box and filling it with straws or drilling holes into a block of wood. Different bee species utilize holes of different diameters, so include a variety of sizes. A simple box can be made from a cardboard milk carton, salty snack tube, etc. filled with tubes made from straws, wood, bamboo, plant stems, etc. Boxes can be purchased and plans are available online.
Q&A
Rachel Depuydt of Eagle Lake asked what the difference was between a frog and a toad. They’re not easy to distinguish. Most frogs have long legs and smooth skins covered in mucus. Toads typically have shorter legs and rougher, thicker skins. Toads generally find their way into gardens and yards more than frogs. Frog eggs are found in a mass while toad eggs are in a chain. I was taught that all toads are frogs, but not all frogs are toads.
Karen Wright of Mankato asked what butterflies do in the rain. They try to avoid it. Butterflies hide when it rains — under large leaves, in tangled thickets, in dense vegetation, under rocks, in grass or bushes, or anywhere else that would intercept the raindrops.
Thanks for stopping by
“If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you’ve got a problem. Everything else is an inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy. A lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat, and a lump in the breast are not the same kind of lump. One needs to learn the difference.“ — Robert Fulghum
“It is not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see” — Henry David Thoreau
Do good.
